A below-average snow year — most Summit and Eagle county resorts are reporting mid-mountain base depths slightly above 30 inches — means more exposed rocks, logs, bushes and treetops. It also means your base may take a beating if you accidentally ski over these unseen obstacles. Depending on the depth of the gouge in your base(s), you can patch it up with P-tex (polyethylene candle) or, if it's near or to the core of your skis or board, you need to bring it to a shop to be welded with harder plastics. Expert technicians from Breckenridge, Dillon and Vail weigh in on how you can preserve your equipment and when you really need their help.

“You can treat your equipment very much like your car,” said Ryan McDermott, owner of Mono Cerra in Dillon. “Be aware of things it needs like an oil change, and most of the maintenance you should be able to do yourself. It's really hard to tell people they shouldn't bring their stuff to a shop because I own one, but it doesn't hurt to do it yourself.”

Inspection is the initial step to diagnosing your equipment's ills.

“The first thing you do is look at the skis and see what they need, see what will make them perfect and ski better than they've ever skied before,” said Ryan Dorst of Pup's Glide Shop in Breckenridge. “This year everybody coming in has some base damage.”

Oxidation: A sign you need to wax

McDermott said, “The big thing is identification. A lot of people ask how many times you should wax. You could wax every day.”

The Dillon-based tuner said riders and skiers should watch for a white tint on their base(s), indicating that its been dried out and needs to be waxed. Your base, McDermott added, is like your epidermal tissue: Keep it moist.

The first thing you'll need, after you recognize oxidation, is a wax with an appropriate temperature range.

Picking the right temperature wax

”(Wax) isn't just temperature-sensitive; it's moisture-sensitive,” said Adam Greenier, co-owner of Gravity Jones Ski Werks in Vail.

“Wax also performs based on the crystal structure of the snow,” he added. “Snow in Colorado is dry, powdery and very abrasive. If the wax says it is good from 10 to 20 degrees, it's probably good from zero to 10 degrees, for example.”

Greenier said he recommends leaning toward a colder wax. On the East Coast, he said, a wax's advertised temperature range tends to be more on target because the snow is wetter.

The Summit County wax manufacturer, Purl, sells a blue, cold-temperature wax specifically suited for Colorado's dry, cold conditions. Despite his product's tailoring to the local climate and its powder snow, owner Scott Sparks said he likes to mix his waxes or uses different temperature ranges for different parts of a board or ski.

“Purple is our all-temp and our blue is our cold-weather wax,” Sparks said. “Usually I'll run the blue along the rails and then run the purple down the center.”

Harder wax along the edges can stand the abuse, Sparks added. The softer, purple wax, he said, has a broad temperature range because, from top to bottom, the mountains in Summit County will have different conditions. He added that he'll mix the purple and blue so that they have a broader range through the colder part of the season. In spring, he said, he'll mix the all-temperature purple with his warmer-temperature yellow wax.

The right wax, McDermott said, is an investment that not only betters the performance of the skis or board but also prevents damage over time. During his four years of working as a technician for Swix, McDermott said that he still pushes Purl Wax because it's durable, biodegradable, and free of petroleum and PFOA, which contributes to climate change.

As a Swix representative, McDermott shadows snowboarders and freeskiers during competitions. Before a contest, McDermott said, “We do what we call homework: That's in the shop stuff. That's the prep where if you do everything right, everything should go right on the hill.”

Homework, McDermott said, includes setting the wax for next day's temperature, something you can't always predict. If there's a lot of solar or radiant heat during a contest, McDermott has to be prepared to assist with overlays. At competitions in Breckenridge, he said, he takes almost everything into account — changes in temperature, sunlight, which wall of the halfpipe the prevailing wind hits — and makes adjustments accordingly. Aspen, he added, is notorious for having different temperatures at the top and bottom of its slopestyle courses, so he needs to apply a temperature range that can accommodate a rider going faster at the bottom of the course than at the top.

Applying your wax: don't let the iron smoke

“The molecular structure of base material and wax are very, very similar. Wax just has a lower melting temperature. That's why waxes and bases get along so well,” Greenier said.

“With lower-temperature waxes, be careful not to let the iron get too hot,” he said. “If your iron is too hot, ski bases have pores in them that allow the waxes to pour in, the iron will melt the plastics and seal off those pores so your base will never absorb wax again.”

The rule of thumb, Greenier said, is if the iron is smoking, it's too hot.

Make sure your board or skis are at room temperature before you begin waxing. After you've put wax to iron, dripped and spread it across your entire base(s), let it dry. Dorst, of Pup's Glide Shop, said with most waxes, it's best to let the board or skis sit anywhere from five minutes to overnight. With Purl, he said, the waiting is shorter, more like two or three minutes.

‘You can scrape (Purl) quicker,” Dorst said. “I can't tell a lot of difference between a minute and a day.”

Scraping and buffing tip to tail

Many skiers and boarders skip this step, preferring to ride off the wax. McDermott said this actually slows you down because it increases the resistance between the base(s) and the snow as you're skiing.

“It's very important to get all the wax you can,” Dorst said. “It will be faster.”

Dorst recommends using a sharp, plastic scraper to get the top layer of wax off the base. Then, he said the best thing to do is use different brushes, such as nylon or horsehair to get wax out of the base itself. As you brush the already-scraped ski or board, it should look like you are pulling dust out of the base. Once the remainder of the wax has been removed, Dorst said, grab a burgandy Scotchbrite pad and buff the base from tip to tail. The pad, he said, gives the base a really nice polish, which translates to a very fast finish on the mountain.