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We've been getting a lot of questions recently on how to properly size junior race skis - both gs and sl - for junior ski racers, so we put together this video guide to help out:

If you're trying to decide from home, use a measuring tape to hit those heights to figure out the closest ski length for your young racer. Still having trouble? Swing by the shop, give us a call or shoot us an email and our experts will advise.

A few years back, when powder was bottomless, fat skis were new and rocker was rocking our world for the first time, powder skis were a one-trick pony, and people loved them. As time has gone on, skiers have started to figure out that powder doesn't last all day, and often conditions sent skiers running back to their car by lunch to swap out those powder specialists for an all mountain ski.

More recently, ski manufacturers have started to figure that out too, producing powder skis with a little added versatility so you can ski them all day - and for a few days after the storm. Enter the new Dynastar Cham 117, new for 2015.

Both building on and tweeking the successful Cham 5-point ski design, the Cham 117 hits a sweet spot between pure powder grins and all-mountain versatility to keep going when the soft stuff gets tracked out. Rocker in the tip, just a tiny bit of rise in the tail, and taper both in front and back with traditional camber and sidecut underfoot make up the shape, and lightweight metal-less wood core construction sets up the flex and ride.

At Start Haus we get a significant amount of people every season coming in hoping to buy a new liner for their ski boot. There are many custom liners on the market and strong opinions for and against each of them, the most successful of which is the Intuition heat-moldable brand. In this short Boot Fitter’s Notes we’ll examine the Intuition liners a bit more closely.

The Intuition has been around for several decades and is the preferred liner for telemark, alpine touring boots, snowboard boots, and are used as an upgrade for many alpine ski boots. Intuition offers several versions of it’s liner from ski touring specific with a free moving flex-zone in the back for articulation, to tongued “Race” liners. At Start Haus we’ve tried many of the liners and find for our money the Alpine Power Wrap is the best of the bunch.

The Intuition Alpine Power Wrap is a wrap design liner made of their densest closed-cell Ultralon foam. This foam is quite dense and firm, and has almost no anatomical shape out of the package; therefore if you try it on before hand (which we don’t recommend) it won’t feel good. Once Properly molded to your feet and boot, the difference is staggering.

If you've just bought Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS climbing skins, it can be a little daunting to figure out how to get them fit and trimmed to your skis.

Fortunately, Gregg here at the Start Haus is a pro. We'll go through step by step with Gregg so you get your skins trimmed right the first time.

First things first, here's what should be included - organize it to get ready to go.

The Head Great Joy was one of the skis our female ski testers were most excited about when it was announced, and turned out to be one of our absolute favorites when we got it on the snow.

Ski manufacturers often announce the "next wonder material" that will "revolutionize the way we ski" and often, it doesn't quite live up to the hype. But in this case, a lot of the credit as to why we liked the Head Great Joy - and the whole Head Joy women's ski line - is a new material called graphene, previously used in Head tennis rackets, said to have one of the best strength-to-weight ratios of any material.

Blizzard's Flipcore skis have been some of our tester's favorites over the last few years, and the women's specific skis are no exception. The Blizzard Samba, at 98 underfoot, cuts the same profile as the hugely popular the Blizzard Bonafide - with a few changes to make it a great women's all mountain ski.

Right off the bat, we should say this is not an intermediate ski - but if you've got the skill and the desire to ski a wider all mountain ski, this is one of the absolute best.

Backcountry boots are improving at a rapid pace in today’s market, with several plastic options that allow manufacturers to make boots lighter, and ski better than ever before. Also engineering designs are improving the cuff articulation so the boots are going uphill better than ever before, while also locking down with a more solid connection on the downhill.

Dynafit has always been a top manufacturer of alpine touring and backcountry ski boots. They damn-near cornered the market on pin-tech style bindings, although some other manufacturers are setting themselves up for some interesting competition.

The Nordica Nemesis, a long-time Start Haus favorite for hard-charging women who like to get off-piste, has been updated for 2015, and from our testing, it's for the better.

Taking lessons learned from the shape of the wider Nordica Wildfire, the Nemesis gets a new rocker profile that's gradual and subtle, blending perfectly with the camber of the ski, along with tip and tail tapper, perfectly executed to reduce hooking in crud and variable snow without significantly diminishing edge contact on groomers.

Maintaining its lightweight wood and Wi-Core stringer construction, it's still a light, energetic and poppy ski like previous versions.

Tecnica has long been proud of their race heritage and the success of their narrow performance-focused boots. The Inferno released a few years ago, and the new Tecnica R9.8 130, which uses the same mold, has been a success over previous models and a pleasure to ski.

I owned the Inferno and skied the 9.8 130 extensively as my primary boot for three years. The fit is fantastic; I have a C-width foot, and didn’t have to do much work to make the 9.8 comfortable. After many days of skiing I put in a 5th metatarsal punch and an ankle punch, which are more than reasonable for the amount of days I’ve put into these well-loved boots.

The 98 mm category is bitterly contested, and all manufacturers (for the most part) make an excellent boot in this category. Why should Tecnica take your hard earned money? That is for you and your bootfitter to decide of course, with so many great boots in the category, go with the one that fits your foot best based on your values and needs, as each boot in the category skis darn well. What I can say is that for my foot and skiing ability, the Tecnica was a great match and a pleasure to ski for so long.

Here in Tahoe, the Start Haus tends to recommend 98 mm underfoot skis as the best all-around all-mountain skis for local conditions.

There are a lot of good skis in this category, but the one that both Sierra Jim and Phil Pug have held as the gold standard in the category recently has been the versatile Blizzard Bonafide.

It's won numerous magazine awards, sold out last year before January at the Start Haus, and this year, Blizzard is sold out nation-wide, so once they're gone, they're gone. We've got them in stock, but they're going fast. Click here.

Lange deserves accolades on many fronts in their history as a ski boot manufacturer.

Throughout their history, performance has been their highest value. While so many companies have gone off on wild goose chases in the ski boot world, (see rear entry boots) Lange by and large has stayed true to its core values with their elite racing heritage and building ski boots that perform well, no matter who you are or what your foot shape.

Boot fitting for the better part of the last decade, I have always counted my lucky stars that I have a narrow foot. Of all people who got the short end of the stick in the ski world, people with wide feet have by far the roughest go in the ski boot world.

Why?

Medium-wide ski boots have some serious competition in the last few years. When Tecnica built a new boot from the ground up, the engineers knew it had to be something totally different than they'd ever built before.

I was fortunate enough to go to the America’s Best Bootfitters test last spring at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon, and was more than interested in how the Tecnica Mach1 130 would stack up against the rest of the 100 mm-wide category, particularly the strong competition that has sprung up in the medium fit market.