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Gear Review

The secret to keeping your feet warm on cold winter days is correctly fitted boots. When buckled, correctly fitted boots should feel like a firm handshake – they should be snug, with no pinching, but room for your toes to wiggle. Rental shops often rent customers boots up to three times too large to insure a comfortable fit. As the liners mold to your feet, you have to keep cinching down the buckles to prevent your heel from lifting in the boot. The result is a boot that cuts off circulation – that means cold feet.

A single pair of comfortable socks will also help to insure that your feet stay warm and dry. Look for blends of wool and synthetic materials that allow feet to breathe and wick away moisture. Smartwool makes an affordable, lightweight ski sock worn by many professionals. They’re thick enough to keep your feet warm, but thin enough to allow for a proper boot fit.

Relocation

For many baby boomers about to retire (and even younger workers who aren’t), the thought of spending mornings in lift lines instead of traffic makes moving to the mountains this time of year an attractive fantasy. Just think of it: Living minutes from the slopes instead of hours. Skiing 100 days a year instead of six. Enjoying a white Christmas every year instead of one out of every 10. Are you up for it?

Before you put your house on the market and pack your bags, it’s important to research taking up residence in a mountain community versus living where you are now. Enjoying resort-town living 365 days a year is a lot different than getting through a 10-day vacation with the kids. There’s maintaining your job (if you’re still working), the cost of living, the weather, healthcare, working and whether or not you still have children in school. Just about everything you take for granted in the city will become an adventure when living in a high-altitude resort community.

Skiing and Snowboarding

“C’mon, honey. You can ski this. It’s only a black diamond.”

Listening to this kind of advice is one sure way to wreck a day on the slopes or, possibly, a marriage.

Unlike other winter sports like ice-skating and snowshoeing, alpine skiing is not something that’s easy to pick up on your own. Even with advancements like plastic ski boots, shorter, shaped skis and groomed terrain, learning how to ski is not for the faint of heart. But there is good news. You can, of course, learn how to ski.

According to the National Ski Area Association of America, there are more than 473 ski areas across the country. Whether it’s a small local hill or a large destination resort, nearly all of them have ski schools staffed by professional instructors.

Gear

Up until recently, most skis were made basically the same – when placed base down on the snow, skis made contact just behind the tip and ahead of the tail (traditional contact points or TCP), with the region under foot arching off of the snow (standard camber). The idea behind standard camber is to make skis more lively, rebound faster after unweighting and make them easier to turn and edge. While racers and aggressive recreational skiers applauded camber for making skis easier to carve and control on hard surfaces, others complained that camber made it more difficult to initiate turns and easier to catch edges.

Like many other ski concepts, rocker technology is borrowed from the snowboard industry. The theory is, if you soften the tips and the tails of the skis where they first make contact with the snow, it’s easier to initiate turns. And since the skis with rocker technology are usually softer and longer than traditional skis, they float through powder and crud, while still maintaining control on firmer surfaces.

Skiing and Snowboarding

In 2003, a British skier was brought up on manslaughter charges for colliding with an American skier in Breckenridge. According to court records, Robert Wills of Plymouth, England, hit Richard Henrichs with such force, that the collision sent Henrichs out of his skis and into a tree 5 feet away. He later died of his injuries.

In another case, the parents of 8-year-old Scott Swimm were sued by 60-year-old David Pfahler of Allentown, Pa., when Swimm allegedly skied into him from behind at a high rate of speed, causing him to crash and injure his shoulder.

“What my husband and I are actually focusing on is trying to get skier legislation changed so that children under the age of 10 are exempt from the Ski Safety Act, because why do we expect our 8-year-old children to be held to the same standard as you and I?” Swimm’s mother said. She was referring to the Colorado Ski Safety Act of 1979, signed into legislation for the purpose of defining reasonable safety standards for the operation of Colorado ski areas and the skiers using them.

Event Preview

Mention the resort Beaver Creek and most skiers think of heated sidewalks leading to the family ski area, slopeside escalators and free chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day. But, there’s a nasty underbelly to Beaver Creek that rears its head every February: the Talons Challenge.

On Feb. 26, Beaver Creek Resort will host the 8th annual Talons Challenge, showcasing some of the steepest, hairiest and bump-covered runs in the Western United States. Participants with their own bucket list can challenge themselves on 13 runs and 24,000 vertical feet of black-diamond and double-black-diamond runs. While skiing 13 runs of with bumps the size of Volkswagens may seem challenging enough, there is a caveat – you have to complete them all in one day.

Advice for Tourists

Besides the spectacular views of the Rocky Mountain West in the winter time, one aspect of traveling here to ski is high-altitude sickness. No one really knows exactly why some are affected while others aren’t, but experts do have a good handle on its causes and what you can do about it.

At sea level, your blood is approximately 97 percent saturated with oxygen. Blood transports oxygen to active muscles while skiing and, more important, to your brain. Even the slightest drop in oxygen levels of the brain can leave you with acute symptoms like a headache, vertigo and general lethargy – not a great way to feel on the first day of your vacation. If you’re traveling to high altitude resorts over 10,000 feet above sea level, the oxygen in your blood becomes “thinner,” dropping as low as 90 percent. To put this into perspective, climbers on Mt. Everest (at 29,000 feet above sea level) can experience oxygen saturation as low as 42 percent. To compensate for low oxygen availability, both your breathing and heart rate start increasing. Even visitors arriving at Denver International Airport (elevation 5,280) begin to experience breathlessness, rapid heart rates and headaches. 

Gear Tips

It’s easy to name the top three items you need for a successful day of skiing: skis, boots and poles. But did you know there are a few things that can ruin your vacation faster than leaving your boot bag at the baggage claim?

Here are some tips snow pros recommend to their students for a happy, safe ski trip. Most cost less than $20.

Skis are expensive. And, they don’t sell them in singles – so if you lose one, you have to buy an entire new pair. That’s why it’s so important to keep a pair of powder cords handy on days when the snow gets above your boot tops. Powder cords are brightly colored strips of fabric that you attach to the outside of your ski brakes. Stuff the rest of the cords up into the snow cuff of your pants and you’re ready to ski waist deep powder. Should one of your skis come off, it’ll be easy to find by following the end of cord back to its origin – your expensive skis. You can find powder cords in a variety of colors at your local ski shop for less than $10.

Skiing and Snowboarding

Arguably, one of the best ways to get in shape for ski season is to ski. Tough to do if you live in Phoenix, Ariz., and only ski twice a year. But there are some things you can do at home that specifically target the muscles you use while on the hill. Experts call this approach specificity of training.

Unlike cycling, climbing stairs and other exercises that build leg strength while extending the knee joint (called concentric muscle contraction), skiing requires muscular endurance that helps your legs work against the pull of gravity – akin to activities like walking downhill and descending stairs. Exercise physiologists call this eccentric muscle contraction. Some of the best ways to build eccentric muscle strength are running or hiking downhill, lunges and inverted leg presses using machines or free weights.

New West Analysis

When it comes to drawing attention to controversies and debates, celebrities often succeed where industry experts fail. The unfortunate death on March 18, 2009, of actress Natasha Richardson is a good example. Ms. Richardson suffered what appeared to be a minor head injury while taking a beginning ski lesson at Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Canada. She died two days later in a New York City hospital as a result of hitting her head on the snow during a fall – the type of injury that helmets are designed to reduce.

Ms. Richardson’s death rekindled the efforts of Michelle Courchesne, the Quebec sports minister, in requiring mandatory helmet use at Quebec ski areas. The United States ski industry experienced its own wake-up call after the deaths of Sonny Bono and Michael Kennedy in 1998. Since then, a number of ski-related organizations have come out in favor of skiers wearing helmets, but few have gone as far as issuing mandates. Yet, the case for helmets is clear.