RealSkiers

In today's edition of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen - the final installment of the 23/24 season - I explore the current crisis facing the ski retail community in collaboration with today's guest, Gary Fleming, the newly anointed president of Winter Sports Retailers, an organization that represents over 300 locations in the U.S.

There's no going back to the good old days, no matter how much we may miss them. This tidy excursion into the past asks the pertinent question, is skiing better today, or worse?

Jonny Moseley’s Olympic gold medal at the Nagano Games in 1998 set the stage for a post-competition career that would be the envy of any athlete. Of course, a lot of athletes have followed a victory with a spot on late-night TV, as Moseley did on the David Letterman show, but not many are invited back, and even fewer go on to host their own show, as Moseley did for three years on MTV (which was a much more important entity then than now), or make the cover of Rolling Stone, or host Saturday Night Live, or segue into the announcing booth, as Moseley did for NBC at the Vancouver Olympics.

This is the amazing story of the incomparable Jonny Moseley.

It’s the New Year, often touted as a time for resolutions, for filing an amended flight plan for the trajectory of one’s life. It is in this spirit that today I’ve chosen to give voice to the Introduction to Snowbird Secrets, a pithy block of background information that isn’t included in its e-book version, and for all I know is routinely skipped over by those who consume this slender tome in print.

While its date of issue lies well in the past, the eternal verities of Snowbird Secrets are still largely unfamiliar to the skiing public, perhaps because its title suggests it simply reveals some of Snowbird’s less-well-travelled routes. But Snowbird Secrets isn’t really about Snowbird, or perhaps I should say, it isn’t just about Snowbird. Although Secrets can certainly be used as a guide to the mountain’s legendary powder stashes, its most important lessons apply to big mountain skiing wherever it is practiced.

Without further ado, permit me to regale you with the Introduction to Snowbird Secrets. I hope it will inspire a few of you to pick up a copy and let its lessons guide you to a better understanding, not just of how to ski, but of why you ski. I hope you enjoy the listen.

My guest today is Dave Bertoni, a curious choice, in that Dave currently has nothing whatsoever to do with the ski business, but today’s podcast isn’t about today’s ski trade, but explores its roots in the not-so-distant past. Did you ever wonder what became of the legendary Salomon rear-entry boot design that drove the two-piece overlap to the brink of extinction? Dave Bertoni knows, for he was at the meeting where the nails were driven into its coffin. Want to know the backstory behind the Salomon Spheric and Propulse binding designs or the creation of the first integrated ski/binding system, the Pilot?

Bertoni’s career would be notable for his achievements at Salomon alone, but his career in skiing didn’t begin or end there. Beforehand, he ran the Mary Jane Ski School on the backside of Winter Park, Colorado, and later ran the show at The Buyer’s Guide, the first internet interface between U.S. ski retailers and wholesalers, and co-created, along with yours truly, the comprehensive ski retail training program, Desperate Measures.

Today I’m interviewing the world’s foremost ski historian, Seth Masia, who is President of the International Skiing History Association and the Publisher of Skiing History since 2014, and its Editor since 2002. He is perhaps best known for his 20 years of service at SKI (from 1974 to 1993), mostly on the equipment beat, where he was a pillar of the ski media, in those days, a very big deal.

He segued from print to the cyber world when, between 1994 and 1996, he designed, built and launched skinet.com, the first consumer website. He capitalized on that experience with a three-year stint at Microsoft, followed by a year as director of Internet strategy at Intrawest, giving him a close-up view of one of the biggest resort conglomerates of its day.

Seth is also a Level 3 member of PSIA, logging long teaching stints at Squaw Valley (as it was then known), 22 years at Vail/Beaver Creek ski schools and Aspen/Snowmass. He also saw the ski market from the equipment supplier side, serving as alpine product manager at K2 (during my tenure at Snow Country) in 1993 through 1994. Currently, he serves as a marketing consultant for Wagner Custom skis, as he has since 2007.

Robin Barnes is a 4-term member of the PSIA National Alpine Team, and the Director of Skier Services at Heavenly Mountain resort, and the former Director of the Ski and Snowboard School in Portillo, Chile. Robin also serves as a Contributing Author and Reviewer for 32 Degrees Magazine, the official publication of the Professional Ski Instructors of America.

Barnes is a self-confessed skiing addict and rejoices in every kind of snow imaginable. “I love ripping it up in a GS course,” she says with her characteristic enthusiasm, “frolicking in the bumps, or tracking up fresh snow.”

I sought Robin out because her unique background has allowed her to see the world of ski instruction from every angle. She is the quintessential “real skier,” who, during her Portillo tenure would log 275 days a year on snow. I caught up to Robin at her office at Heavenly Valley, gearing up for the 2024/25 ski season, which is just getting under way.

My guest today is Thor Verdonk, the Technical Product Director for the Rossignol Group. You’ve probably never heard of him, but you’ve heard of the products he has helped to shepherd into the market, most recently the Lange Shadow.

The Shadow is unquestionably the biggest story in Alpine ski gear this winter. Bear in mind that Lange has been the epitome of the modern race boot for generations of racers. It’s probably the most imitated design in the post-war history of our sport. But the Shadow isn’t being touted because of its rich heritage, but for the degree to which it has departed from its ancestral roots. A boot design that for many years seemed trapped in amber pulled off the most ambitious re-design of the 2-piece, overlap shell since this primordial design’s inception.

There’s no way to answer the rhetorical question posed by this podcast’s title, but that Schaffner belongs on the short list of the world’s best bootfitters is irrefutable. His resume is bulletproof: he began modifying race boots for Salomon when its flagship boot was the rear-entry SX 90 Equipe, and he continues plying this arcane craft to this day. He has been an instructor for Masterfit University since its inception, has consulted with virtually every boot brand extant and has taken test runs in every Alpine boot made in the last 25 years.

When Jim Schaffner talks about boots, the people who make them listen. You should, too.

Guru Dave Powers is my cherished co-author of Snowbird Secrets, a modern mystic with a way of looking at the world that is both whimsical and profound. He shares his intimate knowledge of Snowbird in his daily snow reports at Gurudavepowers.com, a must-read for anyone who wants to catch the best snow on this magnificent mountain. He is, in a word, unique.