• Price: £430 / €499
• Lengths: 146, 149, 152, 155
• Flex: 7
• Profile: Hybrid Camber
• Shape: Directional
• yessnowboards.com

UPDATE: Check out our review of the 2018/2019 YES Hel Yes here

There’ll probably be more takers for the easy-going YES Emoticon, but anyone serious about freeriding needs to have a board like the YES Hel Yes to meet their ambitions.

“Thanks to bamboo stringers and the camber bend between the feet, when you’re ready to launch the YES Hel Yes will oblige”

The YES Hel Yes is named for Helen Schettini, and would be most at home in her BC backcountry stomping ground. With its triax fibreglass, sintered base and stiffer-than-average flex, it’s a responsive weapon for going bigger and faster than yesterday.

As a fan of pow-based freestyle, Helen’s stick is directional enough for confident charging in deep snow, but not so much that you can’t wang a spin off a natural feature and ride away switch. Thanks to bamboo stringers and the camber bend between the feet, when you’re ready to launch the YES Hel Yes will oblige.

If there’s no pow around, you can still have a cracking time on this thanks to the ‘Underbite’ edges. Right underneath the bindings, the edge retreats a little to disrupt the line of the sidecut. This results in energy being more effectively channeled into the front, middle or back of the board, depending on where it’s needed. When you feel it in the carves, you might not miss the powder so much…

Still, if you’re wanting to improve what you’re already capable of out of bounds, that’s the raison d’etre of the YES Hel Yes.