Cost of Contentment

 

The price for a day of skiing at Vail and Beaver Creek is $108.  Let that sink in a little bit.  That’s just for the skiing, of course.  There’s also the parking ($25), Food ($9.95 “Lunch for Less”), and gas to get there (Increasing).  And if you’re going to be skiing Vail, I’d imagine you have to look the part:

This fetching jacket (made of Goose Down, polyester, and Raccoon fur) is only $1,499.  And the hat is only $799.  That’s right.  $799 for a hat.  All that money, and once you get to the mountain, there’s a distinct possibility that you might be punched in the face.

I was thinking about this when I was reading the Salsa Cycles Culture blog.  As many websites/news agencies/tv shows do this time of year, they’re doing the year-end wrap up: Their favorite riding moments of 2010.  I was thinking about my favorite riding/skiing moments in the past year, and I realized that I don’t need to spend $150 to have a great day.

My favorite bike riding moment was our day at the Kingdom Trails in Vermont.  Total cost: Gas to get up there, $10 for the trail pass, $3.00 for an incredible chicken pesto burrito for lunch, $2.00 for some afternoon snacks, and $32 for Beers and Reubens at the Inn at Long Trail on the way home.

My favorite skiing moment was October 16^th at Whiteface.  Total cost: Gas to get up there, $0.70 for a bagel with peanut butter on it, and $9 for a six pack of beer.

Good times, good riding, and good beer.  It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Serenity NOW!

Well, it didn't take very long for me to get off of Island Time.  This time of year is always hectic.  There's more traffic, more people, and more money on my credit card.  People are angry, lines are long, and everyone is on edge.  It's like New York City, 3 hours north.

There's a reason I don't live in NYC: I'm not very good at blocking things out.  When someone around me is angry, I get angry.  When someone cuts me off in traffic, I feel like I should cut him off.  When someone starts yelling at a cashier or a waitress, I have to fight the urge not to yell at him.  I don't have the patience, calm, or empathy level that is necessary to deal with stressful situations (especially around Christmas).

So, I'm trying to relax, take it easy, and slow everything down.  It's not the end of the world if everything doesn't go according to plan.  So what if other places have tons of snow, and Gore has grams of snow? Who cares if other people are out getting after it, and I'm headed to the office again tomorrow?

Me! I care!! I can't relax, because I want too much and I want it now.  I want powder.  I want to ski trees.  I want to get some video footage that's worth a damn (instead of a bunch of GS turns down groomers).  And not only that, I want to go on exotic ski trips.  I want to go heliskiing.  I want to ski the Haute Route.  I want to bag some peaks and drink some celebratory beers.  Is there anything wrong with that?

Of course, the problem comes when I get upset at what I can't control.  I can take steps towards the ski trips (saving money, buying more bc gear, reading guidebooks, planning, etc.).  But I can't do anything about the lack of snowfall at my local mountain.  So, with that in mind, I present the modified Serenity Prayer:

Ullr, grant us the...
Serenity to accept things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference
Patience for the base depth to reach acceptable levels
Appreciation for the fact that it's winter and we're skiing, and
Tolerance for those who know not the joys of sliding on snow
Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our desk jobs and work obligations, the
Ability to feel the powder billow around us and our love for our bros and the
Strength to get up, brush off the snow, and try again in hopes that tomorrow will be even better than today.

Pray for (Natural) Snow?

This past Saturday kicked off my instructing duties for the year (two level 1’s).  And Sunday marked the first time that I’ve skied natural snow since October 16^th.  Vive la différence.

I have always said that natural snow is better.  It looks better, it skis better, and it melts better (spring corn instead of degraded ice chunks).  I tried to look up some hard statistics to back up my feelings, but all I found were scientific journal entries like this:

A theory is developed to explain the transition from regular plates to dendritic stellar crystals; the corners sprout when material from the vapour phase arrives at corners more rapidly than it can be carried away by surface diffusion and occurs only when the diameter of the plate exceeds a critical value d_c, ∝ D_s, /D_v, = x²_p, /D_v, where D_s, D_v, are the coefficients of surface and volume diffusion and x_p, is the surface migration distance on the (prism) edge of the plate. The predictions of the theory are compared with observations on natural snow crystals. Equations are derived for the growth rates of snow crystals as they fall through the atmosphere. The predicted maximum attainable diameters of the various shapes are in good agreement with observations

 Which is cool (if you like reading scientific journals), but it doesn’t really explain why natural snow feels so different.  Investigating further, I found this from the Wyoming Climate Atlas:

Mountain ski resorts augment natural snow cover with man made snow, especially during meteorological droughts. 28° F is the "magic number" for snowmaking. When the temperatures drop below this mark, snow production is greatly enhanced. Ten inches of natural snow, when packed, usually adds only one inch of snow to the ski slope’s base while 10 inches of man-made snow adds seven inches of base. Man-made snow is usually more dense and durable

 Okay, so now we’re getting somewhere.  Using a rough estimation, that means that normal Wyoming snow is about 10% water, but man made snow can approach 70% water.  Even if you consider that Eastern Snow has a slightly greater water content than Wyoming Snow (Wikipedia puts it at 15%), that’s still an enormous difference.  Imagine walking through a McDonald’s ball pit where 10% of the space was taken up by balls (and somehow they were floating all around you).  Then imagine a McDonald’s ball pit with 70% of the space taken up by balls.  Movement would be harder, you’d have to use more energy to get through, and the dynamic of how the balls interacted with each other would be completely changed.

That’s the problem with man made snow.  Every single man-made snowflake is heavier, denser, and more watery than its natural counterpart.  And since the number of snowflakes that fall in the world (naturally) is approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, that means that you are skiing through an awful lot of dense snowflakes.

But, I suppose it’s an early season sacrifice that we all have to live with.  This article on Syracuse.com does point out that man-made snow is good for one thing – base buildup:

Harris said man-made snow is more dense and durable. It will hold up better to the abuses of thaws and skis. At the same time, skiers love the natural pow[d]er. Its softer and more fun, Harris said. The idea is to lay down a heavy base of the man-made snow and let the natural snow top it off.

“Then you’ve got the best of both worlds,” Harris said

Can’t argue with that.  Ski areas have to strike the right balance between natural and man-made.  And every mountain is different.  What works for Mad River Glen won’t necessarily work for Hunter.  I guess when it comes to snow, I’d prefer that Gore would heed the words of Saint Augustine:

"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." 

The Decision

While the life of a ski bum is difficult, the life of the “weekend warrior” is agonizing, especially around this time of year.  It was one thing when the trip reports came from out west.  But now, they’re hitting pretty close to home.  December is when I first start tossing ideas around in my mind, planning adventures, and plotting escapes.  And it usually comes down The Decision: what I should do vs. what I want to do.

Sure, I should just stay in the office; banking time, getting things done, and saving my vacation days for February, March, and April (when the snowpack will be deeper, the days will be warmer, and my skiing muscles will be stronger).  But that’s not what I want to do.  I want to drive up to Stowe or Jay, strap on some skins, and start climbing.  My adventure itch hasn’t been scratched yet, and Saturdays on people packed groomers just aren’t doing it for me.  I want to get out.  I want to live my life.

This is the problem: I have to work.  I have bills to pay, my house needs repairs, and I need to put money towards retirement.  But I want to be able to get up and go at any moment, spend all my money on gas and gear, and take full advantage of every single second of daylight so that each night I can look back and say, “Damn.  That was a good freakin’ day.”

This is the kind of thing that people struggle with for their entire lives, I guess.  A recent study found that people are increasingly dissatisfied with their work/life balance:

According to the APA study, 39 percent of those surveyed expressed satisfaction with their work-life balance, compared to 42 percent in 2009. Furthermore, for the third year in a row, money, work and the economy topped Americans' list of worries. 

We need money to live The Life, and we need jobs to get money.  But then the jobs get in the way of The Life.  And that’s why some people will never be satisfied with their work-life mix.  People will always have to balance their needs and their wants, their responsibilities and their desires, their present and their future.  

All I can ask for is a situation like I have: A fulfilling job, a solid amount of time off, a decent salary, and the chance that, at the end of some of my work days, I can dust off my hands and say “Damn.  That was a good freakin’ day.”

It doesn’t save me from having to make The Decision, but it does make The Decision harder.

(I guess there are worse problems to have).

In a somewhat related note, I was thinking about these types of job-related issues earlier this year, and I wrote a short article for the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Eastern Division Newsletter that some people might be interested in.  It’s mainly written for ski instructors, but it goes into some of the attributes that make one job better than another.  It can be found on the PSIA-E website here (PDF, scroll down to page 22 and look for "Lessons from The Economist")

Inspiration

In keeping with my new philosophy of living in the moment, I’m trying to stop and look around a little more in my regular life. It’s amazing what you miss when you’re so focused on “other stuff” (responsibilities, relationships, random tasks, etc.). I’m trying to dial back the “stuff” and dial up the surroundings – not just at the ski area, but everywhere. It’s weird, too. I guess that snowboarder texting on his cell phone (while completely oblivious to everything else around him) is pretty representative of the whole world. A respectable news source reported that Americans spend 90% of their time staring at glowing rectangles. And it’s true. This just about perfectly sums up my life these days:

According to the report, staring blankly at luminescent rectangles is an increasingly central part of modern life. At work, special information rectangles help men and women silently complete any number of business-related tasks, while entertainment rectangles—larger and louder and often placed inside the home—allow Americans to enter a relaxing trance-like state after a long day of rectangle-gazing.

So really, am I any better than the guy on the snowboard? He’s just doing what I’m doing in a different place (a place that I’ve decided to keep rectangle free).

I think that a lot of it has to do with personality. Certain people have to be connected at all times. Even when they’re not connected, they’re keeping careful tabs on their activities so that when they do connect again, they can quantify their achievements and claim their comeuppance. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy reading about their accomplishments. This dude, who skied 2557 days in a row at the time of this article, probably has some great stories to tell. And 2,000,000 vertical foot skier Greg Hill, who’s described in his bio as a "numbers guy", has some stellar trip reports from his past year’s worth of “work”.

But I’ve never been a numbers guy. I don’t keep track of vertical feet, number of runs, or even number of days. I’m out for the pure enjoyment. A good day is a day that I have a smile on my face. One of my favorite blogs lately is Volks on Bikes. It’s about a pair of brothers and their dad who are riding their bikes from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. They only post about once a week because they are out having adventures that most people could only dream about. The posts are short on information and long on pictures. Short on numbers and long on experiences.

That’s the kind of life I want to lead. I don’t need to see how many miles I rode, I need to see what I saw when I was riding.

 
I don’t need to remember how many vertical feet I skied, I need to remember the look on Ace's face when we drop into the trees for the first time of the year.

I don’t need to know how many days I was in New Zealand, I just need to know how it felt to cliff jump into the ocean.

So instead of staring at glowing boxes, I want to be out doing things. Instead of being connected, I want to be disconnected. Instead of posting numbers, I want to post life.  I don’t have to look far for inspiration either. On my blogroll on the right, Jill Outside, who has completed the Great Divide Race and the Iditarod Trail Invitational on her bike, continues biking and trail running through the winter months (impressive). And the Vanessa Aadland (the hot skier chick that I posted about earlier) has this post that consists entirely of photos of her conquering mountain peaks (sick).

If I want to create blog posts that inspire others the way these posts inspire me, then I’m going to need to pull myself away from the glowing rectangles, get outside and have some freaking adventures.

Game On.

In The Moment

As the first few trip reports of the season float in, I want to try and reset a little bit.  I’ve been feeling a little down lately.  It’s nothing particular, but November (for some reason), always inspires a general feeling of sadness and self doubt.  Am I doing the right things with my life?  Am I where I want to be with my career, my family, and my goals?  Am I happy?  Every other time of year, the answer to these questions is almost always a resounding “Yes”.  But for some reason, November is different.  Maybe it’s the Squaw Valley trip reports that I read, maybe it’s the financial crush of the holidays, or maybe it’s the dreary gray days, but I always question whether I live in the “right” place, have the “right” job, or feel the “right” way.  It’s not that I plunge myself into a deep depression, I just start to question myself.  And whenever questions are asked, I feel compelled to come up with a definitive answer (even if a lot of things have no correct “answer”).  Sometimes, this gets me into trouble.  Because I’m always questioning and researching and generating future scenarios in my mind, I lose the ability to back up, relax, take a deep breath, and just be content with the present.     

But this all changes with the first ski day.  Skiing, more than any other sport, puts me in a perfect, zen like state of mind.  When I’m riding my road bike, I still think of bills I have to pay, people I have to talk to, or meetings I have to attend.  On skis it’s different.  I’m paying attention, I'm alert, and I'm focused on the task at hand.  I’m not thinking about my job, thinking about my life, or thinking about other places that I could be.  I’m centered.

I don’t know too much about Buddhism (or any religion, for that matter), but I found a list of quotes relating to the concept of living in the present.  This one stuck out:

Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That’s what meditation is all about: being a child again — a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing.

Maybe that’s why skiing is so great for me.  It really allows me to be a child again.  I do the same things now that I always did on skis.  I find fun lines, I go fast, I jump, I fall down, I get back up, and I do it again.  I look around, I explore new terrain, I follow tracks into the trees, and I try new things.  And I am happy.

Obviously, the concept of living in the present is nothing new.  But this article from the Guardian (UK) is.  Money quote:

Psychologists at Harvard University collected information on the daily activities, thoughts and feelings of 2,250 volunteers to find out how often they were focused on what they were doing, and what made them most happy.

They found that people were happiest when having sex, exercising or in conversation, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer. And although subjects' minds were wandering nearly half of the time, this consistently made them less happy.

The team conclude[d] that reminiscing, thinking ahead or daydreaming tends to make people more miserable, even when they are thinking about something pleasant.

Even the most engaging tasks failed to hold people's full attention. Volunteers admitted to thinking about something else at least 30% of the time while performing these tasks, except when they were having sex, when people typically had their mind on the job around 90% of the time

So skiing, for me, is like sex.  I’m totally focused and into it, I’m completely involved in the moment, and afterwards, I’m ready for a beer.  But seriously, living in the moment, no matter what you’re doing, seems to make you happier.

I was thinking about this today, and I was also thinking about a guy on a snowboard that I saw on Sunday.  He was coming down Sunway, right under the Gondola, carrying both gloves in one hand and staring into his phone.  He was actually text messaging while he was riding!  We joked about it for a little while, that this guy was so important, and that message was so critical that he couldn’t possibly wait until he got to the bottom (or at least stopped on the side of the trail).  But I guess that isn’t really the most important point.

The guy was taking himself out of the moment.  He could have been enjoying the rush of snowboarding, looking around for a fun feature to play with, or working on a skill to improve his riding.  But he wasn’t doing any of that.  He was staring at a little glowing box with words on it, and occasionally looking up to make sure he didn’t hit anyone.  It was ridiculous!

I guess everyone is free to enjoy the mountain as they see fit.  And maybe that guy had an awesome time and I’m just making a big deal out of something that seems to be an increasingly common sight on the slopes.  But for me, I’m happiest when I’m not connected to the outside world.  I’m happiest when the only things in my vision are trees and powder.  I’m happiest when I’m skiing. 

Get Well, Hot Skier Chick

Over on Vanessa Aadland's blog, the last few posts have been some of the most depressing/encouraging things I have ever read on the internet.

Here's the post from November 20th:

Today was opening day at Alta. I have been looking forward to this day for a MINUTE! I spent most of my day skiing Wildcat but also got some fun laps off Collins lift. The snow was smooth hero snow and there was so many fun features because of early season snow pack! It was great to see so many old friends again.

And it's accompanied by a picture that's awesome (mostly because you rarely see many girls at ski areas, let alone groups of hot chicks, skiing November 20th, and looking like they are having an awesome time).

Then, the following day, she posts this picture:

And the story behind it (she broke her back on her very first attempt at a back flip).

Then, after hearing from more doctors, she posts her "heal fast game plan".  Finally, just as I was thinking that I couldn't possibly love this girl's attitude and spirit in the face of adversity any more, she posts the GoPro video of the day it happened:


Vanessa Aadland, Decide What to Be. from Robin Abeles on Vimeo.

I don't know who she is, but this girl is awesome.  Definitely add her blog to your list of internet reading material.  Get Well soon, Vanessa.

Cliques

It seems like mountain people (and people in general) have always had an "us vs. them" attitude.  Hikers vs. Mountain Bikers.  Power boat enthusiasts vs. paddlers.  Snowmobilers vs. Environmentalists.  Natives vs. Transplants. Locals vs. Tourists.  Hooray for our side, "Screw You" to their side.

At ski areas, the famous feud (blindly repeated by the media and 2-day-per-year perpetual intermediates) is between Skiers and Snowboarders.  I used to think that it was a young vs. old thing, and that once younger snowboarders grew up, older skiers would change their attitude from "get off my lawn" to "sick backside rodeo, bro" (okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration).  But, for some reason, snowboarders seem to want to keep the feud going.  And some skiers are falling into the trap.  Here's a cool video by Mike Douglas about the history of freeskiing:
      

Like I said, cool video, but why the animosity towards snowboarders?  "I think I'm gonna puke"?

And then I got to thinking that I don't really ride with that many snowboarders.  Maybe it has to do with the mountain I ski (Gore has a lot of flats, and for that reason, Snowboarders and Skiers generally populate entirely different sections).  Or maybe I just am locked inside a tight little bubble of people that I ski with, and that is hindering my ability to branch out.

I think it's more likely the latter.  In fact, I don't ride with many groups of people that are very dissimilar to myself.  Mostly, I hang out with other instructors, tree-skiing badasses, and park kids (who also ski all mountain).  I rarely ski with Patrollers, and I never ski with intermediates and below (unless I'm teaching a lesson or with my parents).  I bet it's like that for most people.  Tele skiers ski with tele skiers.  Race parents ski with other race parents.  Boarders ride with other boarders.

And I guess there's nothing I really want to do to change that.  People ride with the people they are most comfortable riding with, and far be it for me to complain about that.  I definitely roll with a certain crew, but I'm up for skiing with anyone (so if you see me on the mountain, give a shout).  If you don't want to ski with me, then that's cool too.  I'm generally a "live and let live" kind of person.  I think everyone would be a lot better off if we just stayed out of other people's business.  So, when a snowboarder says "skiing wouldn't be cool if snowboarding wasn't around", just let it go, Mike Douglas.  And if someone lights a cigarette on your chairlift, maybe you can survive the 8 minutes (or ask him nicely to put it out) instead of banning cigarettes from the entire mountain, Pico Mountain.  And if someone is going too fast in a slow zone, maybe you can give a stern warning or a clipped ticket, instead of fining them $1,000 and throwing them in Jail for 6 months, Park City.

Ski areas are supposed to be fun.  People pay a lot of money to relax, get outside, and enjoy a nice winter day away from their other obligations.  So this season, try to be cordial to everyone at the mountain, regardless of what group you fall into.

And if you don't like that, Screw You.

On Ski Bums

Being a “ski bum” is hard.  The few available jobs are low-paying, living in a ski town is expensive, and there’s a decided lack of females.  Here’s a recent article from the Sacramento Bee (h/t Harvey Road):

Not just at Sierra resorts but throughout the West, cradle of the early 1970s ski-bum culture. [Jeremy] Evans argues that Aspen, Jackson Hole, Park City, Telluride and, yes, Tahoe have morphed into playgrounds of the rich – no longer gathering places for those who reject materialism for the hedonistic pleasure of the snowy descent.

One casualty of skiing's growing affluence, he asserts, is that the ski bum, who once could cobble together a life and maybe someday buy a home in a resort town, is being shut out of jobs by nonskiers just needing work to support their families – the preferred work force for resorts taken over by large corporations.

Okay, but by the power Google (“I have the POWER!!!”), maybe this isn’t such a new phenomenon after all.  Here’s an article from Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 1970:

Life, seen through their rose-colored goggles, is indisputably groovy although the housing situation in these ski resorts is tight and life as expensive as in any American city.

Gary Lambeth, 24, of Springfield, Mo., drove his white Corvette to Aspen a month ago with a friend, Su Gathright of Los Angeles.  Su works as a salesgirl for $1.25 an hour and Gary does construction work, mostly shoveling snow.

 The article mentions that one guy lived in a $400 a month apartment that he shared with 3 friends.  It also says that the new “fiber glass skis” (the “Zebra ones” if you’re “in”) were $200 and plastic “flo” boots (which reportedly “mold to the foot”) were $165.  Skiing has always been an expensive sport, usually practiced in expensive areas of the country.  I’m just glad that I don’t have to work 80 hours to afford rent for the month, 132 hours to afford ski boots, and 160 hours to buy a set of skis.  Food and clothing were much more expensive (relative to income) back then as well.

Ahh, but what about immigrant labor, you ask?  They took our jobs!!!!  Well, it seems that isn’t a new phenomenon either.  Here’s a 1979 article from famed New York Times columnist Molly Ivins (back when she was just a reporter):

The ski bum shortage in the great Western resorts has reached such a crisis that resort owners are importing Vietnamese and Filipinos to take up the slack.  The help-wanted columns of local papers run on for pages and good old-fashioned college dropouts seem to be hard to come by.

“The kids just aren’t dropping out like they used [to],” complained J. Richard Elias, general manager of the Manor Vail Lodge in Vail. “The sharp kids are more serious, staying in college and then hanging on to jobs.  There used to be a great underground of kids just passing through and willing to work, but it’s been drying up.”

Whether this generation of college students is in fact more serious than its predecessors is open to question.  What is clear is that the economics of ski-bumming have taken a radical turn for the worse.

So the ski bum has always been in danger!

Really, though, aren’t we just seeing the same story repeated over and over again?  Ski towns are expensive (that 1979 New York Times article mentioned that a room cost in Aspen cost $260 a month, and one bedroom condos were between $80,000 and $150,000 - outrageous!!).  Wages are low.  People are barely scraping by.

And the reason that “ski bumming” is expensive is that it’s desirable.  People want to live in the mountains.  People want to ski all day and party all night.  People want to live a life of (relative) leisure.  Resorts, hotels, and restaurants can afford to pay minimum wage because they’ll always have people looking for jobs, especially in a down economy.  Here’s the Sacramento Bee story again:

[Russ] Pecoraro, Heavenly's spokesman, said the resort has "pulled out of recruiting in international markets this year. With the job market the way it is, there are plenty of candidates right here."

Indeed, interspersed in the long line of locals seeking full-time employment at the job fair were pockets of people seeking to live the ski-bum dream. They were easy to spot, mostly younger and chugging energy drinks in the early-morning chill.

 Luckily, I’ve discovered the solution to minimum wage dishwashing jobs, cramped accommodations and ketchup soup dinners.  The key is to become a “brofessional”.  Here’s a commenter to the New York Times:

“When a ski-bum ‘bro’ goes ‘pro’ – he becomes a ‘brofessional.’ For example, my good friend recently stopped being a seasonal fishing guide and ski patroller to become a salaried general manager of a fishing lodge. He’s become a brofessional. Many brofessionals start their own businesses, but you have to stay within the accepted cultural norms of the trade you are in to keep the ‘bro’ going. (This is all part of a larger vernacular called brobonics.) On a quick search, it seems that some say being a brofessional is simply being a highly-advanced ‘bro.’ It’s all pretty silly.

Indeed.

So the answer to all of your ski bum problems is to move from “bro” to “brofessional”.  You’ll command a higher salary, still be able to live in that sweet ski town, and you can stop poaching food from half eaten trays in ski lodge cafeterias.  You can have the best of both worlds!  Just make sure to keep rocking the Zebra skis.

Equipment (Part II)

After that blatant bit of gear whoring, I wanted to talk about a recent article on skiingbusiness.com focusing on the vast amount of ski gear available, its high price, and the resulting confusion/frustration of many people who would like to get into the sport.  Quote: 

It begs the question of whether or not the ski industry is in a downward spiral, following in the neoprene socks and sneakers of the windsurfing and tennis industries.

...

Much as windsurfing manufacturers did, ski makers often primarily market gear for hardcore skiers, which can push costs too high for recreational skiers who can be confused or discouraged by too many technical features and jargon. (Ski technology and marketing also play a role in increasing costs.)

 I completely agree.  Unlike the average consumer, I live skiing, and I love gear.  I devour the Powder, Freeskiing, and Ski Magazine gear guides every fall.  My google reader feed follows the TGR forums, where most of the posts are skis, boots and bindings being put up for sale in the Gear Swap section (other posts are decidedly less helpful . . . By the way, an amusing article on various outdoor oriented internet forums here).  Whenever a ski that I don’t know comes up for sale, I research the dimensions, flex and camber profile immediately, to see if I might “need” it someday.

And even I have no idea what’s going on with most skis.  Every time I go into a shop, I see next year’s big thing, the G3 IQ 9.8 Radict FX SLX (or whatever).  What the hell are all of those letters?  It’s no wonder that people get confused.  I’d hate to be the shop tech trying to explain the subtle differences between models to a gear buying novice (“Well, the Prophet Flite is a great ski, but the Prophet 90, with the exact same dimensions and $100 more, has an extra layer of metal that will really take your skiing to the next level”).  Why can’t ski companies just name their skis in the way that they will be used?  All Mountain 85 would be a great name for a ski.  It tells me the waist width and the intended purpose of the ski.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have an entire line like this?  Slalom Race 68, Park Twin 83, Rocker Pow 110.

But that would be too easy.  I think that, in a sense, we kind of asked for this.  As participants in a gear intensive sport, we want to feel like our gear knowledge is superior to the next guy (“Oh, you don’t know the difference between K2’s Speed Rocker and Rossignol’s AmpTek?  For shame!”).  And we have a strong predilection towards the latest and greatest.  For some people, it’s nice to be two steps ahead of the crowd.  But I don’t see gear heads and hardcore athletes ruining skiing for everyone else.

I would guess that the ski industry is less like the windsurfing business, and more like the bike business.  Like bikes, low level skis can be purchased at Dick’s and Sports Authority.  But those skis (and bikes) can only be used for so long.  When you start to get serious about the sport, then you find a specialty shop, become familiar with the staff, make various purchases, get some fitting done, go for tune jobs every once in a while, and refer your friends to the place.  Then, the shop hooks you up with deals, demos, and freebies when they get some schwag.  I suppose that’s the way things should work (save for the random “can’t miss” internet deal).  Ski Shops, Bike Shops, and Shops, in general, need customers.  And if the hardcore participants in a sport no longer frequent the shops that support said sport, what do we have left? 

Plus, there’s something really nice about the feel of a good ski shop.  Ski magazines strewn about, fireplace with real wood burning, shiny new gear perched on the walls.  And when you have a problem with your gear (as I always do), you can talk to an actual person face to face (instead of a goofy photograph popping up in an internet window).  You might even get them to explain what the hell is going on with the AC50 + iPT Wide Ride Bindings.