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.
An instrument is commonly understood as a device crafted or adapted to make musical sounds or a tool used for intricate scientific work. The Landscape Collection’s Instrument, however, is a classically trained, easy-riding snowboard infused with the latest technology and design theory intended for rhythmic all-mountain riding, with a penchant for powder.
Taper on a snowboard refers to the difference in width from the board’s nose to its tail. When riding fresh snow on a board with more taper, the tail sinks, propping those nose up naturally, and keeping it above the snow. This allows the rider to stay in a more natural, comfortable stance when riding powder, maneuvering around more efficiently and with less effort. The Instrument features a 3/4” inch setback stance and 10mm of taper, which is a decent amount. It also features time-tested directional camber with a slight early rise in the nose of the board. This combines precision and stability with easy turn initiation and an effortless float in powder.
Additionally, the Instrument leverages K2’s proprietary Volume Shift approach to board design; Justin Clark, K2’s Development Engineer, broke down the idea behind Volume Shift, “It’s a board that you ride shorter because it has a wider than average waist width, so you’re getting the same surface area as an equivalent larger or longer board. That extra surface area is going to make the board float well, and the reduced length is going to keep it nimble through the trees without creating toe and heel drag.” Within the Landscape Collection, each board is geared with a unique volume shift, depending on its intended riding style. Justin explained, “The Instrument is only a slightly volume-shifted board; we recommend a 2-3cm downsize compared to your traditional freeride board. The amount of Volume Shift is dictated primarily by the waist width of the board. Two types of people can benefit from this amount of Volume Shift. Riders with a larger foot will love the ability to carve without toe or heel drag, while riders of all foot sizes will benefit from the extra float in powder due to the increased surface area.”
The Instrument is a favorite of K2’s team rider and Lake Tahoe’s resident Sultan of Stoke, Tim Eddy, who worked closely on the board’s design and development, contributing to its ultimate awesomeness, “I got the final board right before a six-week trip to Japan after spending a bunch of time working with J Stone [Justin Clark] on the design and development of it, going through multiple rounds. That final one was the only board I brought on that trip aside from my split. Right away, it was just the sickest. Instantly, it was my new favorite board of all time.”
Justin Clark spoke about the early stages of the creative process that brought Instrument to life, collaborating closely with Tim from the initial ideation. “The Instrument came about during my first year at K2; the goal was to replace a board called the 87 that had been in the line for a few years. The 87 was a very surf-inspired board that was really fun but lacked a bit in the performance and liveliness departments. Tim had been riding the 87 for a few seasons prior. Tim is the ultimate good-times-haver and is always stoked no matter what the conditions are, so he was the perfect person to work with on the Instrument. We wanted to keep the 87’s fun factor going into the Instrument. We knew we wanted it to rip in the powder and be easy to ride for a wide range of skill levels, with a slightly wider-than-average platform. It needed to be perfect for casually cruising the mountain and still able to handle business when needed.”
The board’s shape was a major factor in the Instrument's design. Tim and Justin went back and forth, exchanging ideas, and with the surfy 87 as the foundation for the Instrument’s inspiration, a surfboard shape called the Mini Simmons came up. Designed by Bob Simmons, the Mini Simmons was a revolutionary design in its day and featured a very traditional round nose with a blocky tail and a wider platform. Both agreed that the shape concept would translate well to snow and drew upon it for inspiration when designing the Instrument. Justin expanded on the joint effort, “We both loved the idea of drafting off of the Mini Simmons. We wanted to make the Instrument a directional board that could still ride switch in a pinch. The long, drawn-out nose and 10mm of taper are the perfect combination for effortless float in powder. The tail has just enough length and scoop to go switch without digging into the snow. We went through around ten prototypes, refining it down a bit with each round. We tested multiple sidecuts, flexes, camber profiles, and fiberglass layups to find the perfect balance of being easy to ride but still able to rip. Tim took the final version to Japan, where he really showed how much fun it is to ride in everything from deep snow to slushy groomers.”
Tim recounted the sharp focus on form that he honed in on working with Justin on the surfy silhouette, “We worked hard fine-tuning and streamlining the shape. It was during a time when so much weird shit was going on. There were so many crazy-shaped boards that had the craziest noses with just so many angles on them; they looked like freaking octagons. Talking to Justin [Clark], I was like, dude, I don't want to look down at some weird thing. Let's just do a normal nose on a snowboard with a smooth technical shape. Something that’s easy to ride performs well and isn’t scaring anyone off with a weird shape. Just keep it normal [laughter].”
A specific and easily identifiable design feature found on the Instrument and all K2 snowboards is the patented Hybritech construction. Hybritech features tried-and-true cap construction in the board’s tip and tail, which blends 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, by leveraging the cap construction technique in Hybritech, the wood core can run up to the ends of the tip and tail of the board, which are then capped. While many manufacturers use tip fill—a large plastic square that fills up the nose and tail of the board under the topsheet, K2 side-steps bypass the manufacture and use of all the tip-fill plastic through Hybritech. Ultimately, the result is a more sustainable snowboard that is better riding, more durable, and higher performing.
Another avid Instrumentalist is Justin Phipps, an all-terrain ripper born and bred in Colorado and now residing in Salt Lake City with easy access to some of the world's most diverse and iconic all-mountain terrain. With footage in the latest Dustbox release and a part in the works with Videograss for their upcoming project, Justin is savvy in the streets but also perfectly at home in the mountains where the Instrument comes into play. “I ride that board a lot in powder when I’m just out having fun with my friends. It’s the go-to for that. I feel like I'm just surfing when I’m on that board. I haven't had very many experiences tomahawking on it either, which is nice [laughter] because the nose floats so well; it really lets me just cruise. A perfect day on the Instrument for me would be riding Brighton side country with a foot of fresh snow, dipping into the trees a little bit more, and staying off the runs. But even back on the trail on that board, I'm just carving back and forth, and I feel like I can really lay it down; it carves so well.”
The V-shaped Carbon Torque Forks included in the Instrument start outside the inserts and run out to the board's contact points. The carbon forks turn up the board’s torsional stiffness in the tip and tail, helping to increase stability and reduce chatter, supporting a smooth and responsive power transfer when linking turns. A longer radius in the board’s tip allows for smoother and easier turn initiation. At the same time, a deeper sidecut underfoot helps to maintain an aggressive edge while railing turns and really digging in. The Instrument’s ICG 10 Biax Fiberglass allows the rider to twist the board torsionally with ease, seamlessly linking turns and transitioning from edge to edge. The ten strategically placed carbon stringers running vertically from tip to tail increase pop and power, adding liveliness, consistency, and longevity to the flex and improving the overall durability of the board.
The Instrument’s sustainable S1 core features a harmonious blend of aspen, bamboo, and paulownia that is snappy, light, durable, and damp, keeping you stable through the chop and chunder. All the aspen in the wood cores is FSC-certified and sourced exclusively from responsibly managed regenerative forests. This means these forests are constantly monitored to preserve the natural ecosystems, ensure enough trees for carbon absorption, and prevent deforestation. FSC’s goal is to prevent entire forests from being cut down and destroying the natural habitats of millions of creatures that keep our planet in balance. The individual particles that make up the wax-infused sintered 4001 base are coated with a fluoro-free, all-natural, non-toxic, biodegradable wax by Wend Waxworks before being pressed together to create the finished base. Infusing the wax through the entire base creates a much stronger, smoother finish and reduces the amount of friction against the surface of the snow, creating a faster, smoother ride and a more durable base. Wax also adheres better moving forward as it can bond directly to the wax already infused into the base material.
When designing and developing new products like those within the Landscape Collection, K2 ensures that the people who are testing and involved in each project are holistically represented in the final result. We spoke with Megan Stark, K2’s Product Line Manager, about the principles behind the brand’s approach to co-creation, “If Sage is riding a board, Sage was really involved in it. If Tim is riding a board, he was really involved in it. We make sure that the riders representing a product are behind the product. We make sure that it represents them and their input and that they can help us make the product better in the end. For testing and development, we work with team riders and consumer targets, too, so we're getting feedback from all ends of the spectrum and from riders all around the globe. What's great about team riders, though, is that they snowboard more than anybody else. They’re really in tune with their setup, and because of that, they’re great at giving pointed feedback.”
Authentic rider involvement and representation in the brand’s output, from hardgoods to storytelling and everything in between, is at the heart of K2’s approach. Megan continued, “We want to make products that represent K2 and products that represent these people, so it's really important for us to get their approval. To do that, it’s really important to involve them from the beginning to the end. We work together through the entire process to ensure that we're sticking to the product that we want to make to the best of our ability and that we're sticking with our team riders. We are kind of nothing without them. The team riders are the ones who bring it all to life, representing K2 out in the world—defining our style, who we want to be, and what we stand for. We want to do right by them. We also want to have their voices heard because they are the people who are out there riding the stuff; they are the people who are going to be out there telling people how great it is, and we don’t just want them to say that it’s great. It’s important that they believe that it’s great.”
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