Your second season: what to upgrade, and in what order

Why the order is boots, goggles, skis

Not price order and not excitement order. Our first-season page puts helmet and goggles first because they are cheap and rentals fit them badly. The second season changes the ranking for one reason: you have stopped being a passenger and the equipment starts to limit you.

• Boots transmit everything. Every input you make reaches the ski through the boot, so a boot that is a size too big absorbs the input before it arrives. This is the only item on the list where the rental version is actively holding you back rather than merely being worse.
• Goggles decide what you can see. A single mid-VLT rental lens is fine in bright sun and close to useless in flat light - and flat light is most days at most resorts. Being able to see terrain is more valuable than any ski characteristic.
• Skis are the most forgiving rental. A rental ski in your second season is a slightly heavy, slightly old version of a perfectly reasonable ski. It is also freshly tuned, which your own skis will not be after you forget to wax them.

The second-season order

1. Boots, and why they are the whole of some people’s year two

If you buy one thing this season, buy boots - and if the budget only stretches to one thing, that is not a compromise, it is the correct answer.

What a rental boot gets wrong is almost always volume rather than length. Shops size for comfort across a thousand feet a week, which means slightly long and distinctly roomy, and a roomy boot lets your heel lift and your foot roll inside the shell. The result is an edge that engages late and vaguely, which most people in their second season diagnose as “I need better skis”.

• Get the size right first. The adult ski boot size chart and how to measure at home - mondopoint, in centimeters, measured rather than guessed.
• Buy soft, not stiff. What the flex number means and which one to buy. A second-season skier does not need a 120 flex and will ski worse in one.
• If the issue is width rather than length, say so to the fitter - ski boots for wide feet, and why going up a size makes it worse.
• Budget for a footbed. The cheapest ski boot upgrade nobody mentions - often more effective than the next boot up.
• Expect them to hurt for three days, then stop. Telling normal pain from a boot that is wrong.
• Check the sole standard before you buy skis later. GripWalk, ISO 5355 and the compatibility check nobody mentions - this is the one decision made now that constrains a purchase next year.

For snowboarders the logic is identical and the page is snowboard boots, compared on what the makers publish - the boot is the component to own first there too.

System APX Lace Snowboard Boots

The second-season snowboard boot on this site, and the argument in one line: it publishes the same shell, the same heat-moldable liner and the same warranty as the dial version for fifty dollars less, and the whole fifty dollars buys convenience rather than performance. A lace that fails is a two-dollar fix in a car park; a cable that fails is a shop visit. For skiers, buying your first ski boots, and the one rule that overrides everything is the equivalent page.

2. Goggles, or really: a second lens

The upgrade with the highest ratio of difference-made to money-spent, and the one people skip because the goggles they own “work”. They work in sunshine. The problem is the other kind of day.

Flat light - overcast, snowing, or late afternoon in shadow - removes contrast, and without contrast you cannot read terrain: bumps, ice patches and the edge of a run all disappear. A high-VLT lens restores a usable amount of that. A dark sunny-day lens makes it worse.

• Understand VLT before you spend anything. Goggle VLT and lens color, explained without the marketing.
• Two options, and they cost about the same. An interchangeable-lens frame with a second lens - whether you need two lenses - or a single photochromic lens that shifts on its own - which lens technology is worth it.
• Check whether a replacement lens for your existing frame exists first. When a replacement lens is cheaper than a new goggle - sometimes this upgrade costs forty dollars rather than a hundred and fifty.
• If your goggles fogged all last season, that is a different problem. How to stop ski goggles fogging up - usually venting and a gaiter worn wrong, not the goggle.

Smith Squad ChromaPop

The interchangeable-lens frame in our ledger, and the reason it is here rather than a cheaper one: the lens ecosystem is the purchase. A frame with widely available replacement lenses means the second lens is a forty-dollar decision now and in three years, where a frame with no published lens options means buying a second goggle. The main goggle roundup ranks it on what is actually published, and the flat-light roundup is the page for the lens itself.

3. Skis, and the honest case for waiting another year

This is the upgrade people want to make and the one with the weakest argument in season two. Four reasons to wait.

• You do not yet know what length you want. A second-season skier is still changing technique month to month, and the right length at the end of the season is often not the right length at the start - the adult ski size chart, with the rule the numbers come from.
• Rental skis come tuned. Yours will not, unless you commit to the maintenance - the season maintenance schedule is about forty minutes a year, and an untuned own ski is genuinely worse than a tuned rental one.
• Owning skis adds a travel problem. Getting ski gear to the mountain without losing a day to it - airline fees and a bag are a real recurring cost that the sticker price hides.
• A season lease is the middle option. Seasonal leases: the option between renting daily and buying - roughly the cost of four or five day rentals for the whole winter, and you can swap.

If you do buy, demo days are how to try skis before you buy them and when to buy ski gear, and in what order covers the timing. Buy a package rather than separates unless you have a reason - packages against separates, and the component never to bundle.

Rossignol Experience 76 skis with Xpress 10 bindings

The second-season ski on this site: a package rather than separates, so the binding is already matched and mounted, at a width built for groomed runs rather than for the powder days most people do not get. Our intermediate ski roundup covers how to know you actually need one, and the under-$500 roundup is the price-ceiling version of the same question.

The three upgrades to skip

Each of these is widely recommended and wrong for a second-season skier, and all three cost real money.

• A stiffer boot. The most common bad advice in skiing. A stiff boot needs a lot of force to flex and punishes being in the back seat, which is exactly where a developing skier still is some of the time. It makes you ski worse and your shins hurt. What the flex number means.
• A wider ski. Width helps in deep soft snow and hurts everywhere else: a wide ski is slower edge to edge and harder work on the groomed runs that make up almost all of most people’s skiing. Width, sidecut, camber and rocker.
• A second pair of anything. Two pairs of skis, a second jacket, a backup goggle. The money belongs on the single worst item you own - the ski gear you do not need, and what to buy instead.

What to keep from your first season

Three things people replace unnecessarily, and one they should check.

• Keep the helmet, unless it took a real impact. A helmet is not an upgrade category - a certified helmet is a certified helmet. Are expensive ski helmets safer? What the published figures say and when to replace one.
• Keep the jacket if water still beads on it. If it does not, wash and re-proof rather than replace - how to wash a ski jacket, and why not washing it is worse.
• Keep the socks and buy more of the same. Ranked, and why the thin pair is the warm one.
• Check the gloves honestly. If your hands were cold, the usual cause is fit or wet rather than insulation - the fixes in order of how much they help before you spend anything.

Where the money goes furthest

• End-of-season sales, for next year. When to buy ski gear - March and April are when last year’s stock clears.
• Used, for some things and never for others. What is safe to buy used, and what never is - skis yes with a shop binding check, boots rarely, helmets never.
• Online, with the sizing done first. What is safe to order, and what is not - and boots are squarely in the “not” column.
• Sell what you are replacing. What ski gear holds its value, and what is worth nothing - the resale on a one-season-old jacket is better than most people assume and the resale on boots is worse.