Jan. 4, 2007 - Women and men are different.

You probably know that already.

Beyond the obvious, some differences show up on the slopes.

“Women and men tend to make different mistakes as their most common errors,” said Lisa Feinberg Densmore, “and they tend to learn differently.”

Densmore, a top woman racer and former member of the U.S. Ski Team, now designs women’s equipment for Head.

In eight years of putting on women’s ski clinics for Head, she’s worked with more than 4,000 women across the country.

“What it’s done - inadvertently - is created an incredible laboratory for me, to see how women learn on different terrain, in different snow conditions, at different levels and so forth.

“What I’ve found is – and this is not necessarily original, but it’s proven out – women tend to sit back more than men do. One reason is boots that are way too stiff; another is the center of gravity issue – women carry their weight in their hips, where men carry it in shoulders and arms and chest.

“Women also tend to have a little more difficult time rolling their skis up on edge, because of the Q angle. (That’s the quadriceps angle, 14 degrees for men and 17 degrees for women.) Women have curves, their hips tend to be wider, so when they go to roll ski on edge, if haven’t been taught correctly, women tend to put more torque on knee, which isn’t comfortable, so they just don’t do it,” Densmore said.

Women also are lighter than men, in most cases not as strong, and often not as aggressive.

Equipment makers have been trying to develop skis, boots and bindings that take into account these differences.

Part of the approach seems to be a traditional matching standard equipment to the individual, part is building equipment that is custom-made for women.

She said it all starts with the boot, and that women tend to have fit issues in the lower leg and calf.

“I’m a former ski racer, I still want a high performance boot when I race on the master’s circuit. But I could not flex Bode Miller’s boot if I put it on my foot, so it’s all kind of relative,” she said.

“With shaped skis, you need a lot of lateral stiffness in the boot, but you don’t need forward stiffness in boot,” she said.

Lighter skiers need skis that are easier to flex, or they won’t turn properly. Also, Densmore said, women prefer lighter skis, and in the past this has meant less expensive skis of lower quality.

Now, she said, manufacturers are trying to build lighter skis of higher quality materials, that flex easily but offer good lateral stability.

Another observation: “As you become a better skier the difference between your woman’s ski and a unisex ski becomes less and less,” she said.

Ski areas are offering ski clinics for women.

Densmore runs Head clinics around the country, including three at Wachusett Mountain Jan. 17 and 18, and one at Stowe Feb. 7 where she will be guest speaker at coach at that mountain's Women in Motion clinic.

Wachusett Mountain has its own series of women’s clinics, including the mountain's premier offering of two five-session clinics Thursday mornings. They are Thursdays Jan. 4 to Feb. 1, and Feb. 8 to March 15. These session begin with a continental breakfast at 9:30 a.m. with guest speakers on various ski-related topics, and clinic from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Clinic package is $119; lift ticket package is $115.

Wachusett also is running weekend women's clinics, Saturdays Jan. 6 to Feb. 3 and Sundays Jan. 7 to Feb. 4, 10 a.m. to noon. Clinic package is $119; lift ticket package is $192.

Wachusett also is running women's clinics Tuesday nights Jan. 2 to Jan. 30, 7 to 9 p.m. Clinic package is $119; lift ticket package is $144. Video analysis of one sesson.

Call 978-464-2300 Ext. 3300 for details.

Okemo is offering three types of women’s clinics.

Jan. 8-12, Jan. 22-26 Okemo Premier Five-Day Women’s Adventure Program. This five-day weekday immersion in the skiing and snowboarding lifestyle includes personalized instruction and coaching, a five-day lift ticket, a welcome party, farewell banquet, and breakfast and lunch served daily. Cost: $639. For skiers of any ability level and snowboarders who ride at level three and up.

Jan. 5-7, Jan. 17-19, Feb. 2-4, Feb. 12-14 Okemo Complete Three-Day Women’s Adventure Program. A long weekend can make all the difference. The Complete Three-Day Program includes personalized instruction and coaching, indoor development presentations, morning stretch sessions, a three-day lift ticket, a welcome party, breakfast and lunch served daily. Cost: $479. Skiers and snowboarders of all ability levels are welcome.

Feb. 8-9 Okemo Intensive Two-Day Women’s Adventure Program. For women who can get away during the week, a couple of weekdays on Okemo’s un-crowded slopes provide ample opportunity to practice new skills in this intensive two-day clinic that includes personalized instruction and coaching, indoor development presentations, morning stretch sessions, a two-day lift ticket, a welcome party, breakfast and lunch served daily. Cost: $319. The concentrated nature of this program makes it best-suited to skiers and snowboarders who are of an ability level three and up.

Reservations are required and can be made by calling Okemo's Cutting Edge Learning Center at (802) 228-1600.

Loon Mountain is offering two programs for women.

Sundays Feb. 4 to March 25, Loon Mountain has Women’s Breakthrough Workshops, designed for women skiers aged 40 and over, feature coaching from Loon’s top women instructors. Cost: $59 per person; lift ticket or pass required. Reservations can be made in advance or guests can sign up the morning of the clinic at any Loon Snowsports Desk. The group meets for coffee and muffins between 8:30 and 9 a.m. at the Slopeside Deli, and then spends the next three hours on snow, from 9 a.m. to noon. The Mountainside Rental Shop offers women’s-specific skis and boots for participants who want to rent equipment.

“These programs will allow women skiers and riders to learn skills in a comfortable, relaxed and supportive environment with other women of similar ability levels and around the same age,” said Snowsports Director Booie Alward. “The philosophy of ‘for women, taught by women’ provides an effective learning experience because the pressure to impress a husband or boyfriend is taken away.”

The Women’s Breakthrough Workshop features PSIA-certified instructors Roz Lowen, Karyl Silva and Elaine Whitlock. Lowen brings her 35 years of ski instruction experience with a strong emphasis on helping women use modern ski equipment to the fullest. Silva has taught at Loon for the past 13 years and supervises the Flying 50’s Seasonal Program. She has organized and taught many Women’s Getaways at Loon. Whitlock also works with the Women’s Getaways and Flying 50’s and specializes in teaching women.

On Feb. 10 and 11, Loon has Droppin’ In Women’s Weekend, a workshop for ladies curious about freestyle snowboarding. It's a two-day getaway combined with a specialty clinic that focuses on all aspects of the terrain park (riding it and building it), as well as the freestyle lifestyle, with coaching from Loon’s women’s snowboard staff and special guest coaches. The weekend includes protective gear, equipment tuning lesson, specially-priced meals, video review, a private park for learning new tricks or fine tuning existing skills, and much more. Prices start at $189 without lodging or $389 for the full package including premier slopeside lodging at the Mountain Club on Loon.

For more information, visit Loon Mountain or call 1-800-229-LOON (5666).

Dec 14, 2006 - A visit to New England’s oldest ski shop often means a lesson – in long-ago ski areas, what skis offered which innovation first, where’s so-and-so now, big trouble ahead for the 2010 Olympics at Whistler Blackcomb, or other ski trivia past, present and future.

Strand’s Ski Shop has sold skis and dispensed advice for 72 years, the past 55 of them in Worcester.

Strand Mikkelsen, North American amateur (1929) and professional (1931 and ’34) ski jump champion, opened the shop in The Weldon Hotel (now reconditioned into The Weldon, a retirement home) in Greenfield in 1934.

During the war – World War II – he ran it out of his home in Deerfield. In 1946, he moved back to town, renting half of Fields Sporting Goods for the winter. In 1951, he moved to the store’s current location on West Boylston Street in Worcester’s Greendale section.

The shop is now run by his sons, twins Roy and Leif, 63, and Paul, 54.

The three grew up in the ski business, literally.

Longtime Strand’s customers recall stepping over the twins as they scuffled on the floor of the shop, surrounded by skis, boots, poles and dogs.

As the brothers grew up, the tussles gave way to annual springtime ski trips that hit as many Rocky Mountain and Canadian resorts as they could manage before time and money ran out.

The brothers have seen a lifetime of changes in ski gear and in skiing itself, and are not reticent about sharing strong and often unusual opinions on the state of the industry and the powers-that-be of skiing.

“The buying cycle’s changed,” Roy said. “Back 15 years ago you were looking at people buying new skis every three years. Now it’s about seven years.”

“People are skiing less,” Paul said.

“Products have gotten better,” Roy said. “You don’t see the de-lamination you used to see. But manufacturers are changing the paint jobs every year. Years ago, you had Black Heads, White Stars, Rossi Stratos. They ran these for years. Now companies are changing, changing, changing. They have too many models, and it’s just confusing. There’s no reason to have 20 models.”

“Twenty,” Paul said. “Try 54.”

“There’s no reason,” Roy said again. “They could get by with six or seven models, if you take away specific race skis.”

He looked around, then said, “Shaped skis killed the race ski market for recreational skiers. Fifty percent of the skis sold in the U.S. were slalom skis before shaped skis. Now they don’t buy ‘em.”

“You know,” Leif said on an earlier visit to the shop, as he sat on one of the two-person boot-fitting benches in the back room, “Kneissl invented the radical sidecut ski, not Elan. And it's not a ‘new’ idea. They came out with it four years ago. What's happened is that Elan took the idea and made it popular.

“And ‘parabolic’ skis aren't new. All skis are parabolic, That's how skis work. What's new to the general market is the radical sidecut. There are different degrees of radical, too. Head's high-end skis are less radical. The smallest sizes from all makers are good for people who have difficulty angulating.”

Some years before that, before the transition to radically shaped skis, No. 1 Son came home from a day of skiing sporting a broken thumb and a broken ski tip.

He said he broke the ski by jumping. I said no, jumping never broke anything, it was the landing that did it.

“Very funny, dad,” he replied.

The skis, incidentally, were dad's Pre 1200s. The aluminum core was showing through the shattered pitex base. The aluminum edges were flapping to and fro. Skis with millions of vertical feet on them ... demolished. It was too sad.

The thumb? Never mind the thumb. Thumbs heal. The Precision skis would never fly down the hill again.

So. After a quick trip to the thumb doctor, it was off to Strand's, to put skis and boots on the kids without mortgaging the family's future.

“Had enough skiing, kid?” asked Leif Mikkelsen upon seeing the cast.

“Jump much?” he asked upon seeing the ski tip ...

... and found a pair of used Olin Mark VIIs in the stack leaning against the wall of the workshop. Marker M46 racing bindings were transferred from the venerable Precisions to the new/used Olins.

Meanwhile, No. 2 Son’s feet had outgrown his old boots. He left Strand’s sporting a pair of used Langes selected from among hundreds of pairs arranged on floor-to-ceiling shelves in one of the many side rooms of the shop.

For some reason he had wanted Langes for a long time. Something about the status of having the distinctive bruises (“Lange bangs”) these boots inflict on shins.

All us older people were 13 once, but it's difficult to remember exactly how it felt.

Another visit to Strand’s was occasioned by the need to tune up a pair of telemark skis.

“These were really beat up,” Roy said, grinning as he handed over the Chouinard TUA backcountry skis that had just been given the full treatment on the Montana computer-controlled ski tuning machine.

“Yes,” replied their delinquent owner. “I've had them five years and this is the first tuneup.”

Five years of bashing over ice and rock on New England's mountains gouges bottoms and dulls edges on any ski. Most skiers tune their equipment more frequently – usually as needed, several times a season. Some carry sharpening stones and hit the edge between runs.

“Seemed like a good time to sharpen the edges,” the delinquent owner said to Roy, trying to recover some semblance of competence.

“Big time,” Roy replied as he turned to apply pitex to the bottom of the next pair of skis in line.

Dec. 1, 2006 - First outing of the year last season, Scott Randall of Princeton spent a chairlift ride uphill talking about ski length. He had his rock skis on, older Salomons, 187 centimeters in length. His normal skis are 163 centimeter Volkls. His thinking: Sometimes early season terrain is hard on skis, and he wanted to save his good ones for a little bit later.

Speaking of skis, I am on new ones, 174 centimeter Rossignol Bandit B2s. Rossignol’s blurb says the ski offers total versatility, that it’s good in powder, good in crud, and has "amazing grip on the hard pack." It’s marketed as a ski engineered for skiers who split their time evenly between groomed and ungroomed trails. The ski is 116 millimeters wide at the tip, 78 at the waist, and 105 at the tail, with a turning radius of 16.6 meters.

The first two outings, they seemed awfully short. On the first outing, they also seemed too sharp too far up the tips and tails. It almost seemed as if I were stepping on the tips at the end of a turn, holding the ski into the hill. It was alarming the first couple of turns; after that, it was merely nervewracking. Brackett Dow, who works in the Mountainside Ski Shop, ran a piece of pumice over the tips and tails to detune them. It was better, but they still felt short. By the third outing, they felt perfect.

In the process of picking new skis, I learned that no matter how good, they won’t last forever, because the constant flexing of turns and bashing from use will take their toll.

"Skiing is controlled free fall," said Deno Dudunake, regional marketing rep for Rossignol. "Think about what a ski does. The forces that are generated come from four factors: the steepness of the trail, the weight that’s being supported by the ski, the speed that you are traveling, and the terrain you are skiing.

"If you’re skiing 40 to 80 days a season, a top-end pair of skis will have a life of three years, maybe four at the most. It also depends on where you ski: If you’re in the glades in conditions where you’re taking core shots and stress loads to the sidewalls, it will all have an effect; if you’re a four hours a day guy that skis the groomers and doesn’t hit the bumps, well it’s like a car that’s four years old and was never used except to go to the grocery store."

Makes sense to me.

"Oh and by the way," Dudunake said, "if you like the B2s, you should try the B3s."

"Would you please tell people that skis make a big difference," Carolyn Stimpson of Wachusett said last week. "And so does tuning."

She was exasperated that some people make skiing a lot more difficult than it has to be, by using gear that predates the shaped ski revolution, and by not keeping skis waxed and sharpened.

I can attest to the difference skis make – thanks to a new pair of Rossignol Bandits, and a new pair of Volkl Supersports, both of which are faster than I am and usually arrive at the bottom ahead of me.

Nov. 15, 2006 - TV weather folks must think we are pretty dumb, that without their constant whining about wind chill, we would run around naked in the snow.

Think about it: That particular fashion fad would be self-limiting, and not last even as long as the sack dress of the '50s.

(And who remembers them? I do only because my sweet sister married the son of the woman who staked her reputation as a New York and Paris couturier on the bizarre design. Needless to say …)

Since we are on the topic of warmth, how do the professionals stay warm in all weather?

I asked Dave Walker of Lunenburg. He served as director of the ski patrol at Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton for nine years and was assistant director for 14 years before that under Skip Brown.

How does he stay warm?

"Layering," he explained.

Walker said layering traps air underneath windproof clothing, and lets the body's natural furnace heat it up. Layering with the right material, he said, moves moisture away from the skin, where it will make you cold and clammy.

Layers go like this: first, polypropylene underwear wicks moisture away from the skin; second, a turtleneck keeps the neck warm and adds another layer over the polypro; third, heavy fleece, top and bottom, traps warm air; and finally, a windproof layer, again top and bottom, keeps out the biting wind.

"You can buy inexpensive fleece," Walker said, "but don't. You really want a good, heavy fleece. It will cost more, but it's worth the money."

He recommends mittens, rather than gloves, to keep hands warm.

"And always wear a hat," Walker said. "I have to wear a hat, because I'm bald, but everyone loses an awful lot of heat through the head."

He suggests a helmet as another way to keep the head warm – and intact, as well, but that's another topic.

Face masks, neck gaiters and goggles help protect the face, he said, and boot warmers and boot gaiters add another bit of warmth to the feet.

His years at the popular ski area prompt him to add two more bits of advice: eat before you ski, to give your body fuel to stay warm; and stay away from blue jeans, which are neither windproof nor warm when wet.

Roger Leo can be reached by email at leo@leopardreport.com.