2025-2026 United Shapes Deep Reach, 162 cm
Test Duration: 21 days
Test Locations: Chugach Mountains & Alyeska Resort, AK
Available Sizes: 149, 153, 156, 159, 162 cm
Blister’s Measured Weight (162 cm): 3.19 kg / 7.03 lb
Stated Nose-Waist-Tail Widths (162 cm): 322-272-302 mm
Stated Sidecut Radius (162 cm): 8.6 m
Rocker Profile: Camber with early rise nose rocker
Stated Flex Rating: 6/10
Core Construction: poplar/paulownia + carbon inlays, weave, & stringer
Base: Sintered 2100
Reviewer: 5’ 11”, 175 lbs / 180 cm, 79 kg
Stance: +29 / +5, 22”
Boots Used: Nitro Select, Thirty Two TM-2 XLT, K2 Evasion
Bindings Used: Now O-Drive, Jones Apollo, Jones Mercury FASE
Intro
Inspired by the “90’s Golden Era” of snowboarding, United Shapes launched in 2014, founded by a group of passionate riders and designers: Gray Thompson, Steven Kimura, and Peter Sieper.
Today, the United Shapes 25/26 lineup consists of 7 shapes, 2 of which are powder specific: the Deep Reach and the Experiment. Of these two powder boards, the Deep Reach is claimed to be the more versatile shape, designed for powder but with an eye toward groomers and non-powder conditions, too.
The promised versatility of the Deep Reach is quite appealing. During a resort pow day (or even out of a heli), snow quality often transitions from pristine, untracked powder to something less desirable — whether it’s a hacked-up groomer, some funky wind crust, or choppy, tracked powder.
To address this variability, some companies lean into what I’d call “Pow-Groomer” boards that blend both worlds, but often sacrifice performance on bottomless powder days or the firmest hardpack. While United Shapes doesn’t call the Deep Reach a Pow-Groomer board, it seems to be a take on a powder-specific shape that can handle less-than-ideal snow.
As someone who’s spent a lot of time on a lot of various powder-oriented boards, I was excited to see where the Deep Reach fell in the market. So, let’s first dive into the specifics, and then get into how it actually rides.
What United Shapes Says about the Deep Reach:
“The ultimate experience enhancing tool. The Deep Reach is designed for maximum flotation, glide, and carving, so you may flow in style from high alpine bowls and tree runs to that early morning fresh corduroy at your local hill. The Deep Reach is a highly approachable shape for a wide range of riders, featuring increased widths and taper, early rise in the nose, and a medium flex profile.”
Construction
United Shapes builds the Deep Reach’s core from a mix of poplar and paulownia strips, with carbon inlays added to keep the board lightweight and responsive. A 5cm-wide carbon stringer (visible through the top sheet) runs the length of the board to serve as a stiff backbone, and there’s also a V-shaped pair of carbon strips running from the front insert outward toward the nose. According to United Shapes, the placement of these stringers increases rigidity and responsiveness in the nose, providing a playful flex without compromising the torsional response.
The glossy white topsheet does a great job at shedding snow, preventing ice buildup while keeping the board light. However, I’ve found it can be especially slippery when getting off the chair with snowy boots. The topsheet on our test board has several superficial scratches and scuffs from riding (and getting tossed around in my truck as a result of user neglect), but it otherwise seems quite durable.
The Deep Reach has a black sintered 2100 base that seems fast and retains wax well, even on icy groomers and spring corn. After 20+ days of riding it in powder and spring-like conditions, I’ve bumped over stumps and sticks, and the base is in decent shape. I did manage to get a 2-3mm deep gash in the base from an unknown encounter. Higher numbers for the sintered base material generally indicate greater density, and I suspect a harder base, such as a sintered 8000 base (like that used on the Jones Storm Chaser and Storm Wolf), may have fared better and could result in less damage down the line.
The Deep Reach uses a full wrap, uninterrupted edge that generally bodes well for durability and longevity. United Shapes also uses urethane sidewalls along the cambered section to aid in damping and durability.
While the Deep Reach doesn’t boast any crazy weight-saving technologies, it does feel fairly light for its size. Below is how its weight compares to some other powder-oriented models we’ve tested. It is worth noting that the two boards that are lighter in this comparison (Jones Storm Chaser and Nitro Squash) are also shorter.
- Jones Storm Chaser (152 cm) 3.05 kg / 6.7 lb
- Nitro Squash (159 cm) 3.09 kg / 6.81 lb
- United Shapes Deep Reach (162 cm) 3.19 kg / 7.03 lb
- Jones Storm Wolf (162 cm) 3.30 kg / 7.27 lbs
- Head E.B.I. LYT (161 cm) 3.53 kg / 7.77 lbs
Shape
As noted above, the Deep Reach is designed primarily for powder riding with the ability to take on groomers and less ideal conditions on the way to finding deep powder stashes. I hesitate to classify the Deep Reach as a Pow-Groomer board like the Nitro Squash or E.B.I. LYT due to the Deep Reach’s shape, which trends more powder-specific (similar to the Jones Storm Wolf and Weston Japow). From my perspective, the Deep Reach falls in between two categories — while it is a dedicated powder board, its shape is more versatile than “big gun” powder shapes, but it’s still more powder-oriented than its Pow-Groomer competitors. Let’s dive into the specifics on why that is.
The nose of the Deep Reach features a blunted tip and is rather wide, at 322 mm across for our 162 cm length. There is a lot of volume in the nose of the Deep Reach, which helps keep it afloat on deep days, but still manages not to feel sluggish or unwieldy. The nose still feels crisp and supportive in deep powder and heavy spring-like conditions, perhaps thanks to the board’s fairly large V-shaped carbon stringers. In firmer, bumpy conditions, the nose feels quite damp / not chattery.
The design and length of the Deep Reach’s tail fall between more versatile and stable Pow-Groomer boards, such as the E.B.I. LYT and Squash, and more powder-specific shapes like the Storm Wolf and Japow. Overall, the Deep Reach’s tail seems most reminiscent of the Jones Hovercraft 2.0.
In my opinion, United Shapes nailed the design on the tail. It features more of a fish tail shape than a swallow tail, which does several things. On one hand, the tail of the Deep Reach is far more supportive than the dramatic swallow tail shapes of the Weston Japow, Amplid Snowmeillier, or even the Jones Storm Wolf in chunder and variable snow. In trade, the Deep Reach’s tail doesn’t sink as much as those powder-specific shapes, and requires more rider input on bottomless days to keep the nose up. We’ll get deeper into the details below, but suffice to say that United Shapes has done a nice job here.
The 8.6-meter sidecut of the 162 cm Deep Reach is excellent in powder and feels natural when making long, arcing turns, but it still feels pretty nimble in tighter terrain and trees when the snow is deep. When the snow is very firm, the Deep Reach hasn’t felt as locked-in on edge as the Squash, Storm Chaser, or E.B.I LYT, but that very well could be a result of the rider rather than the board. I’ll dive more into that in the Performance section below.
The Deep Reach doesn’t come in any wide size options, but it’s already more of a mid-wide design (272 mm waist @ 162 cm). I have decent room between the toe / heel of my size 9 boots and the board’s edge, especially the front foot. I could imagine some slight toe-drag issues on the back foot of the 162 cm option for riders with boots larger than an 11, but that could be remedied with stance angles.
Rocker / Camber Profile
The Deep Reach features traditional camber under the bindings with early rise rocker in the nose. The camber begins well aft of the rear binding and continues well forward of the front insert. The rockered nose is effective in keeping the tip up in powder without feeling chattery.
In my review of the Head E.B.I. LYT, my biggest gripe with that board was its softer nose and what felt like too much splay in the rockered tip (~6.5 cm). Although the Deep Reach has a similar tip splay of about 6 cm, the nose’s stiffness, coupled with the early rise rocker in just the last few centimeters toward the tip, keep the Deep Reach’s nose from feeling unsupportive or clumsy.
Overall, United Shapes has done a very nice job pairing the camber profile to the shape, resulting in an intuitive board that floats well in deep pow, yet does not feel chattery on firmer conditions.
Flex Pattern
United Shapes rates the flex of the Deep Reach as a 6/10. While fairly trivial and subjective, I would argue the Deep Reach is a touch stiffer — maybe more of a 7/10 compared to other companies. It feels very similar to the Nitro Squash and Jones Hovercraft (both rated 7/10), significantly stiffer than the Head E.B.I LYT (6/10), and softer than the Jones Storm Wolf (8/10).
Numbers aside, I find the flex to be spot on for the Deep Reach’s shape — supportive in chop and tracked snow at higher speeds, yet soft enough to feel poppy and user-friendly. As a rider with a preference for boards on the stiffer side of the spectrum, I find the added support is great for riding in a maritime snowpack, where the snow quality ranges from light blower to wet and heavy.
It’s also worth quickly touching on torsional stiffness, too. The carbon stringer along the spine of the Deep Reach is effective in increasing pop and providing a stable platform at higher speeds in bumpy conditions, without making the board too torsionally stiff and hard to maneuver. Unlike the more torsionally stiff Head E.B.I. LYT, the softer torsional feel of the Deep Reach doesn’t require a super stiff binding to drive its edges in firmer conditions.
FULL REVIEW
Powder
The Deep Reach is, unsurprisingly, happiest in fresh snow, where it feels fast, stable, and easy to ride. Its buoyant nose, 20 mm taper, and fish tail create a balanced ride in various depths of powder on both steep and mellow terrain — the nose naturally floats in deep snow and the tail sinks just enough to reduce leg fatigue and make powder riding quite easy.
To put this into context: I’ve found some stubby, volume-shifted swallow tails to be sluggish in deep snow (as well as hard to build speed from a stop). Boards with more dramatic swallow tails can also feel unbalanced and slow due to a “wheelie” effect in deep snow. The shape of the Deep Reach feels much more balanced and especially well-suited to shallower, <6’’ powder days. In those conditions, its fish tail shape feels quite supportive when the bottom can be felt, as opposed to longer and more dramatic swallow tail shapes, where the tips of their split tails can scratch and bounce off the hard subsurface.
After a potent spring storm delivered 120 inches over a week at Alyeska, the Deep Reach was a great platform to ride on the 6–30” powder days. There are more capable powder shapes for the deepest days, such as the Amplid Snowmellier, Weston Japow, or Jones Storm Wolf, which generally feel faster in bottomless powder. However, the Deep Reach is much more versatile, and it was an excellent option for this sort of storm cycle, where we had variable depths of powder that ranged from 18” up top, thinned to 8” mid-mountain, and shrunk to just a couple of inches of saturated snow at the base of Alyeska.
The Deep Reach felt fairly surfy in deep snow while also being stable enough to open up at higher speeds for long, arcing turns. It’s not as nimble as short, volume-shifted boards like the Season Forma, Rossignol Sushi, or Jones Storm Chaser, but the Deep Reach is easy to smear and slarve when needed (though it seems happiest with the nose pointed downhill). Especially in comparison to the Storm Chaser, which is a shorter volume-shifted board, the added length of the Deep Reach makes it a faster and more supportive board in deep powder, whereas the Storm Chaser is considerably more nimble and surfy.
Soft Chop and Tracked Powder
The Deep Reach is a great partner once the powder day transitions into cut-up chop. This board’s rigidity in the spine and nose helps to smash through tracks and chop without inducing major leg fatigue, similar to the Nitro Squash and the stiffer Jones Storm Wolf.
As fellow reviewer Justin Bobb notes on his Arbor Carter review, some boards deal with soft chop by simply blasting through the clumps via stiff flex patterns, while others utilize a more suspension-like approach to absorb these impacts. The Deep Reach falls somewhere in the middle while still performing well. It’s soft and flexible enough to pump and absorb chop, but also stiff enough to lean into the backseat and crush through tracks, resulting in an adaptable and user-friendly ride. I was impressed with how well the Deep Reach blasted through big (2-3 feet) drifts of chop without requiring too much extra input from my legs.
Ultimately, the Deep Reach feels particularly adaptive in soft chop, likely thanks to its balanced flex and shape. It manages to hold up at higher paces while still being manageable at slower cruising speeds, where absorbing bumps is more fluid. Its flex pattern is also beneficial when hitting side hits and drops, feeling smooth on bumpy in-runs yet supportive enough to stomp the landings.
Crud and Variable Snow
The Deep Reach does reasonably well in variable and less desirable snow conditions, but it falls behind some peers when it comes to edge control. The Deep Reach’s fairly stiff, wide nose is able to punch through crust and remain damp on chattery surfaces, but it doesn’t feel as responsive on edge as some narrower shapes, such as the Jones Hovercraft, Head E.B.I. LYT, and Nitro Squash.
I think part of this comes down to the ‘mid-wide’ girth of the board, most notably on bumpy, irregular surfaces. Despite having a mild torsional flex, the Deep Reach’s width prolongs moments where the board isn’t on edge and can become more susceptible to hooking or washing out. That said, the Deep Reach is considerably better in this situation than the stiffer Jones Storm Wolf or Weston Japow, especially when skidding turns on bumpy terrain.
On firm surfaces that are pretty smooth, the Deep Reach feels very controllable and predictable in its edging, especially once the edge is engaged. Its moderate-stiff flex and stubbier tail were especially helpful on a flat-light day I spent riding hard, wind-pressed snow littered with firm, raised tracks. While the conditions were still slightly jarring, the board provided adequate suspension to absorb the frozen tracks and maintain edge hold.
Groomers
The main reason I hesitate to classify the Deep Reach as a true ‘Pow-Groomer’ board is my experience with it on the latter. After considerable time riding groomers on it, I wouldn’t say the Deep Reach exhibits the aggressive, “knife-y” feel of a board such as the Head E.B.I. LYT or Nitro Squash — the sensation where the board almost accelerates through deep carves when fully laid over on edge. It may reflect my riding ability or style of riding, but I found those deeper carves to be a bit more accessible with the Jones Storm Chaser, Storm Wolf, E.B.I. LYT, and Squash.
While it doesn’t have that same aggressive edging that makes some other Pow-Groomer shapes stand out on piste, you can still have a good time ripping corduroy aboard the Deep Reach. The board is damp and stiff enough to remain enjoyable on groomers at the end of the day or accessing terrain between powder pockets, it’s just not the most exhilarating carver in its class.
Who’s It For?
The Deep Reach is an excellent option for intermediate to expert-level riders who are seeking a fairly versatile and user-friendly powder board. Other shapes, such as the Head E.B.I. LYT and Nitro Squash, are more exciting and precise when carving groomers, but the Deep Reach excels as an easy-riding board in a variety of softer, deeper snow. And it’s better suited to variable snow and shallower powder than some other powder-specific shapes, such as the Jones Storm Wolf or Amplid Snowmellier.
The Deep Reach is a great option for general powder-day riding, especially for those who want good flotation in deep snow and board that’s happy to seek out powder stashes hidden between groomers and less ideal snow. The Deep Reach can throttle up, offering respectable confidence on fast, steep fall lines, or throttle down and cruise powder fields and sidehits, making it an excellent choice all day long.
Bottom Line
With the Deep Reach, United Shapes has created a versatile powder board that still performs well as the snow gets tracked out and less pristine. There are boards better suited for bottomless powder or general all-mountain riding, but the Deep Reach is a very capable option on deep pow days that’s still controllable and enjoyable in firmer conditions. It stands out for being adaptable and user-friendly, and while its flex and construction are well-suited for “hard chargers,” it remains lively and maneuverable at slower speeds both in and out of powder.
