REVIEW
Gentemstick Barracuda HP
Hokkaido, Japan, 2014, was when I first learned to love what Taro Tamai calls “The Snowsurf.” I was there with Josh Dirksen, Alex Yoder and Gerry Lopez, getting a tour of the Niseko Range from local royalty—the Gentemstick crew, including Gentemstick’s master shaper and visionary Taro Tamai himself. Prior to that day, snowboards were all kind of the same to me—give me something stiff, 159cm long with some camber and maybe a bit of early rise in the nose, and I was good for the season.
While we spent most of that trip documenting those legendary riders, there was one day at the end of the trip where I was able to leave the camera bag at home and hop aboard a 145cm Gentemstick Rocketfish HP at Yoder’s suggestion. That one day, waist deep, floating and flowing through the gullies of Moiwa on a diminutive board, I learned that snowboards do indeed work in different shapes and sizes, and that a quiver of sleds for specific conditions can enhance your on-snow experience in many ways. It was a day of days for me, made better by riding the perfect board for that day.
It left such a mark that I needed to expand my quiver. A few months later, I was the proud owner of a Rocketfish of my own. And it served me well for the next decade, when the conditions were right: deep, dry snow, low angle to moderately steep, treed terrain was its sweet spot. Ideally untracked and gullied. More Mt Bachelor than Mt. Baker.
Which brings me to the board at hand, the Gentemstick Barracuda HP. I’d found the Rocketfish a bit too wide and a bit too squirrelly for the deep, heavy snow and regular billy goating on less-than-ideal snow surfaces that is required to access certain parts of Baker. I wanted that Gentemstick feeling at my home mountain, but needed a bit more available edge and a bit of a wider stance to confidently hold tight to icy, exposed shuffles to the goods. I needed a bit more support to handle often tracked and bumpy runouts.
And although Baker had a bit less snow than usual last winter, I did get to put the Barracuda HP through its paces during a two-week run of increasingly deep days around the start of March. What I found was that its 27cm waist and 157cm length did allow me to feel a bit more comfortable when scratching around those afternoon haunts once the mountain had its fair share of tracks. The narrower width of the HP version of the Barracuda was a plus when it came to clinging to steep traverses and making quick turns.
I wouldn’t say it was ideally suited to finding your way across an icy chute, but it held in well enough. And when we got to cleaner environs, the float was there in deep, dense snow. Staying buoyant through flat sections was no problem. Its still-generous pointy and slightly rolled nose kept the spray at bay when letting it run, and the sink and release of the swallow tail felt natural when climbing a gully wall, making fast twitch adjustments in tight spaces, or drawing long lines on steeper, more open parts of the mountain.
That complex combination of bottom contours, taper and sidecut allowed for a bit more of a full throttle PNW approach than the Rocketfish without losing the snowsurf subtlety which I had instantly loved a decade ago. It felt amazing on groomers, too, as long as there was a clean, consistent surface in which to really lean it over and engage the camber. And the pastel green, semi-translucent topsheet sure did look nice underfoot. Indeed, the board’s visual appearance is emblematic of the attention to detail and artistry in all Gentemstick boards, with subtleties of shape and flex that are more felt than seen.
So, is the Barracuda the perfect daily drive for riders in the Pacific Northwest? Of course, the answer is no. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be a part of a quiver, ridden when conditions are suited to its strengths. It’s the perfect board for when you want effortless float and a bit of flex off the tail, while still holding an edge in sketchy situations. It’s best ridden when you want to accelerate up and around and eventually down the mountain, not just hammer the fall line.
Ultimately, it’s a directional swallowtail ripper for riders, like me, who like to engage a little more heavily with the front foot and still float in the deep. And it’ll give you a feeling unlike any you’ve ever experienced on snow, when ridden at the right time. It’s a board I’ll keep at hand for at least the next decade and I’m sure which will reveal further nuance as I get to know it better, bringing me into a new kind of flow that only can be found by embracing The Snowsurf.
ABOUT THE TESTER
Age: 43
Height: 5’7
Weight: 155
Boot size: 8
Years riding: 31
Home mountain: Mt. Baker Ski Area, WA
Riding style: fall line/freeride