Jones Hovercraft 2.0 Snowboard Review: Conquer Big Powder Days

Two seasons ago I was in Whistler, British Columbia, and I’d just been gifted a day of heli-skiing. I had my go-to powder board I’d been using for years, but I also had the prototype Jones Hovercraft 2.0, and I could bring only one board aboard the helicopter. The last thing I wanted to do was gamble on an unknown board and waste a rare day of untracked powder, but I took a deep breath and decided to roll the dice on the Jones. Not only was it incredible for that heli day, I didn’t stop riding it for two years straight. I can’t believe how good this board is. The Hovercraft 2.0 is considered an alternative directional freeride board, meaning it’s really dialed for off-piste action. But it’s no slouch on groomers or steeps, either. The original Hovercraft was released in 2010 as one of Jones' original four snowboards when the company launched. It was such a successful and beloved model that it went effectively untouched for 14 years and remained a top seller the whole time. The Hovercraft 2.0 further refines the design, giving it even more float in powder and adding a lot of sustainability. Whee, Freshies The 2.0 has a more pronounced 3D “spoon” shape to the nose, with 12 mm of bevel compared to 7 mm in the original. This has become a standard feature on Jones boards, and I’m a big fan. It’s better at displacing powder, it’s far less catchy than a standard nose, and it doesn’t interrupt your carves on hard-packed snow. The new board also features significantly more taper than the original, with 17 mm compared to 11.5 mm. That means it gets way skinnier toward the end of the board as compared to the nose. It also added some channels under the tail to help push snow out the back, similar to the bottom contours of some surfboards. The net effect of all this is that it has nearly effortless float, even in the deepest powder. For context, I’m generally considered an “advanced” snowboarder. I’m 6'1", 170-ish pounds (give or take five), and I tested the 160-cm version of the board. This is a unisex board that comes in a wide range of sizes, and it’s the Big Horn version, which refers to the wider of Jones' snowboards and keeps the toes of my size-11 boots from dragging in the snow. I mostly rode it with Salomon Echo Dual Boa boots ($470) and with the Jones Mercury bindings ($360), which provided excellent leverage for keeping the board on edge. In early February 2025 I had the best-timed trip of my life. I arrived in a region of Japan known as “Snow Country,” just before three back-to-back storms unloaded historic amounts of powder. For conditions like that, boarders usually opt for extremely fishy shapes that are really designed for deep pow and that’s it, so I was unsure the Hovercraft 2.0 would be up to the task. As you can see in the video, it worked spectacularly. Deep snow typically requires you to lean way back, which really burns out the muscles in your back leg. While I was definitely cooked at the end of each day, it was a full-body cook. I was even able to land jumps and drop with my weight equally distributed, and this board made it incredibly easy to keep my nose up. For all its powder prowess, though, it’s still an excellent resort board. It has a long sidecut that likes to draw out big arcing carves. The wider Big Horn version takes a bit of effort to go from edge to edge, but not nearly as much as you would think. It’s a medium-flex board (rated 3 out of 3 for stiffness), but it’s surprisingly damp. In rough, uneven snow this board bashes through pretty well, and very little of that vibration goes into your body. It’s certainly not the liveliest board, though. You won’t feel like you’re springing out of turns on a groomer, and while it ollies alright, it’s not as bouncy as I’d like. I’ve taken it into a few terrain parks, and it was OK, but that’s really not what it was made for. Tree Run What it does handle surprisingly well, though, are steeps. I took this down Big Couloir at Big Sky, which is rated a triple black diamond and is one of the longest, steepest runs in North America (1,300 feet of vertical drop at a 50-degree angle). Sliding out on that run is potentially catastrophic (YouTube has plenty of horrifying examples). The Hovercraft 2.0 features a bit of serration in the edges that Jones calls Traction Tech, which bites into hard snow but somehow doesn’t interrupt carving. I don’t think Traction Tech is quite as reliable as Lib Tech’s Magne-Traction (same concept, but with a few additional bumps), but this board held its edge extremely well in critical terrain. It's also the best board I’ve ever used in the trees. Despite its width, it turns nimbly in unpacked snow, where those quick directional changes are critically important. In March 2024, I took this board on a road trip through Northern California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. At some of those stops it hadn’t snowed in days, and everything that was in the open was tracked out, but when I took this board into the trees I was always able to find some pockets of fresh goodies. On those special occasions when I got it into a big, steep snowfield the board had a casual, surfy feel to it. It glides nicely over flat spots, too. The Hovercraft 2.0 is also arguably the most sustainable snowboard ever produced. It’s the first snowboard made with Jones’ new Re-Up Technology, which upcycles components from used surfboards. Jones found that 95 percent of a snowboard can be recycled, and that’s where this board’s wood core comes from. It also features recycled steel in its edges, recycled ABS in its sidewalls, a carbon-neutral flax fiber topsheet, and a bio resin that reportedly cuts CO2 emissions by 33 percent compared to traditional epoxy. It also comes pretreated with a Wend natural wax that’s biodegradable and contains no fluorocarbon forever chemicals such as PFAS. This shouldn’t be surprising, as founder Jeremy Jones is not only a legendary snowboarder but also the founder and president of Protect Our Winters (aka POW). But it’s nice to see companies put their money where their mouths are. Ultimately, there’s so much to like about this board and very little to dislike, but it’s for a specific type of rider looking for a specific experience. If you’re mostly focused on groomers, this board is good, but it doesn’t really stand out on the hard pack. For intermediate to advanced riders who want to spend as much time as possible hunting powder in ungroomed terrain, surfing down steeps, slashing big turns, exploring the trees, and still do some playful carving on their way back to the lift line, the Hovercraft 2.0 is an absolute delight. It’s just a pure fun machine that’s taken me down some of the most memorable runs of my life. It has usurped my beloved K2 Excavator as my go-to board for powder days. If that’s your thing, this board comes highly recommended.