I'm a skier and kite landboarder and I'm sure this question has been asked and answered before so please remind or educate me.... What would be the downside of mounting ATB bindings on a snowboard? Open bindings work for kite surfing and kite landboarding and would certainly make launching a kite easier on snow and then stepping into the bindings.

Aside from repurposing ATB bindings are any such bindings made? Anyone try this before? I've never snow boarded but sometimes I think that would be more fun with a kite as it more approximates the ATB feel plus I like skate boarding so there is some crossover there. I don't really want to buy a snowboard, bindings and boots and spend all that money for something that will sit in storage for 9-10 months per year and snowfers are way too expensive and only have one edge. Thoughts?

Control would be one issue. Lot more leverage on a snowboard on hardpack then on atb. Might work ok for heelside carving, but outside of pure powder you would probably not be able to help edge the board toeside.

That would probably work but you wouldn't get the same feeling when snowboarding with bindings. I'm assuming you're going to be using this for snow kiting only? In that case I wouldn't bother buying snowboard bindings etc.. You could get away with ATB bindings for sure.

The downside would be that you would simply catch the back of your heel when carving which would result in a fall, (snowboard bindings increase the clearance about 1/8th of an inch from the snowboard. However, you could easily avoid this by getting some non-slip foam grip tape and putting it on the board and then mounting the ATB bindings. That way it will provide that bit of clearance between the ground and your foot; also acting as a non-slip surface for your foot!

There are a few companies out there that make "no back" bindings for snow boards, so that might be similar to what your getting at. They are still intended to be used with a conventional snowboard boot so there's still some degree of stiffness. I would have to agree with MotoFoo86, anything other than deep snow I would guess edging would be a problem.

Good topic b-roc. I've always wanted to try snowboard that way as well since I don't have snowboard skill and would welcome being able to step out and in when needed kiting. Maybe a hybrid binding of water and atb would work well. I think water binding has a foam wedge under heal?