Salomon HPS Fish Review: A Playful Powder Board with Some Caveats

Introduction

The Salomon HPS Fish is a directional powder snowboard built around Salomon’s powder camber profile: a long rocker in the nose paired with a setback camber under the back foot. The idea is that you load, pop, snap, and drive mainly from your rear foot, and that loading the camber also lifts the rockered nose for better float. It is available in 153, 157, and 162.

This review is based on riding the board at Copper Mountain on a day with roughly two feet of snow on top of leftover base, covering chopped chunder, ice crust, and dusted corduroy. The setup was Rome Black Label bindings and K2 Thraxis boots.

Who This Board Is For

This board makes the most sense for riders who spend their days in low-angle deep pow or threading the trees. The added width, rear camber, and long rockered nose make it nimble, easy to engage, and genuinely fun to float around in soft snow.

If your expectations are set accordingly, it delivers. This is a soft-flexing, playful powder board for mellow terrain, not an all-mountain charger.

Main Strengths

The long rocker in the nose gives you optimal powder float and an easy, forgiving entry in and out of turns. That softer nose also makes nose butters and nose rolls surprisingly rewarding once you know how to butter a directional board. Find a steeper section, pop a 180, press in, and you can carve out a nice big nose butter and pop back out.

The setback camber puts a bit more stability under the rear foot, and the wider profile adds to that overall sense of steadiness. The flex sits just below middle of the road, with a softer nose right at the front insert pack, a consistent flex through the body, and a tail that is just a hair stiffer, including torsionally. On a groomer, it actually turns. This is not a rudderless sled that wanders all over the hill; you can rail big swoopy turns with confidence.

Things to Consider Before Buying

There is a real overabundance of flex here. You can twist this board easily, and with the rockered nose and softer flex you get noticeable flap that reverberates under the front foot. In roughed-out terrain at slow speeds without paying attention, you will get bucked around. Ride the same terrain fast, however, and you skip over or pump through everything and keep your speed.

Pop comes with caveats. Because of the camber it will pop, but what you put in, you get a little less back, so it is not the snappiest board. When you load the rear foot and roll back onto the tail to snap, you can overflex it, at which point it turns soggy and gives less spring. Your back leg is where all your pop comes from, so you need to know how to engage it through the rear foot.

Carving is entirely a rear-foot operation. You get slight engagement off the front foot to guide the turn, but once you load the camber, a flex point right in front of the front binding disengages the front of the board, and you effectively steer from mid-board back through the tail. Rail a hard carve from there and it works, but get too aggressive and it kicks out. Short, tight, quick carves are doable but easier to overpower.

The swallow tail deserves a honest mention: it does not do much functionally. It is there for looks more than anything, perhaps breaking up a little surface tension mid-board, but you will not be throwing rooster tails with it. Also be aware that the tail, being stiffer but with less surface area, will put you down hard if you do not know how to get outside your rear binding and get the board straight upright in powder.

Buying Advice

If you ride low-angle deep pow, love tree runs, and want a playful, forgiving board that floats and butters well, this is a good match. If you want a functional swallow tail, a snappy pop machine, or a board for aggressive carving, look elsewhere.

It sits firmly in a crowded category with plenty of comparable boards, including the Amplid Aloha Vibes, K2 Special Effects, Rome Service Dog, Salomon Dancehaul Pro, Union Ultra, and Jones Meteorite. That is the honest trade-off: it is fun, but it is middle of the pack, and it may not be the first recommendation for every rider in this segment.

Conclusion

The Salomon HPS Fish is a soft-flexing, playful powder board that rewards good technique with easy float, nose butters, and rear-foot carving, while penalizing slow, careless riding in rough terrain. Buy it if mellow powder days and tree runs are your bread and butter, and skip it if you need a do-everything board or a genuinely functional swallow tail.