Old Ski Heaven.....Or Perhaps It's Old Ski Hell

black mamba

kdog

clapclap

Jack'll do

Howdy Tom
Ya just have to stop and wonder what the story is behind this.

kdog

I'd be willing to wager that it's old inventory from a ski rental shop. From the genre of the skis, I'd say they've been sitting around unused for a few years as well. Hence, pretty much worthless.

Cheers,
-joel

black mamba

Hi Jack,

Yea, I'm with you. I saw this scene and couldn't quite grasp what the story was. I think Joel is probably right.

Hey Joel,

You're probably right-on with your assessment. This scene was near Sugar Mt. and Beach Mt. in NC. There's a lot of ski shops in the area. As a non-skier, I'm ignorant of some some aspects of the sport......at what point do skis become a throw-away item? Is it because the boot attachment hardware breaks or the bottom of the ski suffers too much wear?

Thanks to you both for commenting.

Tom

kdog

Lots of reasons, Tom. Obsolescence for one thing. Ski design was actually relatively static for a long time. Then in the past 6 or 8 years, all of a sudden the designs took a dramatic turn. Skis are now either fat, or hourglass shaped. This are the old straight skinny skis. Worthless in today's market, and turn like crap. Also, binding designs change and get safer every year. And old bindings get worn and unreliable. Nobody wants to ski on old bindings. There are probably insurance factors too stipulating how long you can use the same skis. Also, you're correct. The ski bottoms start to get worn through after too many base grindings.

One of the biggest tipoffs for me was that there are many of the same model skis and bindings in that pile. For example, there's at least a dozen pairs of those white K2s with blue lettering and red bindings. So they're not an old bunch of say consignment skis or random trade-ins. They were acquired together and that only makes sense for a rental fleet.

Cheers,
-joel