Jackson Illuminates Everything about Skiing

The future of Alpine skiing, at least as we once knew it, looks to be in dire straits.  Herein, I outline Alpine skiing's seemingly inevitable fate. 

The Internet is awash with gurus, most of whom are spectacularly unqualified. Lest it go unnoticed, there is one source of information about Alpine skis upon whom one can rely. In this episode, I review a few of my qualifications as a gear guru. 

Despite my considerable efforts to suppress its popularity, The Making of a Skier has been a hit since Chapter One.  In a touching display of vulnerability, your venerable Pontiff of Powder reveals his heart-wrenching personal saga of slogging through the hell-scape of Nordic skiing, from which he emerged chastened but purified. 

If you really want to understand a particular ski model, it helps to understand the brand who made it. On Realskiers.com, we provide a brand profile for every model we review.  It's a member benefit, so visitors to our free, public site won't see them.  Consider this a look behind the velvet rope at all the goodies members receive. 

In this second part of a two-part podcast, I delve further into the minutia of ski equipment optimization.  Last week, I covered waxing, base structure and edge beveling.  This week, I explore the different options in Alpine boot soles, take a peek at binding standheight and ramp angle, address how a small shim can make a world of difference and talk about the variety of pole lengths that different skiers prefer. 

Realskiers.com will soon publish The Returning Skier's Handbook, to assist those who dropped out of skiing some time ago and have found their way back.  But their knowledge is trapped in amber, and is of precious little use today. The Returning Skier's Handbook attempts to close this knowledge gap in 12 brief chapters.  In this podcast, Jackson addresses the most important issues facing returning skiers.  Welcome back! 

There are several things you can do to optimize your precious time on the slopes, such as waxing the bases, structuring the base material and beveling your edges.  At the elite level - i.e., Alpine racing - such optimization techniques are incredibly complex, to the point that no mere citizen would attempt this level of care.  At the other end of the spectrum lies the time-honored method of doing absolutely nothing and hoping for the best. Somewhere in between these extremes lies a practical way to take good care of your gear.  In this two-part series, I illuminate the way forward. 

I published a Revelation in 2016 titled, Tales from the Boot Bench: Between Two Extremes, in which I related the stories of three different bootfit customers.  The two who exemplified the bottom of the service universe are still very much with us today; the exemplar of perfection turned out to be so rare he never actually materialized. Perhaps by re-telling their tales, we can help a few skiers avoid the worst pitfalls awaiting the prospective ski boot buyer.  

This year, Rossignol completely reconceived its core Experience line to suit the needs and expectations of a new sort of skier who treats skiing as but a part of his or her resort visit. In this episode of Jackson Illuminates Everything about Skiing, I pontificate about the ramifications of this emerging skier type. 

The specialty ski shop community has been shrinking for decades. Their last defense against the encroachment of the Internet is the bundle of skills that go into professional bootfitting. The best way to maintain the high standards needed for survival is formal training, and the best formal training in the U.S. comes from the folks at Masterfit University. An unparalleled faculty, well-conceived, hands-on training modules and the most comprehensive, non-ideological education available in this field make training by Masterfit the industry gold standard. Its four-stop U.S. tour kicks off next week in Colorado.  Even if you think you know it all, go.  I do so every year, and it always makes me better.