Demo Skis At Next Adventure

I’m the type of person who will spend hours researching every single detail I can find before making a major purchase. With skis, it was no different. I found, however, that the best way to truly know I was making the best purchase, was simply to try them out. That’s where the crew at Next Adventure came in. I had a vague idea of the general type of skis and bindings I wanted to check out, but after chatting with the ski staff, I came to the realization that the tiny amount of knowledge I had managed to memorize off of Google couldn’t hold a candle to the years of experience these folks had. Every demo experience I had with the teams started off with a quick Q&A: “Where are you going?” “How much skiing will you be doing?” “What did you think of the last pair you took out?” “Wanna try something new?” and “How much experience do you have skiing on that terrain?” My boots (which I also purchased from the NA team) are designed for Alpine Touring so I was limited to skis set up with AT bindings. However, that didn’t mean I was restricted to only a few types of skis and bindings. Over the course of the winter, I tried bindings made by G3, Marker, and Dynafit; I toured, ‘survival skied,’ and made sweet powder turns on skis made by Atomic, Volié, and Dynafit (the Dynafit Manaslus turned out to be my favorite of the three and I took them out multiple times). Every new trip downstairs to see the Rental team had me learning about the pros and cons of each new setup I was about to take out. It was incredible. By the time I was ready to make my own ski purchase, the NA staff knew me by name, remembered which skis I’d demoed, and were always down to chat about my (and their own) upcoming adventures. I was honestly sad when I stopped demoing gear since I didn’t have an excuse to spend my time chatting it up with everyone while my bindings were adjusted. The other - SUPER RAD - benefit to demoing skis from NA is that they mark down your ski purchase with up to TWO DEMO FEES. Which, for those of us who are frugal about testing out the latest and best gear, means that your money is being put toward your long-term purchase. So, if you’re interested in stepping up your ski game this winter or psyched about sweating your way through a few laps on the Palmer Glacier, you should definitely check out the Demo Gear the Next Adventure Ski Team is repping this season. Corie is one of our Next Adventure Ambassadors - check out her site, Mountain Refugees, for amazing mountaineering resources.