Taking Your Winter Gear Out of Storage

It’s officially fall, which means cooler weather, longer nights, and a chance to prepare your winter gear for what’s to come. If you’re lucky, you may even be able to visit areas with snow in as little as a month or two! So we at Albuquerque Self Storage wanted to provide a list of things to do once you take your winter gear out of storage. 

Getting Your Skis Out of Storage

Skiing is one of the U.S.’s most popular winter sports. In fact, the number of skiers in the United States amounted to around 14.94 million in 2017. Skis and skiing gear take up a lot of space and need some TLC after a long summer in storage. Even if you put them in protective cases or bags and thoroughly clean them before you store them away, you’re still going to need to work on them before you’re ready to hit the slopes. 

Tips For Waxable Ski Maintenance

Skis have a slippery bottom to help you glide across the snow. Many skis have achieved this through the use of wax, which is applied to their slick bottoms. 

New skis and recently stone ground skis should be saturated with a soft wax, to turn the sponge of your base into a bar of wax. The easiest way to achieve this is to have your skis hot boxed. This is a slow heating of the wax for 4 hours to penetrate slowly into your ski. This heated step is unnecessary for causal skiing, though you will notice a long-lasting and more dramatic effect if you apply it. 

After this process, you should heat protect your ski base with several layers of a blue wax. All of this wax will need to be scraped and brushed out. If you have dirty skis that have not been stone ground, then you will need to hot scrape your ski bases and brush out the plastic before going through the hot box and heat protection process.

Or, you can take your skis to a professional and they’ll slick them up for you. 

Tips For Waxless Ski Maintenance

Waxless skis are more common in the realm of casual skiing. They don’t require any wax to the kickzone, but you still do need to apply glide.  The first step is to wipe your skis down with a ski base cleaner, using a lint free cloth. This will get all of the old dust and dirt off of your ski base, that you might have picked up in storage. The cleaner the ski, the easier the wax will hold. 

Once your ski base is clean of debris, apply Swix Nordic Easy Glide  from the tip of your ski, to the start of your kick zone and from the end of your kick zone, to the tail of your ski. Only apply it on the bottom! You don’t need it on top of your ski where the design is and where you strap your boot into. 

Make sure to apply the wax from tip to tail, as this is the direction the ski goes in! 

Washing Winter Gear

If you want your winter gear to last many winters, don’t throw them in the wash with the rest of your clothes. They’re made of special material that often requires different care. For instance, lightweight ski wear is usually made of waterproof nylon. 

The material is often breathable too, meaning it lets your sweat evaporate away, but it doesn’t allow water to get inside of the gear. It’s important to keep this type of material clean because dirt can disrupt its waterproofing and breathability! But if you clean it wrong, you can damage the microscopic pores in the material and ruin the snow pants or jacket. 

How to Wash Snow Pants

Before you clean your snow pants, check all of the pockets. Empty the pockets of lip balm, tissues, sunglasses; anything that could stain your pants or break inside the pocket. Cut off or untie any lift tickets or passes that may be on them too.

You can throw your snow pants in the wash, but only if they’re alone or with one more item. Use gentle detergent, such as Dreft, Woolite, or one formulated for waterproof gear, and always wash them with cold water on a delicate cycle. 

Never put them in the dryer — allow them to air dry. Never iron them either. Lay them flat or hang them up to help prevent wrinkles, though that should not be a big deal as they are used to keep you dry and warm, not looking stylish. 

How to Wash Your Winter Jacket

If your winter jacket smells a bit musty after taking it out of storage, you should wash it. Run it on a delicate cycle in cold water, by itself. Do not dry it and instead, hang it up to dry. 

If your jacket has a liner, you should remove it and any hoods that are detachable. Zip up all the zippers, snap the snaps, and close all Velcro fasteners to prevent snagging and tears during washing.

If you notice any stains, pretreat them first. 

Open Your Closet for Storing Them

The last step is making room to store them. If you’re limited on space, the best thing you can do is put your summer clothes into storage. For tips on how to do that, read our blog here.