Today, PowderQuest guides Mo and David cover 7 of their favorite tips and hacks for properly storing your skis and snowboard gear during the off season.
The storage tips will help you if:
- You want to safely store your snowboard and ski gear for just a few months between the North American and the South American ski season
- You are looking for longer term ideas for storing your skis and other equipment away for the summer and fall
We include some cool exclusive tips for backcountry skiers and splitboarders as well.
Let’s get started! Watch the suggestions in our detailed video.
If you prefer to read and copy notes from our actionable summer ski storage tips, here we provide the video transcript for reference.
Storing Snowboarding and Skiing Gear: Video Transcript
Hello Everybody, this is David Owen from PowderQuest.
Today, Mo and I are going to cover our favorite tips and hacks for preparing your skis and snowboard gear to be put away for summer storage.
We’ve got some tips you’ve probably never heard of that involve using your freezer, beeswax, even black tea.
Whether you are planning to put away your winter gear for just a couple of months and then come down and join us in South America to chase powder or if you’re going longer term and putting away your ski and snowboard gear till the next winter season; December, January. (Japow anyone?) All of this is going to be a big help.
So let’s get started!
Storing Your Snowboard Boots / Ski Boots
Ok, so let’s talk about proper storage and care for your ski boots and snowboard boots… whether they are being put away for a couple of months or until next winter.
This is all good advice.
One piece of equipment that I swear by is a boot/gloves dryer.
I personally use a Hotronics Snapdry Boot and Glove Dryer. There are several different models you can find online. I like this particular model because it’s inexpensive. I believe it’s run $80 online. I’ll include a link. In case you’re looking for one. (note: it looks like the Snapdry is no longer made but they have a new version)
I also like the fact that you can switch the voltage.
So at home I’ll use one setting and then when I’m traveling, I can switch to the proper setting for that country. Obviously, make sure you do that every time, if not you will blow up the boot dryer, if not your hotel room.
What I do every day when I come back from skiing is I’ll just grab my snowboard boots. Obviously works for ski boots as well. Pop out the liner and I’ll dry them individually so you can fit two liners in here. And BOOM, it’ll dry. You can do the same for your outer layer or your outer shell of your boot.
These also worked well for drying your snowboard or ski gloves.
Obviously, you can air dry all of these things, put them next to a fireplace, et cetera. The risk, obviously, with the fireplace is it can overheat very quickly and you can burn out your boot liners or do something worse. So I really like using the boot dryer. I do that every day after skiing.
And then, of course, since we’re talking about putting away your boots for summer storage, you’re going to want to go ahead and dry your boots the best you can before you put them away.
Cool Hack: How to Remove The Stink From Your Ski Boots / Snowboard Boots
Another hack and tip, obviously, for your snowboard boots. Ski boots.
WOOH! Ripe!
Yeah. Everyone builds up a little stink especially if you’re hiking, ski touring and backcountry snowboarding, a lot of sweat on the inside. Sometimes they don’t properly dry overnight.
It’s always a good idea to get in the habit of pulling out your liners and dry them.
As I mentioned previously, if not, you’re going to get moisture that just stays in between your boot shell and your boot liner.
So when you’re putting them away for the summer especially, they’re going to be in storage in a closet or in a bag for many months.
It’s going to be a really good idea to not only dry them, but here’s a great hack-
Tea bags!
Just grab a couple of tea bags.
Any tea will work. Black tea, maybe some mint tea to add a little extra scent and drop it into your boot liner.
VOILA! I keep it stored there for the entire time, the tea does a really good job of absorbing odors and stink out of the boot. And it’ll be a game changer when you break these out of the closet at the start of your next ski season.
How to Wash and Store Your Outerwear: Cleaning Goretex, Future Light, and More
So our next tip is going to be how to properly wash your outerwear.
Actually, all your ski wear in general, but especially focused on Goretex and new technology like Future Light from the North Face and things like that. Basically, any waterproofing.
So we’re going to go ahead to the laundry room now. Grab your Gore-Tex and we’ll see you there.
So it used to be the theory that you never wanted to wash your outerwear, especially Gore-Tex. And we’ve all got that friend out there that’s got his jacket and looks like he’s changed the oil in his car in it.
That’s not the case anymore, especially with Gore-Tex and other materials that are new.
I reached out to my friend Sage at the North Face. They’ve got a material called Future Light. They also recommend washing it. It’s not a plug for them. Just in general, anything high end outerwear you’re going to want to wash several times in the season. And especially now when we’re getting ready to store this for a long period of time.
So what you want to do is you want to just take your outerwear, throw it into the washing machine. You’re going to want to choose warm water and then you’re going to want to use a mild detergent.
- You don’t want to use stain remover.
- You don’t want to use bleach.
- You don’t want to use fabric softener.
Just a mild detergent and warm water and give it a regular wash and you’re ready to go.
It’s also important that when you finish a cycle, do a double rinse just to get any extra detergent and dirt out of the jacket or pants or wherever you’re washing.when you’re done, simply pop it out.
Shake it dry. If you have a dryer, you can put it in a dryer. I don’t have one. We like to do the sun dry, so we’ll just go outside. Hang on a coat hanger and let it air dry.
And you’re ready to go-store your jacket in a nice, cool, dry place. And when you pull it out for a ski season next year, you’ve got a clean jacket and outer wear and ready to go.
How to Store Your Backcountry Touring Skins
Okay. So my next tip is actually one of my favorite hacks I’ve learned in many years.
And it involves a freezer and it involves hot and especially hot, humid climates.
So just put this into perspective of how I learned this:
I went to Japan just to guide for PowderQuest this winter and I had left my splitboard and climbing skins and other backcountry gear in storage in Japan all summer long.
Japan is actually a very hot, humid climate. (in the summer)
And when I got there to pull my climbing skins out, the glue was completely trashed. I could barely get them unstuck.
I had endless glue problems, including residue getting stuck to the base of my skis the first few days I was touring, I thought I was going to have to throw my touring skins away. Thankfully, I was able to salvage them.
But the tip is, rather than storing your your skins in a hot, especially hot, humid climate, like a, you know, a closet or an attic, keep them somewhere dry and cool.
In my case, a freezer. Yeah, right next to the blueberries. I’ve got a fresh pair of skins ready go.
And the glue is intact for the next time I go ski touring. So thanks, Mo for the hack. Speaking of Mo, here he is with some great tips from up in Whistler.
Ski Storage Tips From Mo Rasiah: Video Transcript
Our video transcript continues here as we pass the mic to Mo Rasiah. Mo, based out of Whistler is an ACMG lead ski guide at PowderQuest leading trips in Chile, Argentina, and Japan.
How to Care For and Store Your Ski Gloves
Hey, thanks, Dave.
I’m going to show you guys my favorite way to store my ski gloves for the off season.
I like to use a boot dryer and glove dryer. Keeps my gloves nice and dry over the off season every day.
With my trusty leather gloves and my favorite beeswax. Put a little bit of product on the leather palms and give it a spread.
And then next, the hairdryer.
Melt the wax, open the pores. And then you have funk-free dry gloves which are waterproof and ready to roll for next season.
How to Store An Avalanche Beacon (Transceiver) For The Summer
Next up, we’ll be talking avalanche beacons (Avalanche transceivers). Before I put mine away for the season, I like to boot mine up.
Make sure that everything looks okay. See what battery strength I have and I’ll turn it off. Take the batteries out. Most important bit. Make sure that we don’t have any corrosion at the end of the summer by leaving our batteries inside our avalanche beacon. Close it up.
Batteries away. And I’ll be ready to go for next season.
How to Prepare and Store Your Skis or Snowboard For Summer Storage
And last but not least, how to store our sliding equipment for the next time that we use it.
So skis – Brakes up with your touring binding.
Or an elastic band.
Have a good look at your bases. If you’ve got any major holes to fill – you need to do that.
Cleaning The Bases of Your Skis or Snowboard
We’ll do that after giving the base a good clean. I like to use actually a specific base cleaner.
Just give the bases a rub- get rid of any excess skin glue that may have been stuck on for the season or any dirt that may have been left over from your last ski adventure.
As you do this, you can sort of feel the edges, too, and see if you need to do any edge work.
These edges actually feel pretty good.
Waxing Your Skis: How to Apply Storage Wax
After you base is nice and clean of debris and residue.
We have our purpose built waxing iron – I like to put on a pretty healthy coat of wax.
Sort of like spring wax, zero to minus five degrees. All the way to the ends, to tip and tail.
All along the ski. And then I will run this over the ski and make sure that there is a nice coat of wax from edge to edge.
Make sure your iron is on a relatively low temperature setting so that you don’t burn the wax.
Make sure to keep the iron moving. So you melt the wax but your ski doesn’t heat up too much and damage the ski. And one more pass all the way to the end.
And then my ski is set up with storage wax and ready to go for when I use it next time –
See you in the mountains soon!
Okay. Thanks, Mo.
Guys, thanks for following, we hope this list was a big help. Please leave in the comments section below your favorite tip and if there’s anything that we missed out on, maybe we’ve got something we can add.
Maybe you’ve got some cool tips. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And thanks for following PowderQuest. We’ll see you in mountains soon!