It’s my understanding that a great many of my fellow citizens do their gift shopping well in advance of the due date. While I appreciate this preparedness in principle, I find it very difficult to put into personal practice. Like Santa himself, who doesn’t even begin to distribute gifts until the last possible moment, I find procrastination built into the fabric of the holidays.
My point being, it’s not too late to surprise a skier or two on your holiday hit list with an impressively thoughtful gift. I’m not suggesting anything of stratospheric expense, but I am encouraging you to pick something that your recipients wouldn’t ordinarily think to get for themselves. Many are small enough to fit into a stocking, and none require assembly. I know you’re busy – procrastination, by definition, takes a lot of time – so I’ll get right to the nitty-gritty.
LÉ BENT ¾ Bottom Base Layer
Lé Bent’s blend of Merino and bamboo makes a divine base layer that feels so good you’ll want to wear it all the time. The ¾ length is a better match with ski socks, but if you’re bent on a full-length base layer, Lé Bent makes those, too.
Leki Trigger-Grip Poles
Leki’s terrific Trigger-grip poles are the perfect gift for the ski addicts in your life who say they don’t need new poles. Of course, they don’t need them, that’s what makes the upgrade to a Leki the epitome of the surprise “gift-they-wouldn’t-get-themselves.”
Heated Boot Bag
The Heated Boot Bag might be the greatest ski-related accessory ever made. Why there’s scant science (yet) to support the assertion, I believe whomever is gifted a heated boot bag will be insanely grateful, most likely forever. I realize I’ve just directed you to Snow Eagle’s url, but I’d rather you frequent your preferred specialty ski shop for this item, where you’ll find other options in the same design plus you’ll be supporting specialty retailing, which matters. Other brands of note in the heated-boot-bag sector are Kulkea, perhaps the best-made bag line for skiing, and Transpak for value, reliability and durability.
Ski Socks
Real skiers know that wearing a real ski sock is a difference maker. Every avid skier can use another pair, making them a surefire winner in the gift-giving game. It’s hard to recommend one brand above all others, as the ski market is swarming with socks, but I do recommend only one thickness, which is thin. Since I know you want me to name names, there’s Smartwool, Point6, Darn Tough, Eurosock, Farm to Feet, and Lé Bent, particularly when you want something a bit thicker. Dissent Compression socks fit like a second skin and there are even heated socks from Hotronic, which are pricey but effective.
Balaclava/Neck Gaiter
While helmets are essential equipment, they’re a sizeable investment and they need to be fit, making them an awkward gift item. But there’s nothing tricky about a neck gaiter, or balaclava. One of the under-reported benefits of the pandemic is almost everyone discovered how useful it is to have this extra layer for the face. The best ones, like Lé Bent, feel scrumptious on the skin. I’m also a fan of Phunkshun, who offers a crazy array of colors and styles. A great accessory, relatively cheap, fits any stocking!
Gummi stone
A nicked edge or worse yet, one that is overly aggressive, begs for attention, the sooner the better. While a gummi stone isn’t a substitute for a more thorough repair, it’s a godsend when it’s needed and it fits into anything worthy of the term, “pocket.” They don’t cost much and they last a long time.
Ski-Gee
The greatest cost/value relationship in skiing. It’s a goggle-wiper you wear on your finger. A lifesaver on weather days, it does the one thing your zillion-dollar goggles can’t.
Sun Screen & Lip Balm
Every stocking needs stuffers like sun screen and lip balm. The high-altitude Alpine sun is brutal on lips and skin, so going without isn’t an option. What brands you use are far less important than a high SPF.
Ski Strap
An accessory so pervasive and mundane that it almost doesn’t merit a link, the humble ski strap is nonetheless one item skiers can’t get enough of. Falls in the “stocking-friendly” category.
Lightweight Vest
I don’t want to wander too deep into a skier’s clothing closet, but in the spirit of accessorizing, a thin layer with some sort of windbreaking ability – I prefer a vest, for it adds the least bulk – is de rigeur if you ski in foul weather. Let me give you a bit of parting advice: life is short, too short not to ski whenever you can, which includes storm days, which often include wind that could cut through rare beef. A thin extra layer takes no room to transport – it will fit in your heated boot bag! – and saves the day when the powder is loading up between every run.
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In Memorium, Carl Ettlinger
Carl was a giant of a man whose outsized voice roiled every conversation like a burst dam and whose expansive vision reached across the mixed milieus of research, journalism, risk management and education. I knew him when he was at the peak of his powers, as he explained to me when I interviewed him for a “where are they now?” profile in Skiing History. He was able to conduct long-term research on injury patterns as well as analyze the particulars of the current binding market, turn around and package this knowledge into articles for Skiing and Skiing Trade News, followed up by a workshop tour that would bring enlightenment to the grassroots level. No one but Carl could have pulled this off, and Lord knows no one has had the requisite talent, energy and will power since.
But time and tide wait for no man, and Carl’s finely spun web of influence was eventually plucked apart. The loss of his pivotal positions in the press allowed him to slip from public view before we, the skiers of the world, realized we hadn’t taken the time to thank him.
We have the time to thank him now.
So thanks, Carl, for being first and foremost a teacher, for teaching is at the heart of the evangel’s mission.
Thanks for being so damn stubborn. Your insistence on improving skier safety wore through a wall of resistance as tough as Vermont marble.
Thanks for having a heart as big as that melon-sized head of yours. The fuel to your tireless mind was a caring heart that tried to embrace the world.
Thanks for all the stories once the Mount Gay flowed. Who knew we would have won the Vietnam War if only his superiors had listened? I can’t remember exactly how – he wasn’t the only one drinking Mount Gay – but I recall the light in his eyes as he relayed his twisted tales, taking us down successive rabbit-holes of digression that I lost track of at the seventh level.
That’s what I remember most vividly about my many interactions with Carl: his brain so teemed with thoughts he rushed to get them out in a verbal jailbreak that would travel around the cosmos until returning, many lost minutes later, to the subject that had inspired them. That was Carl: too many words for one sentence, too many tasks to tend to and all of it, every erg of his endless energy, devoted to a cause he never ceased to serve.
Fare thee well, Carl Ettlinger. The world misses you already for it will never see another quite like you, whose every moment seemed larger than life itself.
I raise my glass to you, old friend. Mount Gay, of course.
Jackson Hogen
June 23, 2020
Why This Buyer’s Guide?
Don’t read the 2021 Masterfit Buyer’s Guide in Partnership with Realskiers.com for its 62 ski reviews. I should know. I wrote or edited all of them.
Not that the ski reviews aren’t worth the read. But ski reviews on the web are as common as rice, while the Buyer’s Guide contains something no other publication, whether in digital, print or video format, can claim: the most respected, thorough and dependable boot reviews in the world.
This isn’t mere puffery. The Masterfit Boot Test is so well regarded by the supplier community that nearly every brand not only sends its following year’s line-up in four men’s sizes plus three for women, it also dispatches its top designers and/or product managers to a distant North American site for most of the test’s five-day duration.
The Ripple Effect
As I’ve observed in this space before, product managers spend most of their time in the future; the present for them is two years away for the rest of us. So when the coronavirus shut down the 19/20 ski season, it triggered an automatic response in the R&D lobes lodged deep in my noggin: what impact will this have two years down the road?
If I knew the answer to this question with any certainty, I should be running a hedge fund, not scribbling about skiing. But after checking with several of the bellwether players in U.S. market, I have some idea of what’s in store.
