K2 Route Snow Helmet Review

I love myself a good helmet but the K2 Route Helmet is anything but that.  Being a snowboard mountaineer I was excited to try a helmet geared towards mountaineering but it let me down.  I encourage you to continue to read this and hear out why you don’t want this helmet.  It may give you some ideas on how to purchase the right snowboard helmet someday.

K2 Helmet Fit

First off, the look of the K2 Route Helmet is a bit weird.  It turns your head into a large black golf ball.  I got many references to this from my friends.  It didn’t fit well with any of my goggles, and I have a lot of different types of goggles.  There was always a gap where your goggles meet the helmet and you get a cool breeze coming in.  The goggle clips are a pain in the ass to get your goggle strap to fit underneath them and the clips fall off sometimes.

K2 PowFly Helmet Cover

It has this strange thing called the PowFly that is like a shower cap for your helmet being that the vents are always open.  The idea here is to close off the vents and restrict snow and air from coming through the vents.  I could not figure out how to secure this properly.  I also had some of my friends try to put the PowFly on and they had the same result.  It just kept falling off.  Who actually wants to take the time to put a shower cap on a helmet anyway.  Why not just put another layer under your helmet or have a helmet with closing vents.

There wasn’t much comfort to the helmet.   It just felt like a poorly designed piece of plastic on my head.  It did not have any warmth to it either.  If I am mountaineering, I want my head to be warm!  Everyone has a different head shape but Smith and Giro both fit my head well.  It also boasts you can wear a headlamp on your helmet if you adjust the clips on the outside for it.  This actually worked.  But I have also had good luck just putting my headlamp on a helmet without any sort of clips.

K2 Route Snow Helmet Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Lightweight for ease of wear
• Suitable for wearing headlamp
• Named one of the best snowboard helmets

Cons:

• Weird look, turns head into large black golf ball
• PowFly cover falls off, difficult to secure
• Poorly designed, lacks warmth and comfort

Overall Impression

The only thing the K2 Route Helmet ($149.95) has going for it is that it is light.  It is good to have light gear but the quality has to go along with light gear as well.  I look more for comfort, functionality, and protection in a helmet.  If its something that is protecting your brain, a few extra ounces won’t hurt.

The K2 Route Helmet was awarded one of the best snowboard helmets of the year in our annual helmet test.

Related Helmets

1. Outdoor Master Diamond Snow Helmet
2. Giro Avera Women’s Ski and Snowboard Helmet
3. Smith Maze Snowboard Helmet with MIPS