Top Salomon Snowboards for Summer 2024: Dancehaul, Dancehaul Pro & Assassin

All right guys, today we're looking at the best Salomon options for this summer traveling. You want a board that's going to perform in Australia, but you also want a board that's not going to burn the legs in some really good snow, hopefully on your next powder trip, wherever it be — Japan, Canada.

So, top picks for us: we're going to start with the Dancehaul. We've got two versions of the Dancehaul. We've got basically the Dancehaul, and then the Dancehaul with more carbon, more stiffness, more aggressive. So the guy that wants a stiffer, more aggressive version, you're going to go with this guy. Somebody's in the more playful, sort of medium flex sort of board, they're going to go with this one. So medium flex, and then they rate this one medium stiff.

Now, the Dancehaul is such a great board for jamming it through the trees, and also on hard pack. You ride these boards a lot shorter than your normal board. So essentially, I'm on a 156 in most sizes. This board, I'd probably ride a 154. I could even drop down to a 152 if I wanted to, and just make it really playful, really quick, and nimble. Great boards for that tree — shorter, quicker, wider sort of profile. Now, on hard pack, because it's shorter and it's a little sort of punchy little packet with plenty of side cut right here, that makes it still perform on hard pack and feel like, you know, it's not like a real clunky edge-to-edge board because you've got such a deep side cut radius.

The contact points on this board as well are pretty twin when you're centered on it. So you could set it back a bit in good snow, but just essentially, also that means that riding switch on this board is a no issue as well. So you'll see guys on the team riding these things in the park, doing everything on them, even though they look like more of a directional kind of surfer. You have the versatility — it's free regular, no worries. The only difference is it has an extended nose, so contact points from where you're standing are the same, but then this drawn-out, bigger sort of area in the nose is going to give you all that float that you need.

And then we have the Assassin, which is just a twin directional board. So twin, you can ride it switch, ride regular, goes good. It's just that all-mountain flagship model that Salomon does. It's more of like a normal-size board, opposed to the Dance Hall where you're dropping down in size. This would be your normal sort of regular size, so I'd ride this in a 56, somewhere around that 57. Flex-wise, it is medium stiff flex, which just gives you that stability at speed, lets you chip plow through chunder, etc. It's got a camber profile, and the camber essentially comes up and runs flat and then kicks down, and then it has a nice scoop out at each end. So that gives you that freedom and also that float in good snow — probably not going to float you as good as, say, a Dance Hall, but it will float because it does have that directional essence to it.

And you can ride it anywhere: you can ride it in the park, you can ride it all over the mountain. It's got grip, got hold, it's just your Swiss Army knife, do-everything-good sort of snowboard. Who would I be suggesting for these boards? Essentially, anyone could ride the Dancehaul: young guys, older guys. It's a really forgiving, fun board. The carbon version is for the guy who likes more of a stiffer option, I suppose, and then just the regular would be for, you know, somebody who doesn't have strong legs or a lighter sort of person. So bigger guy or just more aggressive rider would jump on this, otherwise the other Dancehaul would be no worries at all.

Really, really fun shape — everyone who gets on them just loves it. And then you've got the Assassin, which has been one of the best sellers for Salomon for a long time because it just does everything well. It's just a pretty normal snowboard these days. It's not super wide, not super narrow. It's just a good camber twin directional board that will get the job done.