Ski Equipment: What Do You Need

Here are the most important things for any ski trip.

Tune Up:
Before your skis are going to be ready for this ski season you need to blow the dust off your skis and get them back into shape. During a day of skiing you can get scratches and gouges in the bottom of your skis. These scratches and gouges cause surface friction and will actually reduce your speeds and your control over the skis. It won't affect you that much unless you are a professional racer, but by taking care of your skis they will last you longer. Skis come with sharp metal edges and every year if not every week during ski season these edges need to be sharpened with a file. This edge is for cutting into the ice incase you hit a slick spot on the slope during a turn. A sharp edge will help keep you in control.

Footwear:
Special hard shell boots are used in skiing. The boots snap into the bindings that are mounted to the skis. These boots have foam inserts to provide great comfort to the skier to prevent things like blisters from destroying your ski trip. The hard outer shell keeps you from twisting your ankle if you should fall by keeping your foot and ankle totally immobilized in the boot.

Your polls:
The ski polls you need depend on the type of skiing that you are going to be doing. Straight polls are for downhill recreational skiing and bent polls are for racing so that they can be tucked in behind your body to make your body more aerodynamic. Just like the edges of the skis need to be sharp the tip of the ski polls need to be regularly sharpened for the same reasons. Ski polls also provide balance for beginner level skiers. Ski polls have to be the right height for their user. When the poll is planted in the snow you want your hand to be on the grips and your arm should be bent at 90 degree angle.

Hands, Head and Eyes
Keeping warm and dry is important to your health, so making sure your hands and head are covered is important. By alloying your hands to get wet and cold you could damage your hands and possibly get frostbite. A hat should cover your entire head and be made from a warm material to help keep the heat from escaping. If you are skiing an have no eye protection how will you be able to see where you are going. At the very least you must have a pair of sunglasses, but proper ski goggles are best just because they wrap all the way around your eyes and are pulled close to make sure no wind gets in your eyes allowing you to keep your eyes open at any speeds or weather conditions.

Insulated Underwear:
Keeping your body warm and as dry as possible is very important if you are going to spend the day outside in the cold and wind of the winter and expect not to get sick.

Ski Pants:
Ski pants have not changed much in the last 20 years. They are made from insulated material designed to keep the wind away from the body, but the newer pants have fleece linings and pocket linings to warm up cold hands. The newest features I have seen on ski pants is actually a throwback from the 20's it's the bomb drop butt flap, and if you are not sure what that means it is a flap in the back of the pants to make going to the bathroom easy without having to undo all the buckles and straps.