Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

Technician James Schrimsher, right, goes over the adjustments on 17-year-old Josh Paige’s new snowboard at The Ski Shop. Photo by Mike Christy, The Gazette

BY R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
THE GAZETTE

Walking into a ski shop can be a dizzying experience.

Row upon row of skis and snowboards greet the eye, a blazing, multi-colored smorgasbord. There are more shapes, sizes and types than ever before. Camber, reverse camber, powder, park, twin tip. What does it all mean?

“As a guy who’s worked in two snowboard factories and doing this for 20 years, I’m overwhelmed,” said Jon Easdon, owner of Blindside, a west-side snowboard shop. One snowboard brand he sells comes in seven types, all with the same graphics.“You open up a buyer’s guide and it’s like, ‘What?’” he said.

In the spirit of the season, that magical time of year when holiday shopping and skiing meet, we offer a guide to finding the right winter sports gear for you or those on your shopping list.

No guide can replace actually going to a shop or testing gear through a daily rental. In an industry growing more nuanced each season, all the old formulas of matching height and weight to a set of skis or a snowboard are out the window. But perhaps this can be your starting point.

Skis
It’s been said many times in these pages, but it bears repeating: Boots are the single most important part of your gear. If they are uncomfortable, all the powder in the world won’t make it a good day.

Rick Uhl, owner of The Ski Shop in Colorado Springs, said great strides have been made in ski boot technology.

“Six years ago, we were stretching a lot of boots, trying to get the boot in place,” he said.

Boots have a “flex rating.” The better the skier, the stiffer the boot. Uhl recommends a rating of 120 for experts, down to 50 for beginners.

Picking a comfortable boot is the easy part. Picking skis can be a lot harder.

Once upon a time, skiers had one set of skis, and it was easy to size skis based on your height from toe to nose.

But more skiers are embracing the quiver concept, having several pairs of skis geared toward different conditions — skinnier skis for early- and late-season groomer runs, fatties for powder days. And when choosing skis, your weight and the type of skiing you do are just as important. Skiing the steep and deep? Look for wide skis. Like to catch air? Consider twin tips.

The concept of beginner skis, traditionally narrow planks for running groomers, is changing, too. The skinniest skis Uhl sells are 74 centimeters wide under-foot, whereas a decade ago they would have been 60.

Uhl advises beginners to look for intermediate skis, because they’ll only be beginners for a few days.

And he suggests they look for “rockered” skis. The latest innovation in skis, “rockered,” or reverse camber, means the tips are curved up — not great for the icy runs of the East Coast but perfect for floating on Colorado powder.

Snowboards
Reverse camber has also come to snowboards, and Easdon said his shop’s entire rental stock is made up of the curved-tip design. Unless someone plans to spend most of his or her time at the terrain park, he recommends riders go that route.

But like skis, there isn’t any easy formula for fitting a rider with a board. Since reverse-camber boards limit how much surface touches the snow, board length can easily be shorter than a rider’s height.

It gets more complicated for “park rats.” A stiff board is for the half-pipe. A softer, reverse camber board is for the rails. And a wide board is for jumps.

Snowboard boots have their own stiffness scale. While beginners and park-riders can opt for less-stiff boots, powder-hounds will want something more. And some boots, catering to the side-country craze in snow-sports, are loose up front and stiff in the back to allow hiking to hard-to-reach powder stashes.

Cross-country skis
Cross-country skis have been used for eons for winter transportation, but in just a few years the sport has come a long way from the slim planks ancient Scandinavians used.

“Forget the old twigs. Like all skis, they’re getting bigger,” said Ron Leasure, a skier and associate at outdoors shop Mountain Chalet in Colorado Springs.

In fact, some are as wide as what many downhill skiers learned on, 78 centimeters under-foot. Backcountry skiers are using them to downhill ski, albeit on mild terrain since turns are wide.

There’s no real formula for matching skis to a person. The type of use is more important.

Beginners should look for the traditional slim ski and find somewhere flat to practice the kick-and-glide motion used in cross-country, such as Gold Camp Road, Mueller State Park or, in a heavy snow year, Fox Run Regional Park.

For those interested in deeper powder or wearing a large backpack, such as on a trip to a backcountry hut or yurt, a longer, wider ski will be needed, though it will take more effort to glide through the snow.

Leasure said cross-country skiing is being seen as a more affordable alternative to downhill skiing. A beginner package costs $350 at Mountain Chalet.

“People are starting to look at this as cheaper. It doesn’t’ cost a whole lot to go have fun in the snow with skis on their feet,” said Leasure.

Snowshoes
When a customer asks Pete Lardy, a Mountain Chalet sales associate, about snowshoes, the first thing he asks is where they’re going.

“Are you climbing to fourteeners or are you just going up to the Crags?” he said.

Snowshoes, another ancient mode of transportation, don’t have as much variety as skis or snowboards, and most are blissfully one-size-fits-all. There are essentially two types: recreational and backcountry.

Recreational snowshoes are smaller and lighter, good for walking on solid or packed snow without a lot of weight on your back. Backcountry snowshoes are larger to provide more “flotation” in the snow and have more teeth to grip the snow in steep terrain or deep snow. Many also come with a heel elevator, a clip that raises the heel and makes climbing easier.

Said Lardy, “It’s better to have a little larger snowshoe than a little less, especially if you’re going in the backcountry.”

Skiing poles or trekking poles can be used and no special boots are needed. With most snowshoes costing from $130 to $300, it’s the cheapest winter sport to get into.

Buying or renting?
Easdon had been skateboarding for years when he took up snowboarding, but he still fell on his face all day.

That’s why he recommends beginners rent their gear instead of buy.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to see a ton of people pull the trigger on stuff and then they don’t like it, and that’s a bummer,” he said.

“You want to make sure you like it because it’s a pretty big investment.”

Other experts interviewed agreed.

Shops rent basic gear and some count money spent on “demo” skis and snowboards toward an eventual purchase.

Rental prices for skis and snowboards usually range from $20 to $35 for the first day. Renting from a shop in town tends to be cheaper than renting on the mountain.

Many shops also offer seasonal rentals, $100 to $150 for the season, but these are popular and tend to sell out early, especially for kids’ gear.

At Mountain Chalet, snowshoes rent for $15 the first day and cross-country ski packages for $20 the first day.

Manager Scott Uhl, right, helps 16-year-old Zech Paige gather a foot profile for custom boot insoles at The Ski Shop.  Mike Christy, The Gazette

New gear or used gear?
A skier’s next internal debate usually is whether to buy used or new, which for skis especially can carry quite a sticker shock.

Most retailers sell last year’s rental gear for deep discounts, though Uhl, at The Ski Shop, said a key concern is how many times the gear was rented.

Gear from a shop in town might go out 10 or 20 times, while skis rented at a resort or ski town could be a lot further along in their useful lifetime of about 100 ski days.

Definitely find out before buying any used gear online.

You can find great bargains buying last year’s models.

Staying warm and staying cool
Accessories change as often as other gear, and this year retailers are seeing brighter outerwear, the demise of tight-fitting snow pants and cylindrical “bug-eyed” goggles to allow for peripheral vision. More skiers than ever before are buying helmets.

And, of course, mittens.

“Mittens are making a huge comeback,” said Easdon.

Said Uhl, “Mittens are warmer, but more awkward.”

Buying in a recession
Despite the sluggish economy, Colorado ski resorts had a banner year last year, thanks to record-setting snowfall. And retailers say people kept spending money on gear, they’re just buying it piecemeal, maybe boots one year and skis the next.

“When it comes to something like the economy …. (People are saying) ‘This is important and whatever the problems are that are going on with the economy, I’m going to the mountain,” said Easdon. “I may not buy that new model (snowboard) or whatever, but I’m going.’”
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Contact R. Scott Rappold: 476-1605
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