Sure, we love summer. Sunshine, long days, mountain bikes, wake surfing on the lake — it’s all great. But deep down, we’re always looking forward to winter.

The arrival of ski swaps each fall reminds winter enthusiasts that snow is on the way and that the ski season is right around the corner. Now is the time to get the best deals on ski and snowboard equipment, and ski swaps are a great way to purchase gently used or even new gear for short money. Swaps are not just for buying gear; you can also turn in your used gear that still has life left in it and earn back some of your investment. 

Rottefella has created the binding solution for waxless and skin cross country skis. The MOVE Switch is a dial on the front of the binding that will allow skiers to slide the binding forward or backwards without releasing the ski from the boots. That’s right - while you are on the ski trail, you can just bend over and turn the switch for the binding to slide and adjust to the desired weight distribution on each of the skis.

Using all-American materials, manufacturing and workers, Farm to Feet offers skiers, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts merino wool socks that are made with as little impact on the environment as possible and a supply chain completely within the US.

The annual Masterfit Boot Test concluded after a 5-day ordeal in which some 35 volunteer testers donned 98 boot models and sallied outside to put them through their paces at Silver Mountain, Idaho.

Women to Women looks to take all women skiers to new levels of confidence, excitement and freedom. (Blizzard Ski/Facebook)

Leslie Baker-Brown, Blizzard Tecnica Marketing Manager, was on an athlete summit in Portillo, Chile, a few years ago when one of the pro skiers she was with made a comment that stopped her in her tracks: she gets intimidated when walking into a ski shop.

A blank canvas in the Wasatch invites the skier to etch clean lines on its surface. (RealSkiers)

As the 2017/18 ski season shifts from bright anticipation to rapidly dimming memory, it’s time to look back and take stock of where we’ve been and what we’ve pondered in the past seven months. To this end, here are links to all the recent Revelations you may have missed, along with a skinny summary of its contents.

The Marmot Slingshot down jacket will keep you warm on the coldest day as will an Arc’teryx Sentinel shell with a down midlayer under it. (Karen Lorentz)

The fashions are colorful, the gear rocks, and both are more high-tech than ever — reasons they’ll make you more comfortable and happier on the slopes.

Just one corner of the boundless playground. (RealSkiers)

Every day I get the chance to ski is better than a day I don't.

Try to be as specific as you can when describing yourself as a skier. (RealSkiers.com)

Thanks to the popularity of rating sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor, every retailer, restaurant and service provider in America is subject to appraisal by its customers. On the whole, this phenomenon is a positive development, even if human nature is such that many folks are more likely to rant about a negative experience than extol an exceptional one.

If you only have an hour, first focus on your feet. (Tecnica Skiboots/Facebook)

If you can only carve one hour out of your crazy holiday schedule to get fully outfitted in new gear, how best to spend this precious hour?

Scenes from a short seminar in buckle pressure. (RealSkiers.com)

After each bootfitting exercise, I spend a few moments ensuring that my freshly fitted customer understands the basic operation of his or her new footwear. Part of this brief operations overview is a lesson on buckle tension. You might think experienced skiers would know all about this; after all, many have been wearing 4-buckle boots for twenty seasons or more.

Ridge Merino Wool baselayers in Hot Creek Blue and Atmospheric River. (Ridge Merino/Facebook)

Ridge Merino is an up-and-coming Merino layer company based out of Mammoth Lakes, California, and their pieces perform as well in daily life as they do in the wildest outdoor conditions. The apparel is inspired by the lifestyle in the Eastern Sierras – where you may spend one morning backcountry skiing and then go bouldering in desert sunshine that very afternoon.

When I orchestrated equipment reviews for Snow Country Magazine 25 years ago, all skis looked similar but the quality of the on-snow experience was all over the map.  

I’m pretty much a wheeled-bag kind of gal. After all, why work harder than you need to? Carrying a bag over my shoulder is a hassle.

T’is the season we in the ski evaluation racket look forward to all year, when we can take run after run on new ski after new ski, soaking in the sensations each ride imparts.

I’ve recently concluded four days of intensive ski testing at Mt. Rose, Nevada and Mammoth Mountain, California. Naturally, the first question posed during this ski fetishists’ festival by a fellow fanatic is, “What do you like?” 

Last week I spent three days immersed in the annual ski show in Denver and, like many of my brethren, almost as much time trying to travel home. 

This week the American branch of the world ski market reconvenes in Denver at the annual Snow Industries America show.  While the engine that drives the show is commerce, its machinery is oiled and fueled by personal relationships that are often decades old.  

Every ski catalog, brochure and review includes a smattering of statistics meant to encapsulate some aspect of the subject ski’s behavior.  Many, if not most, ski tails likewise sport summaries of design details.