The ski market in America has devolved into a hot mess. One of the manifestations of its dysfunction is a clog in the pipeline from supplier to skier. This podcast takes a look at how we got into this predicament and invites my Dear Listeners' to share their thoughts on the subject. You can log your vision of how we get out this mess via the Member Consultation form on Realskiers.com. Non-members can also submit their thoughts through the General Contact request form.

In the spirit of rank commercialism, I’m offering to you, my Dear Listeners, the opportunity to donate some of your hard-earned revenue to Realskiers.com. I realize that most Black Friday offers arrive in the form of some sort of discounted goods or services, a trend this special offer reverses. I’m going to instead give you several good reasons why you should divert an extra allotment of your income to the good folks at Realskiers.com.

The following bit of tripe was recently re-published by Apple News after first appearing in the pages of Bloomberg’s online publication. It consists of unreadable drivel from end to end, and certainly isn’t worth paying to peek behind the Apple News pay-wall to investigate, so I’ve reiterated the text, verbatim, in this week’s edition of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen, which I shall recite as we visit its few paltry paragraphs of twaddle. My commentary runs alongside the original in red.

If you detect a tone of irritation mingled with impatience in my voice, it’s because this sort of crap gets under my skin. I don’t offer financial advice; I wish Bloomberg would stay out of my lane and resist the urge to comment on ski equipment that its writers clearly do not understand.

The following bit of tripe was recently re-published by Apple News after first appearing in the pages of Bloomberg’s online publication. It consists of unreadable drivel from end to end, and certainly isn’t worth paying to peek behind the Apple News pay-wall to investigate, so I’ve reiterated the text, verbatim, in this week’s edition of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen, which I shall recite as we visit its few paltry paragraphs of twaddle.

If you detect a tone of irritation mingled with impatience in my voice, it’s because this sort of crap gets under my skin. I don’t offer financial advice; I wish Bloomberg would stay out of my lane and resist the urge to comment on ski equipment that its writers clearly do not understand.

For some unfathomable reason, Bloomberg News decided to commission a small selection of ski and boot reviews for its elite readership. I only hope for its sake that none of their customers ski -and that fewer still know how to read - as it is hard to pack so much misinformation into such a compact collection of nonsense. Enjoy!

For some unfathomable reason, Bloomberg News decided to commission a small sampling of ski reviews for its elite clientele. I can only hope for Bloomberg's sale that none of its clients ski, or failing that safeguard, can read. It is a hopeless mishmash of inflated claims and outright misinformation. Enjoy!

Skiing isn’t for the faint of heart.

Neither is subjecting oneself to what is coyly referred to as “America’s Health Care System.” Hold that thought while I elaborate on point one, that a lifetime devoted to skiing is hard to navigate without occasionally experiencing a consequential impact with the planet or some other immovable object attached to it. If you ski long enough, you will eventually learn the meaning of terms like “laminectomy” and “stenosis.” If you don’t know these terms yet, please bear with me while I bring you quickly up to speed with those who know them all too well.

Welcome to another insightful conversation with Stu Winchester, who not only publishes the most thorough resort coverage in North America in his Storm Skiing Journal, he is perhaps the only true journalist reporting on the contemporary ski resort scene.

Most resort reviews are rubbish, full of gushing praise lest the “journalist” lose his or her all-expenses-paid access. Winchester focuses on the facts: the infrastructure, the daily and season pass rates, the terrain accessed by the resort’s lift system. He does not review a single plate of escargot or cite a quaint amenity that one simply has to see. Instead, he breaks down the particulars of the Ikon and Epic pass programs - analysis that could save a skier hundreds of dollars on their pass purchases - and is probably the only journalist to have interviewed the leaders of hundreds of ski areas.

As far as I know, October isn’t “National Buy Your Ski Boots Now” Month, but it should be. Carryover stock will never be more abundant, and new models will still have a full range of sizes, which won’t be true forever. Perhaps most importantly, bootfitters are also in relatively strong supply, so with any luck the one waiting on you won’t be juggling three customers at once. It’s a perfect storm of abundance: values on last year’s models, selection on this year’s new arrivals and personalized service are all at their peak.

Prof. John Seifert of Montana State University first popped up on my radar when I saw a video of a lecture he gave to the PSIA National Academy in 2019. That year, I published what I could glean from his presentation in a Revelation titled, Why Wide Skis Aren’t Good for Your Knees. Prof. Seifert went on sabbatical at the end of that school year and we drifted out of touch. We recently reconnected and I’m glad to say we picked right up where we had left off.

We’ll pick up the thread of Prof. Seifert’s thesis in today’s podcast, along with a deep dive into the field Dr. Seifert first explored on the aforementioned sabbatical, namely the equipment used in mountaineering and its latest incarnation, skimo. If you haven’t heard what’s going on in this newly minted Olympic sport, suffice it to say it is an extreme form of alpine competition that I think will intrigue and fascinate those of us who merely ski downhill.