The Landscape Collection is a pinnacle range of freeride snowboards from K2 designed to enable riders to tackle any terrain the mountain has to offer with confidence. They are mindfully manufactured, precision-engineered, and built to enhance the rider’s end-to-end experience. All of the boards in the Landscape Collection have a sharp focus on specific riding styles and types of terrain and have been designed from a gender-neutral perspective. Your snowboard doesn’t know what gender you are, and it doesn’t matter. This is simply an assemblage of high-performing all-mountain snowboards for riders who want to rip the mountain their way.
Access is at the core of the Landscape Collection, informing its inception and serving as a red thread from end to end. The Landscape collection connects people with places, unlocks potential, and redefines perceived possibilities. K2’s goal with the Landscape Collection is to make high-end all-terrain snowboards that will get riders where they want to go. The feature-rich Passport is the most versatile board in the Landscape Collection. It’s a directional board with a freestyle foundation designed to accommodate a wide array of riding styles, abilities, terrain, and conditions. The Passport is ideal for riders who want a board that floats through powder with ease, has a really fun progressive side cut for carving, and feels perfectly comfortable dipping into the park to flex some freestyle.
We spoke with Megan Stark, K2 Snowboarding’s Product Line Manager, about the female-led, non-binary approach that inspired the collection and what it means to provide everyone with access to top-quality products, “When we were creating the Passport, it started as a women's board. There was a hole in the women's line; we needed a higher-performing board with taper. So we started testing it and were about halfway through the design process when we realized we were also missing that in the men's line. That’s when we brought in some guys and scaled it up. Then we made the Landscape Collection and added it as a gender-neutral board—that’s what brought it all together. The Passport has been one of our most successful and most popular boards for men and women, and it was a women's board at the start that was scaled up and ultimately informed our approach to this collection. Most people don’t know that; we’ve never come out and said it, but I think it's a really important point.” Megan continued from a personal perspective, “Having the sizing, scaling, and proper flex allows us to be in the same space as men, our friends, and our family. It gives us the same opportunity to perform at the level that everybody else is without being discounted.”
The idea for the board’s power-packed, utilitarian design stemmed from K2’s Product Development Engineer, Justin Clark, and his years spent growing up exploring Brighton Resort, an iconic terrain-rich location that ultimately inspired the design of the Passport. Tucked high up in Utah’s famed Big Cottonwood Canyon, Brighton is a world-class destination that boasts an amazing variety of highly shreddable terrain and has deep roots steeped in the history of snowboarding. “I’ve been riding Brighton my entire life, and the Milly Chair is a holy grail for freeriding; it has everything you could want to ride in a single day—fun little side hits, perfect groomers, cliffs, trees, and, of course, powder. I wanted to create a board that I could take to Milly regardless of the conditions and know that I would have an incredible time.”
The democratically designed Passport seamlessly transitions across riding styles, terrain, and conditions while comfortably accommodating a broad range of skill levels, from entry-level riders to seasoned expert-level athletes. Justin Clark expanded on the board’s near-universal versatility, “The Passport is the perfect board for 60-70% of the people that walk through the door in the snowboard shop. It’s going to be a great board for riding everything. It does great in powder, and it’s fun to carve on; it has an easy-to-ride flex, but it’s not too soft. That’s why it's had so much success. It’s not that far off from a twin, but it has all these little nuances to the design and the construction. It has a nice shape, and people who have struggled in powder are killing it because it floats so well, and they can still ride park and ride switch. It’s such a fun, easy board to ride, and it can do everything you want to do.”
The forward-thinking design behind the Passport uses K2’s signature Volume Shift approach, which gives the board a slightly wider-than-average waist width paired with 8mm of taper, which is the difference in width from the board’s nose to the width of its tail. The multi-faceted and highly adaptable Passport features our combination camber profile, which blends traditional camber underfoot for pop and precision with an early-rise rocker in the tip and tail to ensure magnificent maneuverability and fantastic float. The early rise rocker paired with a tighter sidecut radius in the tip and tail engages turns quickly, while a longer radius between the bindings enables a smoother turn and a more predictable progression all the way through.
A specific and easily identifiable design feature found on the Passport and all K2 snowboards is the patented Hybritech construction. Hybritech features tried-and-true cap construction in the board’s tip and tail, blended into a modern sidewall construction along the effective edge. Pairing the cap and sidewall constructions makes the board less torsionally stiff, resulting in better edge hold, lower swing weight, added durability, and an overall smoother ride. Additionally, with the cap construction technique in Hybritech, the board’s sustainable wood core can run up to the ends of the tip and tail, which are then capped. While many manufacturers use a tip fill—a large plastic square that fills up the nose and tail of the board under the topsheet, K2 can side-step that, bypassing the use of the plastic. The result is a higher-performing board that is better riding, more durable, and more eco-friendly.
K2 worked closely with Caley Vanular during the development of the Passport, a freerider and all-around adventure seeker based in Vancouver, BC. Casey recounted her experience, “I ride the Passport pretty much every day, and I’ve ridden it everywhere. I’ve ridden it in Alaska in scary terrain, in the park, and just cruising the mountain. It’s the ultimate freeride board for riding resort and backcountry. It’s my favorite snowboard I've ever ridden, and I think that’s because I was always advocating for larger sizes in women's freeride boards, and up until it was developed, it felt like my options were either a sized-down men's board or a women's freeride board that was small for me, especially in bigger terrain. I rode men's boards for so long because I couldn't get a board my size, and they were always just a little too stiff. That's what's so beautiful about a range like this with more size inclusivity; it bridges the gap between men's and women’s into a singular unisex collection. I don't think snowboards need gender.”
The Passport is an all-mountain ATV for riders who need a board that can handle it all. K2 team rider and Lake Tahoe legend Tim Eddy is one of those riders, “I rode the Passport almost exclusively this winter. My overall take is that if I had to choose just one snowboard and that was it, it would be the Passport. It’s the go-to—your bread and butter. The Passport is the perfect board for the snowboarder who wants to snowboard all the things all the time. It feels good in powder, on side hits, ripping turns, and doing tricks. You name it, that board is all over it; it’s like a freeriders multi-tool; it does it all. And there’s no real learning curve; you get on it, and it just works. When people hit me up, that’s the board I recommend more than any other.”
The directional combination camber profile featured on the Passport comprises a traditional camber between the inserts and an early-rise rocker in the tip and tail. The longer, more gradual rises in the tip and tail enhance float in powder and ease turn initiation. At the same time, the camber extends the board’s surface area and beefs up its backbone, creating a balance of stability, maneuverability, and power. Tim Eddy loves it, “The combination camber is a big part of why this is my go-to board; it feels like a classic snowboard with modern tech.” With a flex rating of 7/10, the Passport is well-balanced—snappy and stiff enough to handle high speeds and rough terrain while still being maneuverable, responsive, and 100% fun.
Another rider tapped into the Passport creation process was Salt Lake City-based Melissa Riitano, who, like Tim, also co-signed the combination camber. “The camber profile on the Passport is by far my favorite. You have camber under your feet, so you get stability when you're on groomers and wanting to go fast, and then with the rocker at the tip and tail, you float so nicely with no work at all. There have definitely been times that I should have sunk my nose in powder and rag-dolled, and it just stays floating effortlessly. I go to other boards, and I have to lean back like crazy. I’ve tried other boards, but I keep going back to the Passport because I feel like I can do anything on it. It rails turns. It's great in powder, but even if I'm just riding groomers, I can get really nice tight turns, or I can arc them out a little further.”
Camber and carving aside, along with access, inclusivity, and equality are principal themes weaved into the Passport, and K2’s Landscape Collection, Melissa continued, “Before riding for K2, I didn't have a lot of options for boards, and I know a lot of girls who buy men's boards because the women's boards don't fit them or the type of riding they want to do. I think this whole collection is done right, and as we learn more about board design, it makes sense to move towards gender-neutral boards. All that matters is your weight, the type of terrain you’re riding, and how aggressive you are. Find a board that fits your size and style, not your gender.”
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, and the Passport’s light, snappy, and durable A1 core comprises three species of sustainably harvested renewable wood—aspen, bamboo, and pawlonia. Aspen is selected due to its snap and response; bamboo is included underfoot to increase strength and response, with lightweight paulownia in the tip and tail to keep swing weight at a minimum. The ICG 10 Triax glass in the Passport integrates ten tip-to-tail carbon fiber stringers into a fiberglass layup, adding additional snap, supporting precision edge control, and giving the board a longer-lasting, more consistent, longer-lasting flex. A stone ground, wax-infused, sintered 4001 base keeps the Passport moving. Before being pressed together, the individual particles that make up the finished base material are first coated with a fluoro-free, all-natural, non-toxic, biodegradable wax blend by Wend Waxworks. Infusing the wax through the entire base creates a stronger, smoother finish, reducing the friction against the surface of the snow and resulting in a faster, smoother, more durable ride.
The Passport blends form and function in a high-performance package that seamlessly accommodates a diverse range of styles and skill levels. With a directional shape and a foundation rooted in freestyle, the Passport excels in versatility without compromise, serving as your all-access pass to explore every facet of the mountain and elevate your experience.