yojimbo

I've been doing some light "research" into all-mountain to powder specific boards and I'm running into two terms that are confusing to me.

1. slackcountry

What does it mean exactly? Is this riding the powder bellow the gondola at my local resort? Or going through the trees between groomers? Or is it ducking the rope at my local snowpark and hitting the ungroomed areas out of bounds? Or am I off completely? Do I have to ascend the mountain with my own two feet for this term to apply? I'm just not sure.

2. set-back

Many powder boards, and some free-ride/all mountain ones, advertise "set-back" as a feature to allow more float in powder with less rear leg fatigue. But even my park board has a range of binding adjustment that allows an inch or two of set-back. So I'm not entirely sure if I'm missing something - it sounds too simple to be right.

Hope the experts here can help shed some knowledge.

Peace!

walove

Set back is when the inserts are set back from center of the board. The nose will always be longer the the tail. These boards are called directional. Less than an inch is not that noticable and won't effect switch riding, more than an inch is ideal on powder boards.

Slachcountry is backcountry terrain that is accessed after riding a lift up. This type of terrain has all the dangers of backcountry and must be treated with just as much respect. Six avalanche deaths in slackcountry area in the last two weeks. If you don't know don't go!. Backcountry terrain requires a lot of knowledge to enjoy safely, along with the appropriate safety gear, beacon probe, shovel, partner.

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NWBoarder

To add to Walove, setback can also be achieved on a centered twin as well. You would just then move the bindings back on the inserts. Setback will always be ideal in the deep powder. As for slackcountry, it's almost always in-bounds, and usually controlled in some way, but can very much still be deadly. This is why they will not open certain areas when the conditions are not desirable. For example, at Crystal Mountain here in WA, they have an area that is called Northway. Northway has a lift, and is controlled, but it's also slackcountry and is gate accessed initially. It will only open when the conditions are prime or a non-factor. At least that's how I understand it.

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