He had Canada’s first ever gold medal in snowboarding all but wrapped up. Until destiny reared its head in the form of a broken binding. But for the indomitable spirit of Mark Fawcett, one of the world’s best all-round snowboarders, and current head coach of the Canadian Alpine Snowboard Team, everything happens for a reason. Today, Fawcett, who lives in Nelson, BC launches his own custom line of snowboards, one profoundly affected by both his strong backcountry roots and his long racing legacy.

After two years of development and prototyping, Fawcett Boards releases two boards, the Tribute 164 and Tribute 164 Split. A reverse side cut, surf inspired powder slayer that was designed A – Z by Mark Fawcett to optimize your powder-day experience.

“I wanted to enhance what I loved about snowboarding, namely the turning sensation. I wanted to optimize one’s best experiences in premium conditions, that being powder. I wanted to synthesize the sensation I feel when surfing, or turning high performance H2O boards of any sort. I also like boards that go fast…faster than anyone else I’m riding with.”

REVERSE SIDE-CUT: Once you start riding in penetrable snow conditions, the principals of hydrodynamics come into play. Sidecut is slower and the deepest penetrating points are at either end of your ride, allowing “trip & tail” to have the mechanical advantage over you.

This “surf” inspired shape puts the engaging point between your feet, giving you the advantage over the board. This allows for tighter radius turns at higher speeds and the ability to draw-out long turns from the same board. The outline shape also has far less drag when compared to traditional freestyle decks, yielding super early planing, and much higher board speeds on flatter terrain.

The Fawcett boards testing ground is based out of Baldface Lodge, in Nelson BC, the center of the famous Powder Highway. Mark chose Olive skateboard and snowboard manufacturing in Edmonton, Alberta to produce his line-up of unique sticks.