Quiz: Are you a ski nerd?

By Wendy Clinch •  Updated: 07/11/17 •  4 min read

If you follow this blog, then chances are you’re pretty nuts about skiing. But are you a ski nerd — someone who knows stuff about skiing that most people don’t? And to put an even finer point on it: how big a ski nerd are you? To help you find out, I’ve put together a short handy-dandy quiz. Answers are at the end, but no peeking (or Googling, either)!

1) I have a pair of skis that are 124/93/112. What do those numbers mean?
The length of your legs/the circumference of your neck/the length of your arms;
The distance of your eyes from the tip of the ski/the circumference of your neck/your waist size;
Ski tip width/waist width/tail width;
The day of the year in which your skis were made/how many days your skis will last/a code for the skis’ country of origin

2) What does DIN stand for?
Dynamic Individual Number;
Deutsches Institut für Normung;
Des Institutes pour la Neige;
Decimal Incremental Notation

Big Sky, MT

Big Sky, MT

3) You have a MAX pass. At which resort can it be used?
Big Sky, MT;
Heavenly Mountain Resort, CA;
Park City Mountain Resort, UT;
Beaver Creek, CO

4) What does ‘shred the gnar’ mean?
To eat on the chairlift with your mouth open;
To excel in challenging conditions;
To rip your ski pants in an embarrassing manner;
To criticize another skier

5) You have a jacket with a tag that says ‘DWR.’ This stands for:
Down Winter Rating;
Durable Water Repellent;
Dirt & Wind Resistance;
Don’t Wear Ripped

Lyndsey Vonn

Lyndsey Vonn

6) ‘Skinning’ means:
Wearing a ski jacket made out of fur or leather;
Skiing buck naked;
Sticking a synthetic skin to the base of your skis, climbing a mountain, and skiing down;
Skinny-dipping in the hot tub apres ski

7) ‘Negative camber’ means:
Bad Karma;
A ski that’s low on energy;
A ski that has a slight overall convex or U-shape from tail to tip;
A bad attitude

8) Where was the first lift-served ski resort in the US?
Mount Greylock, MA;
Banff, AB;
Suicide Six, VT;
Whiteface, NY;

Colorado

Colorado Ski Resorts

9) What ski area has the highest elevation in North America?
Arapahoe Basin, CO;
Jackson Hole, WY;
Mout Hood, OR;
Aleyska, AK

10) Which state has the most ski areas?
Vermont;
Colorado;
Idaho;
New York

11) It’s a powder day! This means:
You took a powder and left work early;
You coated your feet with baby powder so they’d smell better in your ski boots;
Your doing a line of coke (please, don’t);
It’s snowing

12) Which of the ski resorts below doesn’t allow snowboarding?
(Yes, still.)

Wintergreen, VA;
Mammoth, CA;
Sugarloaf, ME;
Taos, NM;
Mad River Glen, VT

13) Name a celebrity who died after hitting a tree.

14) A shell fit is:
A technique used to determine the size of the body armor you need for ski racing;
A technique that uses the boot shell to determine ski boot fit;
A technique used to determine helmet size.

15) You took a lesson from an L3 PSIA instructor. This means:
She’s taught for at least 3 years;
She’s met the Level 3 requirements set by the PSIA;
She’s taught at at least three different resorts.

Is this skier Fighting a Yeti?

Is this skier Fighting with a Yeti?

16) What’s the phrase for when a skier loses all his ski equipment during a fall, spreading it all over the slope?
Yard Sale;
Buying the Farm;
Bringing Down the House;
Fighting a Yeti

 

 

Answers:
1) Ski tip width/waist width/tail width; 2) Deutsches Institut für Normung; 3) Big Sky, MT; 4) Excel in challenging conditions; 5) Durable Water Repellent; 6) Sticking a synthetic skin to the base of your skis, climbing a mountain, and skiing down; 5) Arapahoe Basin, CO;  7) A ski that has an overall convex or U-shape; 8) Suicide Six, VT; 9) Arapahoe Basin, CO; 10) New York; 11) It’s snowing! 12) Mad River Glen, VT; 13) Sonny Bono; 14) A technique that uses the boot shell to determine ski boot fit; 15) She’s met the Level 3 requirements set by the PSIA; 16) Yard Sale.

 

How’d you do?