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LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA — It's a tough gig, but somebody's gotta do it.
For the last four days, the Wired products team has been up here at the Squaw Valley ski resort testing a mountain of snow sports gear: boards, skis, boots, goggles, helmets, outerwear, mid-layers, you name it.
What follows is a list of the standouts. In some cases, we're showing you our favorites — the best-performing hard goods in our test. But we've also featured a few products that incorporate new technologies or test the limits by applying a new spin to a familiar formula. Read on to see our head-to-toe round-up of boarding and skiing gear. Maybe you'll see something you need to make your next trip to the slopes a success.
Slash by Gigi ATV Hub Snowboard
When a board is designed by a rider, it could be a complete trainwreck (like Homer Simpson's car) or it could be totally freaking amazing. The ATV Hub ($480), designed by Gigi Rüf, is the latter. All-mountain boards are built to perform on all different types of terrain, and because of this, they can end up being pretty boring. But the ATV Hub is definitely not boring. The tips of the board look like Pac-Man got a little chompy, and they're capped by mean-looking metal nose protectors — a nice feature for the lift line. Modern board designs are all over the place — banana, full rocker, super-directional — but the ATV Hub has a traditional design, with a camber profile in the middle and a rocker profile near the tips. But there are a couple of tricks in play: It has some directional flex, and there's an additional edge in the middle of the board (dubbed "Ultimate Traction Bumps"). The extra grabbiness gave me dominion over all snow conditions. You can ride it chill-style, but if you're an aggressive rider, you'll want the extra grip in the middle of the board. That's the way I ride, and it's my new favorite board for every inch of the mountain. — Roberto Baldwin WIRED Carve through anything, including a sheet of ice on that double-black-diamond face. Nose guards make it so you won't want to punch the joker behind you in the lift line who doesn't care about gashing up his board because his parents bought it for him. TIRED Could be too intense for intermediate riders. It grabs like there's no tomorrow, so you'll need some time to get to know it if you're not as experienced.All photos: Ariel Zambelich/Wired 
