RealSkiers

Did you know today is National Make a Donation Day? To mark the occasion, we’ve installed a Tip Jar at Realskiers.com. I’m pretty sure that no public-service organization neither needs nor merits your financial support more than Realskiers.com. Send your substantial donation today, and reap the bountiful rewards in the Afterlife that are almost certain to follow.

The whole point of having ski categories is to compare skis that are meant for the same terrain and associated skier type. Once you start making comparisons across category boundaries, all coherence to any commentary goes out the window.

Today’s exercise skirts this prohibition by posing a different question: Not which skis are best for a given skier in a given genre, but which skis possess traits that allow it excel in ways that transcend the limitations of its genre. Consider this versatility a form of multiple-personality disorder, which, it turns out, is a beneficial trait in a ski.

I’ve identified 7 such extraordinary skis, with a snippet of text from its latest review on Realskiers.com. As recording this week’s Revelation affords me the opportunity to extemporize, I’ll annotate the text a tad to lend more context and texture to my entirely personal selections of 7 Skis That Transcend Their Categories.

Tim Petrick's career in the ski trade is a kaleidoscope of accomplishments. He is probably best known for his serial stints at the helm of K2, but he has also worked on the resort side at Booth Creek and Silverton Mountain Colorado, where he was owner/operator. He was also a Demo Team member at PSIA and he continues to guide clients into the backcountry near his home in Jackson, Wyoming. He is the living embodiment of the true real skier.

To ski at a high level, a great bootfit is as essential as snow. If you want to ski better this year, start by making an appointment with your favorite bootfitter. And I advise you to do it soon, before size selection gets spotty. In this episode of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen, I draw on a few recent bootfit sessions to help explain how to best shop for a boot and what classic errors to avoid.

Mike Hattrup will forever be remembered for his role alongside Scot Schmidt and Glen Plake in Greg Stump’s Blizzard of Aahhh’s, but that’s not why he will soon be inducted into the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame. As rightfully renowned as he is for his filmed exploits, it’s his various roles behind the scenes that are being duly recognized by the Hall. In this week’s episode of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen, Hattrup and I take a deep dive into his lifelong devotion to improving the ski experience for us all.

If you want your ski gear to love you, you have to love it back. Many specialty shops are now using tuning machines that can replicate - or improve on - any factory finish. In this week's Revelation, I discuss how to get your ski gear ready for the season that's just around the corner.

A two-time world champion in the early days of freestyle skiing, John Clendenin went on to create what is almost certainly the best teaching method for learning the fundamentals of off-trail skiing. His surreal skills are matched only by his genius for communicating to skiers who want to ski the whole mountain.

A new ski goggle will read your texts, answer your phone, keep tabs of all your friends, play your music and track your speed and vertical. Oy.

I joined Salomon in 1978 at an entry level so low they had to install a new bottom rung on the employment ladder to success. Part of my job was to inspect the workshops of all the dealers in my enormous territory. Little did I know that I was the only rep ever to inspect a shop. This is the tale of one such impromptu inspection.

In 2017, Seniorskiing.com's founder, Jon Weisberg approached me about creating a list of skis suitable for the senior set. I complied, and here we are several years later and the award is still standing. Alas, the same cannot be said for the dearly departed Mr. Weisberg, in whose memory I continue to dole out this recognition. In this podcast, I explain how a ski earns a Silver Skier Selection and why this matters for the senior set.