• Price: CHF879 / €769 / $879
• Category: Splitboard
• Ability Level: Advanced
• Size: 157
• Flex: 8/10
• Shape: Directional
• Profile: Setback Camber
• Base: Sintered

At a glance at the above picture, you’d be forgiven for thinking someone had accidentally paired two different halves of a splitboard together. In fact, each side’s graphics were designed by two different artists. Even so, West’s Grammont Splitboard comes pretty near to perfect harmony between all mountain freeride performance with the fun, nimble manoeuvrability of a volume-shifted outline.

Coming in a 157 size only, the Grammont split is the shortest but also the widest model in the Swiss brand’s touring series. There’s a pretty fat 268mm of width in the waist. When you combine that with a 19mm taper, 25mm setback in the stance and early rocker rise in the nose leading up to that pointed tip, a picture quickly builds as to just how well this will float in super deep conditions and turn on a dime when the trees are packed tightly together.

“West’s Grammont Splitboard comes pretty near to perfect harmony between all mountain freeride performance with the fun, nimble manoeuvrability of a volume-shifted outline”

If the snowpack is stable and you want to skin higher into the alpine and take on bigger objectives, the Grammont’s fun and playful shape is contrasted with a powerful and responsive core that can handle some more serious lines if you want to step up to the mark.

There are two carbon stringers running from the nose to tail, as well as snappy triaxl fibreglass layers and a solid poplar and paulownia wood core. This puts it right up there with the stiffest of their splitboard cores and ensures that even at high speeds and variable conditions, there’s enough power under your feet and through the board’s length to place complete trust in the Grammont to hold its line.

Of course, a responsive core only tends to come into its own at higher speeds, and the P-Tex 7200 base keeps it gliding fast in all conditions.

For riders looking for one split board to ride early season, deep, low angle lines, right through to the high alpine spring touring days (let’s be honest, who here’s really looking to buy two splitboards?), the Grammont nails the design on a split for all conditions.