Escape!
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
by R. W. Rushing

Planning a ski trip? Let austin FiT magazine help you plan the perfect ski or snowboarding getaway. We’ve researched everything from travel packages to area social clubs, gear and even exercise tips to ensure a safer, more enjoyable trip.

Snow fever is here. The jitters started around Labor Day and hit full throttle around Thanksgiving. By New Year’s, Austin skiers and snowboarders are complete zombies. Symptoms include thoughts of quitting those high-stress careers and following the snow year round or, better yet, that old fantasy about begging for a job sweeping the floor at Burton’s (a top manufacturer of ski and snowboard equipment — for those of you new to this fantasy).

The remedy? Use those long-overdue vacation days and plan yourself a ski trip. Our snowsports toolkit has everything you need to put together a fun and memorable trip with family, friends or even if you’re going solo.

Make Plans

If you’ve procrastinated to put your trip together, remain calm. According to the ski travel specialists at Austin’s Tramex Travel, the later in the season you book your plans, the more likely you are to find last-minute bargains.

Even top destinations like Vail, Park City and Tahoe find themselves with unsold rooms later in the season. They make up for the shortfall by offering last-minute travel bargains through agencies like Tramex.

Another factor in your favor is Frontier Airlines’ relatively new service from Austin to Denver. The discount airline, which is getting rave reviews from Austin skiers, is forcing the Austin-to-Denver route to stay price-competitive, according to a Tramex spokesperson.

Ditto flying Southwest Airlines from Austin to Reno, which puts you a short drive from Tahoe resorts like Squaw Valley over the infamous Donner Pass, where 150 years ago snow-trapped settlers resorted to cannibalism to survive the winter. (Stash extra beef jerky for the road.) And the insiders’ secret about Tahoe? The area is awash in cheap but comfortable hotels, especially around Tahoe City.

Make Friends

Even the contemplation of planning a ski trip gives many people an early case of altitude sickness. So if you’re one of those people who feel acute guilt if anything goes wrong on the trip you planned, delegate!

Austin Skiers is a volunteer organization that plans every detail of trips for their 500-plus members of all ages in Austin. Originally founded by car tycoon Roger Beasley and friends, this year the group has 11 trips planned, not only to domestic resorts like Keystone, Winter Park and Snowmass, but also to European resorts in Germany and Switzerland.

The club’s European trips may be especially attractive, since planning a first-time ski trip abroad can be especially tricky, according to Mike Hagye, Austin Skiers’ president.

“Europe is great for a mixed group,” Hagye says. “Some of our members do a lot of sightseeing and excursions, but the hard-core skiers can go nuts on the slopes every day. Then everyone meets up for happy hour and dinner.”
For beginners, the club is planning a “Never-Ever Ski Week,” a beginners’-only trip that includes the cost of lessons in the package price.

For solo skiers or people new to Austin, the group can be a great way to go skiing without worrying about finding people to go with, and even make new friends here in town.

With more than 30 years of experience booking group ski trips, the club also has serious expertise in finding great deals and planning successful trips.

“Most of the time we’ll save 10 to 40 percent on what you can get for yourself,” Hagye says.Build Your Bounce
Daydreaming about skiing the moguls or carving the half-pipe? Either way, you’ve got to spark some fire in those sadly neglected thighs of yours. Side benefit — because the quads are the largest muscles on the body, working your thighs is one of the best ways to build energy and burn fat.

Beyond the usual snow-sport workout routine of leg presses or squats, there are also a variety of low-impact exercises that can improve your performance on the slopes and protect you from injury, according to Rick Dowlearn, director of fitness training at Powerhouse Gym.

Dowlearn, a snowboarder himself, stresses that overall fitness and flexibility are vital to the winter sports athlete.
“Flexibility is the key to decreasing the risk of injury in a fall,” he says.

Working on flexibility all year is important, but so is that preski stretch that ski-deprived flatlanders impatiently skip in their early morning rush to the lifts, Dowlearn says. Remember, stretch before the boots go on.

Before your snowboarding trip, you can tune up the muscles you use for maintaining balance on Powerhouse Gym’s equipment like the Reebok Core Board, or even at home on an Indo Board Balance Trainer.

Austinite Ed Kozun is one snow fanatic who swears by the Indo Board’s ability to better prepare him for the three or four snowboarding trips he takes each year.

“For someone who lives in a town like Austin with no mountains and no ocean, the Indo Board is a great way to keep in shape for both snowboarding and surfing year round,” Kozun says. “It’s a great workout on your ankles and knees, and you can even practice tricks. I saw improvements in my coordination and balance from day one.”

The Indo Board, $99 at Sail and Ski, also makes an easy gift for any wannabe snowboarder, surfer or water skier. You’ll have fun taking pictures of them trying to balance on the thing.

Get The Gear

The right equipment will make a world of difference in your performance on the slopes, and the better you perform, the more fun you will have (not to mention impressing your friends and avoiding those apres-ski aches). Especially if your snowboard or skis are a few years old, you might be surprised at how much the technology has changed. It’s worth at least checking out the new gear.

You can further decrease your pretrip stress by shopping or renting your skis, snowboard, even your ski clothing here in Austin, says Scott Myers, store manager at Sail and Ski.

“You don’t want to be wasting your ski time messing around in rental lines,” Myers says. “You can get all that out of the way before you get up there, and prices are comparable. Come in with the whole family and take your time. Plus, our stuff is in better shape. Compared to most resorts, we have a much higher percentage of new boots, skis and rental clothing. In fact, often what you’ll get is brand new.”

If you’re thinking of purchasing new gear, Myers says there are many technical improvements to both skis and snowboards that will improve your performance on the mountain.

For skiers, new integrated bindings result in better flexibility in the ski, which means dramatically shorter skis and tighter turns.

Sail and Ski also offers the new ski boots with heat-moldable linings. In the store, they can customize ski boots to fit perfectly around your feet, using a heating process that molds the inner-foam of the boot to your feet. This new technology offers better support and a more comfortable skiing experience.

For snowboarders, new bindings are stiffened with carbon fiber for better control, and now even the less-expensive new snowboards come with the metal edge wrapped all the way around the board, not just on the sides. This edge makes for a more durable board.

The most surprising trend in snowboards this year is that top manufacturers like Burton and Salomon appear to be slowly abandoning their experiments with step-in bindings.

“The step-ins just had too much flex,” Myers says, “which hurts your performance. Plus they were always icing over. Sometimes you just couldn’t get your boot back in if you were in deep snow, for example.”
Sail and Ski continues to sell and rent both step-ins and strap-ins, and this correspondent is sure the eternal debate between steppers and strappers is far from over.

One critical difference between having fun and being miserable on the mountain is body heat. Warm is good. Cold is bad, very bad.

Keeping warm is the easiest problem to address in advance of your trip. For some reason, resorts always seem to sell out of good long underwear by the time you get there, and you’re stuck with cough-syrup red long-johns sized for Grizzly Adams with that buttoned-up hatch in the back.

Not to fear. New developments in cold-weather clothing promise a much warmer experience, especially for those long, cold rides up the lift.

“Insulation fabrics have gotten much more efficient,” Hagye says, “so clothing can be thinner. And the cost of breathable fabrics has come way down. Now you can get top-of-the-line jackets that used to cost $700 for $300.”

The coolest … or warmest new materials for long underwear are temperature-sensitive. “When the material gets cold, the material’s fibers actually swell up, trapping air and insulating you,” Hagye says. “But when it heats up, like while you’re on a run, the fibers shrink back down to let air through and keep you from overheating.”

Now Go Forth And Shred

So now your trip is booked, the plans are finalized, your body is as ready as it’s going to get, and you’ve got your gear bought or rented, packed and ready to go. Even your clothing is now breathing on its own and ready to adjust itself to the alpine air. Until you head out to the mountains, hopefully your snow fever will be under control and you can focus on your work again. And once you get back, surely you’ll be your usual sane and responsible self — until next year’s itch for the powder overtakes you again!