Rental

Getting to Know Your Equipment

Fitting Your Ski Boots

The first equipment you are issued are your boots. The rental technician will need to know your street shoe size to assure that your boots fit properly. Your boots should feel snug around your foot, but not tight. Once buckled, you should be able to wiggle your toes, but your heel should not move when you pull up on it. If your boots feel too loose or too tight, please do not hesitate to ask for a different size!

Everything You Wanted to Know About Skis

Next, you will receive your skis. Our skis are expertly tuned and waxed. Your ski technician will explain the finer points of the equipment you have selected. On the top of your skis you will find complicated looking devices called bindings. These miracles of modern engineering not only hold your feet on the skis, but they also know when to let you go if you fall. A binding technician will set your bindings based on your weight, height, age, and ability level. Please be as accurate as possible to assure proper settings! You will also be issued ski poles - which are used for balance and moving around. A good fit on ski poles is to grab the ski pole that puts your elbow at a 90 degree angle.

Once you are out on the snow, your instructor will show you how to use your bindings to attach your skis to your feet. It's actually quite simple - place the little ledge on the front of your boot under the front binding piece (called the toe piece), line up your heel and press down. To get out, you simply press down on the lever in the back with your ski pole. If you ski comes off during skiing, the ski brake will stop it from continuing down the hill without you!

Snowboard 101

Snowboards work pretty much like skis do. The big difference is that they are much wider, and you only get one. They have a sidecut just like skis, and turn the same way a ski turns. Snowboard bindings have one big difference from ski bindings - they don't release! Once your feet are in, they should stay there. Getting in your snowboard bindings is easy, you basically line up the little rods on either side of your boot with the notches in the binding and step down. To get out, you pull the lever on the side and step out. Pats Peak features the state of the art Step in Binding system, you simply wont find a better system out there.

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