• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

raytseng

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Posts
3,330
Location
SF Bay Area
Following up on @Mendieta's post
https://www.pugski.com/threads/so-you’ve-never-skied-before.3287/

I've decided to write a followup guide.


You've gone to the slopes perhaps 1 to 10 times; perhaps even taking a few lessons and and realize you really like this sliding thing. Where do you go from here?
What should you buy and how should you spend your money?
How do you balance your time and maximize?
How do you get from those green slopes to hucking the cliffs like those experts? Well, this one is beyond the scope of this article/


Here is a list of tips on what to do after you're hooked on skiing and ready for your first full season of skiing.

  • Equipment-Boots
    • The most important piece of equipment you need to buy are Ski Boots. These are custom fit to you and covered in the prev article. If you've made the mistake of buying an off-the-shelf pair of boots that do not fit well, it is time to fix that mistake and buy again to get that sorted out.

  • Equipment-Buying your first pair of Skis
    One of the biggest questions that come up is what skis do I buy? If you are planning to ski more than a few days a season and progress in this hobby, it's time to purchase your own skis.
    • It is not vital exactly which ski you get, but the most important thing is having the same equipment to remove that variable from your progression so you are skiing the same equipment every day. Having your own equipment also reduces the trips to the rental shop and increases your ski time.
    • The typical intermediate progression ski is going to be around 80mm all mountain ski from within the last few years, about chin to nose height, and with at least tip rocker and labelled for intermediates. You don't need to buy a new pair of skis, it can be a seasonal rental, a loan or hand from someone else, or a used demo ski bought from somebody or online.
    • Treat these just as progression skis that you can use up and pass on to someone else or donate when you are done with them. If they have demo bindings you will be able to offload them again.
    • Only after you have progressed and figured out more technique do you need to think about about buying an Advanced set of skis. Buying an advanced big mountain ski now will be hard to use as you won't have the techniques yet to make them come alive [more below]

  • Season Pass
    • The kingmakers at play have determined that ski access is now dominated by getting a Season Pass, (e.g. Epic, Ikon, or Independents). If you fail to buy a pass, you may be paying dearly at the window or financially locked out. Ensure you have access to your home mountain by buying a season Pass before pass sales are halted. In the grand scope of things, your pass costs will be overwhelmed by your other skiing expenditures, so don't get too caught up on the fine details of Pass Costs even though it stares at you in the face on the screen.

  • Lodging
    Lodging is tricky as everyone's home mountain and lodging requirements differ. However, finding a consistent place to stay reduces your travel logistics and makes things easier.
    • Ski Lease or a seasonal rental is but also a huge step, but also a bigger expenditure.
    • Staying even at the same motel or hotel helps consistency as you know where you'll be pulling in for the night.
    • Be sure to check through your resort's website for passholder or other lodging deals they have set aside specifically for the Resort's Vacation department. These may not have been released to the general online hotel booking pools.
    • There are often passholder discounts if you book early and lock your lodging in.

  • Lessons/Instruction and Technique
    You maybe a natural, but if you have plateaued, you need to take time to work on your technique to improve. You don't need a lesson every day, but whenever you have plateaued it's time to think about how to improve
    • If you work best with live lesson. Look out for lesson deals especially early season and take advantage of them.
    • For half day group lessons, the Afternoon lesson often gives you better Inst-Student ratio. Everybody thinks to take the morning lesson and practice in the afternoon; so you need to zig when they zag. Of course, midweek will be better than weekends
    • For the self-learners, certainly there is a lot of content on youtube or the internet for drills that will expose and improve techniques . Don't try to execute more than 3 tips to practice on a day. Too many tips or drills will just get mixed up.
    • You don't need to practice the whole day, just a short stint here and there can help improve a skill.
    • When practicing, move back to easier terrain to perform your drills and alternating between a more difficult and an easier run. Having confidence is an important thing, and blown confidence will regress you back to defensive skiing.
    • Offseason or midweek is where the fitness hardwork is done. If you are huffing or utterly exhausted at the end of a day of skiing, you may need to come up with a summer fitness routine to better prepare you for Ski Season.

  • Ski Gear Preparation for Weekend Warriors
    As you become more and more comfortable with skiing, the key to increasing your time on the slopes is to consistently prepare your ski gear so you are ready to get to the slopes.
    • Buying a ski bag boot bag or gear bag to organize and keep all your stuff in the expected places helps reduce packing time and forgotten items. If in doubt, a large tote or reusable shopping bag can also serve this purpose
    • Dedicate and buy duplicates for items you use at home and on the road. E.g. have your toothbrushes/phone chargers in your travel bags separate from your home one. Have a duplicate laptop charger in your bag separate from your home laptop charger attached to the wall. This way you can unpack and repacking just clothes, and reduce forgotten items.
    • You may find at this point you will start doubling up on ski gear, like extra gloves, extra socks, extra goggles that work as backups.

  • FlyAway trips
    It's time to spread your wings and explore the world. If you've bought a networked season pass, this was their whole business plan to get you to flyaway and ski other resorts and spend your money.
    • Check bestsnow or other resources for the best time to go, and book your trip early. December is technicall pre-winter and typically not a good time for a flyaway trip despite what commercialism pushes on you.
    • For your first trip, pick an easy location that is close to a major airport, with shuttle service in, and just stay slopeside, on the mountain without driving.
    • Travel with your boots as carryon, depending on the length of your trip, you can rent skis/poles or bring them in a ski bag
    • Credit cards solve most travel ooopsies. Don't panic
    • If possible, avoid major holidays or other peak weeks, such as spring break.

  • Buying your first pair of Advanced skis at season's end
    Congratulations, you've made it through the season and are a solid or high intermediate who's outgrown your progression pair of skis. How do you go about buying your first pair of advanced skis?
    • In general the waist width determines the type of ski. The skinnier a ski is, the more like a race car and a frontside carver for a prepared piste. The fatter the ski the more like an big SUV or offroad car more for off-piste. There is no right or wrong here, it is more what type of skiing you want to ski.
    • You may want to demo skis from a local shop of the on-mountain store. They typically will have a demo program that allow you to apply 2 or 3 days of demo fees towards purchase. If you really have no frame of reference, you should demo skis to get a feel for the ski that matches your style the best. If you don't want to lose your demo fees, you might as well purchase from the store. If this is slopeside or on mtn you can swap midday and get to demo 2 skis/day versus only one if you have to drive to the shop.
    • Shops are not stupid, they know people shop on the internet and their prices will be competitive to the internet. Don't just assume buying online will be guaranteed to be significantly cheaper.
    • Skis usually go on sale end of the season, midmarch through april; then there will be lull over the summer as everything is put into storage. They come back in the fall as they bring the gear back in and try to move some out to make space for new gear,
    • Very popular models may sell out in particular sizes and just be unavailable for discount
    • Look in this forum in the buy/sell/trade; as well as Forum sponsors shops who may have deals over PM.
    • All skis these days are pretty good, there aren't really bad skis, just bad matches to what you might want to do on them.
    • Post in the Hardgoods subforum for help answering some of the questions on what specific skis to check out.

Conclusion
Hopefully this write up helps answer some of the common questions people have about this wonderful sport.
In essence, once you've determined this is a hobby you'd like to pursue the next steps are about you maximizing your FUN.
Taking away the hassles and getting things into a routine are the key to spending more time on the slopes and less time with the logistics.

Enjoy!

I am sure more tips and comments below
 
Last edited:

marjoram_sage

newly addicted to skiing
Skier
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Posts
213
Location
San Jose California
  • Skis
Only after you have progressed and figured out more technique do you need to think about about buying an Advanced set of skis. Buying an advanced big mountain ski now will be hard to use as you won't have the techniques yet to make them come alive [more below]
  • Season Pass
    • In the grand scope of things, your pass costs will be overwhelmed by your other skiing expenditures, so don't get too caught up on the fine details of Pass Costs even though it stares at you in the face on the screen
  • Lessons/Instruction and Technique
    • For half day group lessons, the Afternoon lesson often gives you better Inst-Student ratio.
    • When practicing, move back to easier terrain to perform your drills and alternating between a more difficult and an easier run. Having confidence is an important thing, and blown confidence will regress you back to defensive skiing.
  • FlyAway trips
    • Check bestsnow or other resources for the best time to go, and book your trip early. December is technically pre-winter and typically not a good time for a flyaway trip despite what commercialism pushes on you.
For me, these were amazing pieces of ski wisdom summarized in a witty fashion.
 

Scruffy

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Posts
2,429
Location
Upstate NY
Join the lunatic fringe and love it.
 

headybrew

surrender to the flow
Skier
Joined
Apr 26, 2017
Posts
156
Location
Tabernash Colorado
You'll never have enough gear.

You may get depressed in late summer or fall but do not worry, when the first flake falls you'll run outside to greet your old friend.

Hoard airline and hotel points all year long to sneak away at low cost during the season.

Never pass up a free promotional tube of chap stick again.

You'll quit showing pictures of your kids to friends and start showing them snow covered patio furniture (just FYI)

Vehicle
  • You need AWD or 4WD AND winter tires if chasing powder
  • Emergency kit with shovel, candles, flashlight, clothes, GORP, shovel, etc.
  • Always keep a full jug of windshield washer fluid in the vehicle, you can top yours off then give the rest to the dude using bottled water at the rest stop to clean his windshield, you'll look like a hero to his girlfriend, and maybe save someones life.
 

daemon

Booting up
Skier
Joined
Jan 18, 2019
Posts
11
Maximize the time you spend skiing while getting feedback, and minimize the money you spend on everything else.

Just get out there and ski. Don't let uncomfortable or shady lodging options (including 1-star motels or even camping in a tent) or suboptimal gear or shitty snow conditions hold you back. (And if they do hold you back, then reconsider whether skiing is really the best use of your time, instead of flying to Hawaii to eat BBQ and sip cocktails or something.) At the same time, once you're on the slopes, get qualified people to watch you, and get as many runs filmed for your own review as you possibly can. If you've skimped on everything else, then you should have saved enough money for at least a few instructional days for every 10 days of skiing.

The one thing you should't skimp on, though, is boots. If you splurge on one thing only, splurge on boots. Spend as much money as it takes to get them dialed in. Everything else in skiing follows the fit and the alignment of your boots. Your boots make a bigger difference to your experience than anything else.

Also, while you're still an intermediate, rent a pair of skis for the season instead of buying skis. (Rent skis only -- buy your own boots and poles.) My first 3 years skiing, that's what I did. I spent less than $5/day on ski rentals that way. And each season, I rented longer skis than the previous season, to match my increased ability.

Very minor point: I'm finding it helpful to use adjustable telescoping poles. That way, I can experiment with every different length to see what works best.
 
Thread Starter
TS
raytseng

raytseng

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Posts
3,330
Location
SF Bay Area
Adding on
Ski Sizing for advanced ski purchase
How to pick the size of your first pair of skis

  • The general sizing still will be chin height to head height, however different ski categories will have different effective lengths and will be sized differently.
  • Skinnier front side or race skis will have shorter lengths, while big mtn or powder skis will have longer lengths, as will twintips or park skis.
  • If you have never tried the same category of ski before, you should demo the ski to find out if sizing is appropriate and if it is the type of ski you were looking for at all.
  • An alternate method of sizing is to use S M L sizing. Look at the manufacturer's page and see what sizes are offered. If you're a smaller than the average adult of your gender, then pick the shorter length offered, vice versa if you are larger, then pick the larger lengths.

  • There are other rubrics of weight, or height+weight, or height+weight+ability+ski style, but don't fall into a rabbit hole over this. Demo is the only way to answer those questions rather then worrying over +5cm for height or +10cm for skill.
  • Feel free to post in hardgoods if you're still stuck and can't pull the trigger.

Ski Tuning Services explanation and Pricing
Below is a breakdown of the common ski tuning services. These are general generic writeup that I made up myself circa 2019. Prices, names, procedures and what each service entails; all will vary.
  • Bindings Adjustment and bindings testing.
    • If this was not done, you should get your bindings checked.
    • Adjustment of the system bindings a good shop will do it for Free or no charge esp if they are not busy. It should only take them maybe 5min to do the adjustments or look it over. If they are busy or you want them to actually test, then this is typically $25-$30.
    • If you pay for a bindings test, this should be a formal test procedure. It should be done on a machine or actual procedure with a pass/fail checklist. You should either get a printout/receipt showing pass for all the tests; or they show you or confirm it was all PASSES on the screen (often the shops printer is broken; or forgotten to get paper for printouts; they are not IT guys).
    • If it needs to be remounted or needs a new mount, this is typically $50-$60 but again you should involve original shop if this is the case.
  • Wax .
    • Quick wax: quick machine wax that just goes over maybe $5-$15 and last for a 1-3 days, or may get thrown in for free with (A) or any other service.
      • Typically done while you wait, and under 5-10min, sometimes you will see slopeside tent.
      • This maybe just a friction wax (cheapest), and maybe last 1day
      • Quick Hot wax, machine run over hotwax and then over a buffer (better lasts up to 3days).
    • Iron Wax(hand wax) and edge sharpening (known as Edge+Wax)
      • Is better job than the quick wax. Typically costs $20-$35, depending on the edgework This wax last you 5days of skiing, depending how long you ski and how fast and abrasive the snow is.
      • Edge work varies between just deburring off the burrs, or actual full resharpening.
      • May take 20-30minutes for them to do, typically not while you wait unless rush job; but overnight.
    • Learn to wax: You can also learn how to do waxing and basic edgework yourself, check out posts and videos here, youtube resources, posts on ski supply webshops(e.g. racewax). Often ski shops or outdoors stores like REI will have in-person sessions to learn as well. You can have a friend show you, but you may need to evaluate if that friend's competency and if they know what they are doing.

    • Wax choice:
      • This is beyond what a new to skier needs to obsess over, and often you don't get a choice at a shop unless doing it yourself. Visit the tuning forums instead,
      • Typically any of the modern good brand all-temp wax is sufficient, if you are in a very cold area though (under 7F./-14C) you will need colder temp wax.
      • If you are in a moderate area, but being frugal, you can always elect for colder or harder wax which will last longer in exchange for trading off some warmer temp performance and more difficulty in the waxing procedure.
    • Other Wax
      • New ski treatments such as DPS Phantom exist which are a permanent treatment; This is still a new technology in the process of optimizing the techniques and formulas, but it is but is catching on with positive feedback. There is a thread on this if interested.
      • Very exotic (expensive) full flouro waxes, advanced techniques such as hotboxing, multiple wax layers are beyond what is needed for a new recreational skier. These techniques are high in cost (time or money) for just incremental return. This is for racers needing to shave off fractions of seconds. Save your money to get more time on the slopes instead. Visit Tuning forum if interested though.
  • Tunes
    • Tunes are when the structure on your skis have been worn away, you have base damage, or your edges need to be reset.
    • Typically a $45 tuneup means they will do base grind work, reset base/side edges, and include wax
    • A $60 full tuneup will do the above, but also fix any repair small base damage (gouges or small sections, you may have.
    • Extra work, they will add on $5 or $10 for other damage or a la carte qutoes.
    • See below on when you need a tune.
Ski Tuning: strategy
If money and resources were unlimited, you could just throw away your skis every day and use new ones, just as we do with plastic cups and so on, (but that's another story).

How do you effectively keep your skis performing at a high level for relatively cheap? How do you go about not wasting a lot of money, so you can spend it for time on the slopes instead.
A lot of this also depends on your personal preference. Do you also wash and wax your car or do you not care? Do you keep up on the maintenance on the dot or do you let it slide sometimes? Can you even tell the difference when the tune is done?
All ski tuning costs either $$ or time, and ultimately you have to consider whether you are getting good value out of what you are paying for the tuning.
  • New ski prep: Unless you are racing or need top performance, you do not necessarily need to get a tune for brand new skis, you can just go out and ski it for a day. After you ski it for a day, if anything feels weird, then you can bring it to the shop to see if a tune or to ask why it's skiing funny.

  • Waxing: After the first day or 2, then you can get a iron wax every 5days, or quickwax every 1 to 3days depending on if you feel if it makes a difference to get you a good glide that doesn't stick. Waxing is the most frequent procedure.

  • Tunes: You can do a full edge/wax tune after perhaps 10-20 days or when your edges feel dull; and/or a full tune say once a season (20-30days) depending on if you encounter any damage. The tuneup job whould also typically include a wax job for your skis.

  • Value: You can also see if paying the money for tuning makes the skis any better for you. Some people do not have the skills developed to tell or appreciate any of the difference between a ski that hasn't been tuned for many days. Others may just not care and the skis are fine.
Ski Tuning: Shops
Lookup any ski shop near your home mountain they will have a webpage for tune services with their price lists, or pop in and ask them.

When do you need a tuneup? A good shop will always examine your skis and advise you on what you need if you are unsure. They should agree if a full tune is necessarily or not, based on what the ski needs or your feedback, not based on what their mortgage on their house needs. If a shop just takes your skis for a full tune (and your money) without at least looking them over or talking to you about the skis performance; walk away that is not a good shop.

There typically are specials or deals especially in early season to get you in the shop, or prepayment specials like pay $75 and get 3 tunes for the season.
If costs start to build up, take a look over in tuning forums or other tutorials to learn how to do this yourself.
Start by just learning how to hot wax yourself and minor side edge deburring, which will cover majority of your tuning jobs. You can leave the full-tune to the pros once a season or so.
 
Last edited:

Slim

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Oct 2, 2017
Posts
2,973
Location
Duluth, MN
Just get out there and ski. Don't let uncomfortable or shady lodging options or suboptimal gear or shitty snow conditions hold you back. (And if they do hold you back, then reconsider whether skiing is really the best use of your time, instead of flying to Hawaii to eat BBQ and sip cocktails or something.).

Or not.
It's hard to believe for most of us on here, but many people actually have a great time treating skiing as something they do once a year, happily cruising down blue runs, staying in a gorgeous chalet in the mountains, stopping for a nice lunch and sipping cocktails on the sun deck at the end of the ski day.

Skiing is an activity, it happens on snow. Those are the facts you can’t get around. For everything else, go about it in in the way that makes you the happiest.
 
Last edited:

beginnerskier96

Putting on skis
Skier
Joined
Dec 4, 2019
Posts
90
Location
Surrey
Consider your own ability.

Don’t rush to try out a slope that is too difficult. Practice as much as possible. Fine tune your skills. Also take lessons and do not overestimate your natural ability either. If you are a total beginner, avoid difficult slopes and stick to the wide groomed slopes and runs instead. Be careful when skiing, it is easy to injure yourself somehow. Pay attention to your surroundings too.

Take breaks when needed. Never drink and ski. That is a bad combo.
 

Lindsay_P

Booting up
Skier
Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Posts
11
Location
Portland, OR
Following up on @Mendieta's post
https://www.pugski.com/threads/so-you’ve-never-skied-before.3287/

I've decided to write a followup guide.


You've gone to the slopes perhaps 1 to 10 times; perhaps even taking a few lessons and and realize you really like this sliding thing. Where do you go from here?
What should you buy and how should you spend your money?
How do you balance your time and maximize?
How do you get from those green slopes to hucking the cliffs like those experts? Well, this one is beyond the scope of this article/


Here is a list of tips on what to do after you're hooked on skiing and ready for your first full season of skiing.

  • Equipment-Boots
    • The most important piece of equipment you need to buy are Ski Boots. These are custom fit to you and covered in the prev article. If you've made the mistake of buying an off-the-shelf pair of boots that do not fit well, it is time to fix that mistake and buy again to get that sorted out.
  • Equipment-Buying your first pair of Skis
    One of the biggest questions that come up is what skis do I buy? If you are planning to ski more than a few days a season and progress in this hobby, it's time to purchase your own skis.
    • It is not vital exactly which ski you get, but the most important thing is having the same equipment to remove that variable from your progression so you are skiing the same equipment every day. Having your own equipment also reduces the trips to the rental shop and increases your ski time.
    • The typical intermediate progression ski is going to be around 80mm all mountain ski from within the last few years, about chin to nose height, and with at least tip rocker and labelled for intermediates. You don't need to buy a new pair of skis, it can be a seasonal rental, a loan or hand from someone else, or a used demo ski bought from somebody or online.
    • Treat these just as progression skis that you can use up and pass on to someone else or donate when you are done with them. If they have demo bindings you will be able to offload them again.
    • Only after you have progressed and figured out more technique do you need to think about about buying an Advanced set of skis. Buying an advanced big mountain ski now will be hard to use as you won't have the techniques yet to make them come alive [more below]
  • Season Pass
    • The kingmakers at play have determined that ski access is now dominated by getting a Season Pass, (e.g. Epic, Ikon, or Independents). If you fail to buy a pass, you may be paying dearly at the window or financially locked out. Ensure you have access to your home mountain by buying a season Pass before pass sales are halted. In the grand scope of things, your pass costs will be overwhelmed by your other skiing expenditures, so don't get too caught up on the fine details of Pass Costs even though it stares at you in the face on the screen.
  • Lodging
    Lodging is tricky as everyone's home mountain and lodging requirements differ. However, finding a consistent place to stay reduces your travel logistics and makes things easier.
    • Ski Lease or a seasonal rental is but also a huge step, but also a bigger expenditure.
    • Staying even at the same motel or hotel helps consistency as you know where you'll be pulling in for the night.
    • Be sure to check through your resort's website for passholder or other lodging deals they have set aside specifically for the Resort's Vacation department. These may not have been released to the general online hotel booking pools.
    • There are often passholder discounts if you book early and lock your lodging in.
  • Lessons/Instruction and Technique
    You maybe a natural, but if you have plateaued, you need to take time to work on your technique to improve. You don't need a lesson every day, but whenever you have plateaued it's time to think about how to improve
    • If you work best with live lesson. Look out for lesson deals especially early season and take advantage of them.
    • For half day group lessons, the Afternoon lesson often gives you better Inst-Student ratio. Everybody thinks to take the morning lesson and practice in the afternoon; so you need to zig when they zag. Of course, midweek will be better than weekends
    • For the self-learners, certainly there is a lot of content on youtube or the internet for drills that will expose and improve techniques . Don't try to execute more than 3 tips to practice on a day. Too many tips or drills will just get mixed up.
    • You don't need to practice the whole day, just a short stint here and there can help improve a skill.
    • When practicing, move back to easier terrain to perform your drills and alternating between a more difficult and an easier run. Having confidence is an important thing, and blown confidence will regress you back to defensive skiing.
    • Offseason or midweek is where the fitness hardwork is done. If you are huffing or utterly exhausted at the end of a day of skiing, you may need to come up with a summer fitness routine to better prepare you for Ski Season.
  • Ski Gear Preparation for Weekend Warriors
    As you become more and more comfortable with skiing, the key to increasing your time on the slopes is to consistently prepare your ski gear so you are ready to get to the slopes.
    • Buying a ski bag boot bag or gear bag to organize and keep all your stuff in the expected places helps reduce packing time and forgotten items. If in doubt, a large tote or reusable shopping bag can also serve this purpose
    • Dedicate and buy duplicates for items you use at home and on the road. E.g. have your toothbrushes/phone chargers in your travel bags separate from your home one. Have a duplicate laptop charger in your bag separate from your home laptop charger attached to the wall. This way you can unpack and repacking just clothes, and reduce forgotten items.
    • You may find at this point you will start doubling up on ski gear, like extra gloves, extra socks, extra goggles that work as backups.
  • FlyAway trips
    It's time to spread your wings and explore the world. If you've bought a networked season pass, this was their whole business plan to get you to flyaway and ski other resorts and spend your money.
    • Check bestsnow or other resources for the best time to go, and book your trip early. December is technicall pre-winter and typically not a good time for a flyaway trip despite what commercialism pushes on you.
    • For your first trip, pick an easy location that is close to a major airport, with shuttle service in, and just stay slopeside, on the mountain without driving.
    • Travel with your boots as carryon, depending on the length of your trip, you can rent skis/poles or bring them in a ski bag
    • Credit cards solve most travel ooopsies. Don't panic
    • If possible, avoid major holidays or other peak weeks, such as spring break.
  • Buying your first pair of Advanced skis at season's end
    Congratulations, you've made it through the season and are a solid or high intermediate who's outgrown your progression pair of skis. How do you go about buying your first pair of advanced skis?
    • In general the waist width determines the type of ski. The skinnier a ski is, the more like a race car and a frontside carver for a prepared piste. The fatter the ski the more like an big SUV or offroad car more for off-piste. There is no right or wrong here, it is more what type of skiing you want to ski.
    • You may want to demo skis from a local shop of the on-mountain store. They typically will have a demo program that allow you to apply 2 or 3 days of demo fees towards purchase. If you really have no frame of reference, you should demo skis to get a feel for the ski that matches your style the best. If you don't want to lose your demo fees, you might as well purchase from the store. If this is slopeside or on mtn you can swap midday and get to demo 2 skis/day versus only one if you have to drive to the shop.
    • Shops are not stupid, they know people shop on the internet and their prices will be competitive to the internet. Don't just assume buying online will be guaranteed to be significantly cheaper.
    • Skis usually go on sale end of the season, midmarch through april; then there will be lull over the summer as everything is put into storage. They come back in the fall as they bring the gear back in and try to move some out to make space for new gear,
    • Very popular models may sell out in particular sizes and just be unavailable for discount
    • Look in this forum in the buy/sell/trade; as well as Forum sponsors shops who may have deals over PM.
    • All skis these days are pretty good, there aren't really bad skis, just bad matches to what you might want to do on them.
    • Post in the Hardgoods subforum for help answering some of the questions on what specific skis to check out.
Conclusion
Hopefully this write up helps answer some of the common questions people have about this wonderful sport.
In essence, once you've determined this is a hobby you'd like to pursue the next steps are about you maximizing your FUN.
Taking away the hassles and getting things into a routine are the key to spending more time on the slopes and less time with the logistics.

Enjoy!

I am sure more tips and comments below

Ummm... I'm newish to skiing still and found this to be SO super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to write this. Seriously.
:)
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
Ummm... I'm newish to skiing still and found this to be SO super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to write this. Seriously.
:)
@Yo Momma and @James are the perfect mix of fun and thinking.
Of course if you need another balance. PM ME!
 

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,419
Hey @James! The link doesn't work for me... can you repost or share title? :D

The Essential Guide to Skiing: 201 Things Every Skier Must Know by Ron LeMaster

It’s old, but has some real basic stuff you take for granted after years of skiing.
Ron is more known for his technical books and his images like this:
E61BAF67-D066-429C-92D3-B60885302CEE.jpeg

Hirscher, Vail, 2015

www.ronlemaster.com/images.html
 

Lindsay_P

Booting up
Skier
Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Posts
11
Location
Portland, OR
The Essential Guide to Skiing: 201 Things Every Skier Must Know by Ron LeMaster

It’s old, but has some real basic stuff you take for granted after years of skiing.
Ron is more known for his technical books and his images like this:
View attachment 89951
Hirscher, Vail, 2015

www.ronlemaster.com/images.html
Thank you so much. This looks great and I can't wait to dive in!
 
Last edited:

T-Square

Terry
Admin
Moderator
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
7,559
Location
Enfield, NH
Also “Skiing and the Art of Carving" by Ellen Post Foster.

 

LiquidFeet

instructor
Instructor
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
6,697
Location
New England
^^Yes!
Ellen Post Foster is an amazing ski writer. Lito Tejada-Flores is too. And Karl Gamma's Handbook of Skiing is the best thing out there for clarity. But their books are all a little outdated.

The other how-to-ski books published after those all pale in comparison, in my opinion. No one has produced a comparable how-to book since these authors wrote their books. Updates are called for.
 
Last edited:

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
27,297
Location
Reno
Also “Skiing and the Art of Carving" by Ellen Post Foster.

I have 4 copies of that book. If someone is interested, give me a shout.
The co-Author is Mike Porter.
I will be seeing Ellen and Mike in Colorado in a few weeks.
 

Sponsor

Staff online

Top