Question: What equipment is used in Alpine snowboarding?
About the article "Snowboarding", section "Alpine Snowboarding".

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Sella Nevea offers facilities and equipment for winter sports, such as alpine ski, cross-country ski, snowboarding, and ice skating.
The abundance of untouched space is particularly advantageous for off-slope downhill skiing.
In the summer, the location is used as a base for mountain trekking and rock climbing. 
Sometimes called freecarving, this takes place on hard packed snow or groomed runs and focuses on carving linked turns, much like surfing or longboarding.
Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline.
Alpine Snowboarding consists of a small portion of the general snowboard population, that has a well connected social community and its own specific board manufacturers.
Alpine Snowboard equipment is a ski-like hardshell boot and plate binding system with a true directional snowboard that is stiffer and narrower to manage linking turns with greater forces and speed.
Shaped skis can thank these "freecarve" snowboards for the cutting-edge technology leading to their creation.
Highlights of alpine snowboarding includes a unique sensation felt through each carved turn.
A skilled alpine snowboarder can link numerous turns into a run placing their body very close to the ground each turn, similar to a motogp turn or waterski carve.
Depending on factors including stiffness, turning radius and personality this can be done slowly or fast.
Carvers make perfect half-circles out of each turn, changing edges when the snowboard is perpendicular to the fall line and starting every turn on the downhill edge.
Carving on a snowboard is like riding a roller coaster, because the board will lock into a turn radius and provide what feels like multiple Gs of acceleration.
Free riding is a general term for all-around snowboarding.
"Free riding" began as a marketing-derived term from the snowboarding industry, but it still has descriptive value.
It communicates the concept of dynamically altering snowboarding styles on a continuous basis such that the combination becomes a style unto itself.
To master free riding is to seamlessly merge aspects of other snowboarding disciplines such as freestyle and alpine snowboarding into an all-around style - giving you the freedom to make the most of whatever terrain comes your way.
Whereas freestyle snowboarding relies on the use of man-made terrain such as jumps, rails and half-pipes, and alpine snowboarding is done on groomed snow - the focus of free riding is on utillising the random flow of natural terrain.
Free ride equipment generally comprises a stiffer boot/binding combination and a stiffer, directional snowboard.
Since the free ride style may encounter many different types of snow conditions, such as ice and deep powder, a stiffer setup is recommended to maintain stability in deeper snow and at higher speeds. 
Alpine snowboarding is a discipline within the sport of snowboarding.
It is typically practiced with hard plastic shelled boots called "hardboots" and carving or race-oriented snowboards.
Loosely, it is the pursuit of snowboarding mostly on the ground, in the forward direction, with the primary goal of making clean, smooth turns.
Freestyle snowboards ridden with soft boots are much more common.
The term "alpine" has come to be mostly associated with snowboarding in hardboots, as they are the choice for people seeking the most efficient carved turn.
Lately, the terms "Alpine Snowboarding" and "Hardboot Snowboarding", or just "Hardbooting" have become synonymous 
The U.S. Snowboarding Race to the Cup was created in 2005 by U.S. Snowboarding in order to provide a high-level domestic competition series for alpine snowboarders.
All events are part of the annual NorAm competition circuit which includes races in Canada and the United States.
The purpose of the U.S. Snowboarding Race to the Cup is to develop young alpine riders for World Cup level competition.