Ice Ice Baby

By: In: Equipment, Skiing, Technique

Quite a few of us do not have the pleasure of skiing in soft powder snow all that often, in fact, many of us in the Midwest and on the East Coast often experience skiing on ice. I am not being figurative, I am being literal.

Rarely are the runs solid ice from top to bottom, but more often we ski across patches of exposed ice. What I find is the ice patches often become exposed on the more difficult trails especially on approaches to headwalls, quite predictably skiers & boarders of lesser ski and experience skid on the headwall approach and scrape off the snow from the underlying ice.

What is a skier to do?
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New to Skiing? Equipment Advice for You

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

So, you want to learn how to downhill ski? Good for you! Downhill skiing is an activity that has many benefits, one of the largest is it turns winter from a period of dread to one of joy.

So the question then becomes what gear and equipment do you need.
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Wisconsin Based Ski/Snowboard Industry

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

No one sees Wisconsin as a ski destination, but as my existence proves there is ski industry within the state, from my site, to my Buddy and his Kwik Strap, to FK-Tools Ski and Snowboard Tuning Equipment!

FK-Tools is actually a German company, but their US importer and distributor is based in Kenosha WI! I did not know that until today! Cool!

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Repairing Ski Bases

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

Definitely for ALL skiers

For All Skiers

Ski bases should be smooth to the touch. However, we all know that that since they are running over surfaces they are open to the risk of getting gouged by things in the snow. What things? Who knows, maybe hardware from the groomer, gravel during spring skiing, rocks & stones during late spring skiing, your four year old, whatever, things do happen.

Fortunately, gouges in the surface of your ski are easy to repair.
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Waxing the Skis

By: In: Equipment, Skiing, Technique

For Intermediate Skiers

For Intermediate Skiers

One of the ski-related tasks I have been meaning to take on and do since the close of last ski season is to maintain my skis more diligently, or more like it to maintain them at all.

Last spring I took my first crack at it by sharpening my edges. However, I did not quite have the confidence to keep the edge I put on and took the skis in late fall. However, I discovered that waxing skis and filling in base gouges are easy tasks.
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Stolen Skis

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

Is something I have never had happen to me. However, right now, I’m in a situation where no one would want to bother with my skis, being over ten years old now and while I would like new skis, I’m okay with the not worrying about them being stolen.

I was at a ski resort once and came out of the tavern and went back for some more skiing. I spotted my skis and was about to grab them and an attendant asked me for my check ticket. I had none as the skis I was grabbing were nearly identical models to mine and only when I took a look at the poles did I notice the straps were not Kwik-Strapped up. I hate it when such incidents happen because my intentions were mistaken not dishonest.

However, I know other I have talked with have had problems with their skis being stolen, even here in the Upper Midwest and my father had a set of ski poles exchanged for a beat up pair of poles.

I have never left my gear at a check in and to date have had nothing stolen from myself. It is a shame.

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Helmet Review

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

Giro Seam Helmet

I have never skied with a helmet. That changed last weekend.

In my years of skiing I have crashed many times and only once did I get a blow to head and it was on hard pack, but the blow was not too hard. I checked myself for concussion and seems to me the fact I did that means I was not concussed.

However, from time to time we ski on literal ice and crashing on those ice patches could cause severe trauma to one’s head. Not to mention the possibility of catching an edge just long enough to send one into the trees or similar mishap
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Omni-Heat Columbia Jacket Review part II

By: In: Equipment, Skiing
omni-heat-titanium

Columbia's Omni-Heat Titanium Ski Parka — Epic Triumph!

This second part covers the jacket’s performance in the field under winter conditions. In a word: EpicTriumph!

Here are the conditions I was skiing in and that was from roughly 10:30 am to about 2:00 pm. The weather station collecting this data is about a 45 minute drive from where I was skiing, but conditions were similar. To sum up, we were skiing in temperatures around 6° F maximum and with good wind especially at the top of the resort and riding up certain lifts and skiing down certain runs.
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Columbia Omni-Heat Titanium Review

By: In: Equipment, Skiing

Time to refresh my Facebook skiing photo

I will be wearing a new ski jacket this season and you should consider it too! I recently obtained a Columbia Sportswear Company’s Omni-HeatTitanium ski & snowboard parka.

omni-heat-titanium

Columbia's Omni-Heat Titanium Ski Parka


This review is going to focus on the non-performance aspects of the jacket, that is style, fit, features, and comfort. How it performs in the wintery outdoors is a writeup I am going to submit to you later.

Read on!
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Product Review in the Works

By: In: Equipment

Yes, I have been solicited to demo, test, and review a ski gear product! I accepted (I’m easy that way folks) and the product arrived today, and so far the expectations are way exceeded. The product is out of the box, but not the plastic bag. I’ll start to remove it when I have more access to time and better photography conditions. Then I’ll put it on a backdrop to photo it.

I guess this product being my first will undergo a number of reports. I suppose the first will be the basics on fit, style, appearance, and a first review of comfort. Yeah, you can tell already it is an article of clothing.

When the first part of the review comes out I’ll let you all in on what the product is and the details. The product is an old ski clothing standby that has a new twist. The problem I face is the new twist needs some side by side comparison under colder conditions than we have now. In addition, I want to test this article while skiing, not just while strolling around my yard outside.

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