I spent a day on a 5’5 Dupraz D1+ at the end of last season. Day at Courmayeur with an off-the-back run to finish. Piste, slush, wide open blown powder, corn, gullies, steeps. Loved it! Slashiest board I’ve ever been on, big turns were cool too. So I bought one. Now sitting at home, waiting for bindings and snow.
While you can do lovely big pow turns just fine on smaller boards, there’s nothing quite like a big turn on a big board, all that planing area underneath you pushing back and piling on the Gs… urg…
1000m of powder is going to last you a lot longer on a smaller board!
I demoed a 5’5″ D1+ and loved it, but I really wanted the ultimate for powder days so I tried a 6’D1 and it rode fine on everything, not too big either so I took a chance on it at Serge said that would be the best of the range on Powder.
I sold my Santa Cruz in the end as I rode everything on the D1 !!
Id still like a stiffer one too, possibly in the 5’5″ size, for big carving days on piste but I can do everything I need to on the 6′
Oh I`m 5’6″ too and normally ride a 155/156 conventional board, but have a 151 Never Summer Evo for Playing on too