Here's the deal: our friend just started snowboarding and we'd like to buy her a female-specific snowboard as a birthday present. The problem: there are too many women boards to choose from! Skill-wise, she just began to move from falling-leaf to doing skidded turns (still have issues linking turns though), so we need a board that is suitable for a beginner. But since we'll be doing 20+ days next season, I think she will progress very quickly so the board should be "high-tech" enough to prepare for her next levels. She wears size 7 boots, boards primarily in Tahoe, and weights around 135.

She demo-ed the Ride Vista and Palmer Liberty, but couldn't really tell if she liked them (I suppose it's hard for a beginner to judge boards). She doesn't know much about boards so it's up to us to find the right one.

I was thinking about the Salomon Ivy. But there are complains that it requires a lot of effort to turn, and the description says it's for "light riders", and I noticed that tall skinny girls love it. My friend is, dare I say, not that skinny. Next is the Burton Feelgood; but the 2003 TW review says it is not "the quickest to initiate turns." Hmm.. not so good for a beginner? Ride Kashmir sounds perfect except that it is supposed to be very stiff. The Sims Essence is a freestyle board, and I don't like putting beginners on park decks. On top of that, it is very hard to find a board around 150cm length with less than 24cm width. I have reservation about using Palmer Links because someone I know complained that the extra layer prevents him from feeling the change in terrain.

If anyone has any suggestion or would like to provide input on a female that you tried. I'd really appreciate it. I also looked at the K2 Mix, Chrous, Morrow Wildflower, etc, but don't know much about them.

-bebop
Praying for an early snow season.