Latest news with #SummerofSkiNostalgia
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Yahoo
How Have Ski Boots Evolved? A Short History
Ski boots are the most important piece of equipment we take on the mountain every day, but how much do you know about the history of ski footwear? Here's a short history of what skiers have been putting on their feet for the last 8000 piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. Skiing, as we understand it today, dates back to nearly 6000 BCE. Archaeological evidence exists in various parts of central Asia and northern Russia that shows skiing was used as an overland travel method for hunters and nomadic peoples. It's unclear where exactly skiing got its true start, but whether it was high in the Altai mountains or the snowy tundra of northern Russia, we know it was an extremely long time ago. Unfortunately, no full examples of skis or boots have ever been found dating back to skiing's origins—turns out animal skins and wood don't survive millennia—but cave paintings and other carvings show various cultures using long, wooden objects attached to their feet to cover snowy ground. We can only speculate as to what exactly the first ski boots were like, but they were likely warm winter boots made of animal hides that were strapped or otherwise pinned to skiing was popularized in Scandinavia much more recently. After being used primarily as a utilitarian travel method (you can't convince me that early skiers didn't also do it for fun), skiing became a popular activity in northern Europe around the late 1700s. In 1843, the first official skiing competition was held in Tromsø, during this era were primarily made of leather, with medium-height cuffs, sturdy laces and flexible soles. They were attached to skis using various leather or woven straps, and generally were not designed to have heels that locked to the ski, much like today's telemark skiing gear. As skiing became more popular and skiers ventured into steeper, more technical terrain, ski boot design evolved dramatically. Around the same time, industrial advancements also led to the introduction of mass-produced footwear that adhered to standard sizes. Beforehand, all shoes and boots were handmade by a local cobbler who would measure your foot before making your boot. As manufacturing methods and ski techniques changed, so did boot design. By the mid-1800s, skiers began locking their heels down, and boots started to feature a stiff shank in the sole to allow for better edge control and less fatigue. As ski lifts, trains and other mechanized means of uphill travel became popular, the need for a boot that could 'walk' was also eliminated, allowing bootmakers to focus purely on downhill performance. Nordic (cross-country) and alpine boot design diverged at this 'alpine' boots evolved simultaneously with ski bindings. As bindings moved from leather straps to metal cables (commonly called Kandahar or bear trap bindings), boots began featuring toe and heel welts to interface with the binding. Generally, the cuff height was still quite low, and while the boots feature stiffer soles, the cuff flexibility was extremely soft, allowing skiers to roll their ankles in all directions. Unsurprisingly, skiers kept getting better and better, and as performance needs kept increasing, boot design followed. Leather boots were common mostly because leather was a relatively easy material to work with. As skiers started riding faster and manufacturing technology improved, the need for a better material was apparent. Following WW2, American skier Bob Lange began experimenting with adding plastic to existing leather boots to provide extra lateral and fore/aft stiffness for better edge control on firm snow surfaces. After years of trial and error, Lange released the first full plastic ski boot in 1962. These boots look nothing like the modern ski boots of today, and still featured laces and low cuffs, but provided a quantum leap in performance by allowing much better power transfer between a skier's legs and their skis. As more skiers got on these boots and appreciated the extra power and control they granted, plastic ski boots took off. Metal buckles were quickly integrated, as were other features like warmer liners and compatibility with different kinds of ski bindings. After Lange famously equipped the Canadian ski team with plastic boots in 1966, and its members saw success at the Olympic Games, it was clear that leather didn't stand a chance. Boot design continued to evolve rapidly, with cuff heights getting taller and taller, liners getting more comfortable, and better plastics being used to provide a more natural and supportive flex to boots. By the 1970s, ski boot pioneer Sven Coomer (the man behind ZipFit liners and dozens of iconic boot designs) ushered in modern overlap boot design when he developed the original Nordica Grand Prix. At the time, rear-entry boots (and even side-entry boots) had also gained some popularity with recreational skiers thanks to their ease of use. Popular rear-entry models included Salomon's Equipe and the Hanson Citation R. However, any serious racer and recreational skier wanted the extra stiffness and control of a 2-piece overlap boot. The lower part and the cuff of the boot were connected at the ankle pivots and on the boot's spine to make the whole thing very stiff. The 'overlap' refers to the fact that the cuff fully wrapped around the lower leg and was secured by buckles, putting two layers of plastic in the front of your shin. This design is still popular in most ski boots the late 1970s, ski boot soles also adopted an industry-wide standard to make them compatible with releasable ski bindings. This greatly improved safety by reducing lower leg injuries and made shopping for ski boots much easier. As a third alternative to rear-entry and overlap boots, some designers began experimenting with 3-piece style boots. These featured a stiff rear cuff and lower that were only connected at the ankle pivots, with the boot deriving its stiffness and power from a flexible external tongue that went over the forefoot and up the shin. The earliest version of a 3-piece boot was the Henke Strato, but (thanks to Sven Coomer, again), the most popular design was the Raichle Flexon. More or less, that exact design is still available today under the name Full Tilt Boots (now marketed under the K2 FL3X line). Dalbello, Armada, Scarpa, Daleboot and others also still offer 3-piece boot designs freestyle skiing and eventually freeride skiing gained in popularity, the increased shock absorption of a 3-piece boot was loved by professional athletes and recreational skiers alike. Seth Morrison famously skied in Raichles and eventually Full Tilts throughout his professional skiers began again looking beyond the boundaries of ski resorts and backcountry skiing again became more mainstream, skiers were looking for an alternative to telemark gear to allow for uphill travel. For most of skiing's history, telemark skiing (and its free heel) was the only technique that allowed for uphill travel without taking your skis off. As technology evolved, alpine touring bindings entered the market, which allowed skiers to free their heels for uphill travel and lock them down to make traditional alpine turns on the descent. These bindings were originally just versions of alpine bindings mounted to a pivoting plate, but when Fritz Barthel produced the first Dynafit Low-Tech pin binding in the early 1990s, an entirely new type of boot was required. This needed to balance the stiffness and performance of an alpine boot with the ability to flex backwards to enable a natural walking stride, and compatibility with Barthel's new tech binding system. Unfortunately, it took years for alpine touring boots to achieve the performance levels they have today, balancing low weight, walking comfort and near-indistinguishable downhill performance. Much of that came from lessons learned in skimo racing, where extremely lightweight and uphill performance is paramount. As with any technological advancement, ski boot evolution has been a story of slow iteration. While it took centuries to transition from leather footwear to modern materials like plastic, carbon fiber and lightweight metals, the increase in performance of ski boots has been exponential. While the basic design hasn't changed a whole lot in the last 40-odd years, comfort, warmth and performance have increased dramatically. Perhaps the biggest improvement has been the introduction of heat-moldable plastic and foam in both liners and boot shells, making boots noticeably more comfortable and easier to fit. Further developments in that same plastic have also led to massive performance improvements (see what Cody Townsend has to say about it here) with increased damping and a more supportive suspension-like feel in the boots' flexes. Also, recently, many brands have been offering boots with alternative closing mechanisms, like rotary BOA dials that replace traditional piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content here. How Have Ski Boots Evolved? A Short History first appeared on Powder on Jun 17, 2025
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Yahoo
I Stole the First Issue of POWDER Magazine I Ever Owned
I don't break the law. I follow the support of this statement, I was given the nickname 'Dad' by my college friends for always being the level-headed guy who attempted to save them from getting arrested for public intoxication or some other debauchery.I internalized the nickname as an unpleasant jest at first—I ultimately wanted to be like everybody else, having fun—but I wore it like a badge of honor after a while. Perhaps it was something to do with my relationship with own dad put me on skis when I was four years old, but as my mom recalls, he would have done so earlier if she had allowed him to. I became a skier, and still am a skier, because of the influence of my dad. Plain and a child I didn't fear my dad, but I respected his peace, if you will. As the oldest of two brothers, I tried to do things that made him and my mom happy. I did not make him happy, however, when I stole a copy of POWDER Magazine that he ordered, and then subsequently lost piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. I can't recall how old I was when this ordeal went down, but according to my mom and her wagging finger, I was "old enough to know better. "As a kid from Delaware, skiing wasn't something I shared with many of my friends. We played soccer, linked our gaming consoles for LAN sessions, and did other normal, suburban kid stuff. Skiing was something I liked to do, but it wasn't a passion quite yet. I didn't have a community to share the experience with outside of my immediate family and 10–20 days we skied each what I remember: My mom would regularly ask me to walk down to the end of the driveway to retrieve the mail. On one sunny Saturday in the fall, the mailbox was stuffed to the brim with various ads and magazines. I normally would just stack the mail and carry it inside, but the capitalized word POWDER caught my eye on one of the magazines. Powder? Like powder skiing? I was intrigued.I wish I could remember the specific cover, but I've sustained too many concussions playing soccer between now and then. That, or I'm just dumb. Regardless, I was immediately enamored. Up until that moment, I had only read about skiing in a brief section of Sports Illustrated, or in a coffee table book that my dad purchased. I had no idea that skiers were creating entire magazines completely about skiing. My mind was blown. I mentioned my memory issues before (super ideal for somebody who tells stories for a living). I can't recall what happened between my first glance at that issue and my dad scolding me for losing it, but we were all kids at one point. Kids do dumb that first copy of POWDER felt validating. It was my first glimpse into the broader skiing world that I was so very naive about. What I do remember is that POWDER felt like it was written for me. I was young, probably only eight or nine years old, but it felt like the writers were speaking directly to me as a skier, not as a kid from Delaware who was on the outside looking introduction to POWDER is one of a handful of memories that evolved my love for sliding downhill into a passion and a way of dad remained displeased with me for stealing and losing his issue of POWDER, but we worked out a deal for future issues. He would read the new issue for as long as he pleased, and then pass it over to me once he was still hard to believe that I work here all of these years piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. I Stole the First Issue of POWDER Magazine I Ever Owned first appeared on Powder on Jun 25, 2025
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Best '70s Ski Outfits From the POWDER Archives
As you might remember (or as your parents might remind you), things were a bit different in the 1970s. Global politics were in upheaval, society was opening its mind to new norms, and ski bumming was entering its first golden age. Those were also the years when this publication, first helmed by founders Jake and Dave Moe, began chronicling the deeper side of ski culture. At the time, ski culture had started to evolve into the free-spirited and expression-driven form it still has today, in part driven by the pages of the first volumes of POWDER Magazine. Powder skiing represented the ultimate freedom, and in true 1970s fashion, the skiers of the time took their expression of it to extreme lengths. Speaking of fashion, this was the era of true drip: from tight-fitting one-piece ski suits to oversized knit sweaters, most everything featured loud colors, patterns, and revealing necklines. Check out the Best 70s Ski Outfits from the POWDER archives below. This piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future content. You can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content here. These were the days before Gore-Tex and other waterproof/breathable fabrics, with skiers instead opting for wool sweaters and the odd stretchy ski suit. These things were warm, bordering on sweaty, but they undoubtedly oozed style. A 1977 gear editorial section highlighting the year's finest insulated wares for skiers. Many iconic ski brands really found their stride in the 1970s. Look at how far things have come in these ads from Bogner, Rossignol, and Gerry Clothing. Apparel ads from the 70s were just built different. The wool sweater, still an icon of ski fashion today, provided the vibes during the 70s. Personally, these are WAY too hot for me to wear anywhere but inside a cozy mountain hut, but to each their own, I suppose. Eyewear was also on point, with many skiers still opting for large-framed sunglasses instead of full-on goggles. Fashion over function, especially on sunny days. For anyone who has worn goggles of this era, you'll remember that fogging was a pretty real issue. Marketing copy has always been a hot topic of discussion for brands. How can you make things eye-catching without being too weird? That clearly didn't matter to apparel manufacturers back then. Marlboro jackets? Budweiser sweaters? Nothing was sacred back then. While backcountry skiing really entered its golden age during the COVID pandemic, skiers have been walking up mountains and enjoying soft turns on the way down for many years. Take a look at the style and equipment (or lack thereof) employed during the 1970s from places like Vail to Courchevel. Long before technical outerwear, skiers were enjoying hard-earned turns deep in the backcountry. This piece is part of POWDER's Summer of Ski Nostalgia content series. Stay tuned in daily for more nostalgic articles, and keep an eye out for the upcoming Summer of Ski Nostalgia badge to identify future content. You can also view all of POWDER's summer nostalgia content Best '70s Ski Outfits From the POWDER Archives first appeared on Powder on Jun 4, 2025
