Season Rentals: The Easiest Way to Get Your Family on the Mountain

If you've ever started a family ski day standing in a rental line at the mountain — a clipboard of paperwork in one hand, a melting-down six-year-old in the other, and a well-meaning tech handing your daughter boots a size too big because that's what's left on the wall — you already understand the problem season rentals solve.

At CB Sportif in Westport, we fit around 3,000 season rental packages a year, and a big share of them go to families from Fairfield County and Westchester who ski the same mountains we do. The idea is simple, and once families try it, almost nobody goes back to daily rentals.

One fitting in the fall, then you're done

A season rental works like this: you come into the shop once in the fall, we fit everyone properly, and the gear goes home with you. Skis, boots, and poles live in your garage from the start of the season until May 1. Our rental season runs August 1 through May 1, so the gear is yours for early-season days, school vacations, and that last spring weekend alike.

There are no reservations and no booking system to fight with — just walk in, or call us first if you want to talk it through. After that one visit, every ski trip starts the same easy way: load the car and go. No forms at the mountain. No lines. No crossing your fingers that your kid's size is still on the wall at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Families tell us this is the part they didn't expect — the rental stops being an errand and becomes invisible.

Fitted like gear they'd own

A season rental fitting at our shop isn't a guess off a height-and-weight chart. We measure feet, check how the boot actually fits, and make sure the skis suit each skier's size and ability — kids get the same care we'd give a boot or ski we were selling, because they're going to be in it all winter, not just for one afternoon.

And because kids grow, the fitting conversation doesn't end at pickup. If your child hits a growth spurt in February and their boots stop fitting the way they should, bring them back in — if they have grown into a bigger boot size, we will swap them into the right one and adjust the binding, so the back half of their season isn't spent in boots that hurt. And before any big trip, bring the kids in a week or two ahead of time and we'll check their sizes before you go. We want everyone happy and comfortable out there. That's a lot harder to do with gear you picked up at the mountain that morning.

The math, and the peace of mind

Rent by the day or the weekend and the costs add up quietly — especially with three or four skiers in the family. A season rental is one decision in the fall that covers every trip until spring, including the spontaneous ones: the snow day, the free Sunday, the "let's just go for the afternoon" that never survives a rental line.

We also offer damage insurance for $20 a package, and for families with kids we recommend it without hesitation. Skis get dropped, stepped on, and backed over in parking lots. Twenty dollars turns all of that into a story instead of a bill.

One more thing worth saying: season rentals aren't just for little kids. Teenagers between sizes — too big for junior gear, not done growing into adult gear — are exactly who benefits. So are parents who ski five or six weekends a winter and would rather put real money into good boots of their own while the skis stay rented. And when grandparents or cousins visit and decide to join a trip, you're not starting from zero at a rental counter with them, either. One fitting, one fall, and the whole family's logistics are handled until spring.

Buy your boots. Rent your skis.

Here's the advice we give every family in the shop, and it surprises people because we're the ones renting the gear: if your feet have stopped growing, buy your boots — and rent your skis.

Boots are the one piece of ski equipment that's personal. A boot that's been fitted to your foot, and molded and adjusted around it, is simply a more comfortable place to spend a ski day than a rental boot that a hundred other feet have shaped before yours. No two feet are alike, and the boot is where that matters most.

It's also the better math. Spread the cost of a good, properly fitted boot over the 8 to 12 years you'll ski in it, and it comes out to less than half of what those same years of renting boots would add up to — for a boot that's yours, broken in to your foot, and ready every single morning of the season.

Skis are the opposite story. They get better every year, kids outgrow them mid-season, and the right ski for this winter may not be the right one two winters from now. Renting keeps you on current gear, in the right size, without owning last year's decision. So that's our standing recommendation: own the boots, rent the skis — and when you do buy boots, get them fitted properly. It's the cheapest comfort in skiing.

For race families

If your kids race, season rentals go a step further here. We're the only shop around offering season-long race ski and race boot rentals together — most programs can help you with one or the other, not both. The prices are the same ones posted on our rentals page: junior race skis rent for $165 used or $330 new for the season, and a used race boot is $110.

Thinking about buying instead?

Renting isn't the only door. On select skis, our Rent to Own program lets a rental lead to ownership — ask us in the shop how it works on the models you're looking at. And for kids, our Junior Buy Back program is the buy-side answer to the growth problem: buy your child's gear, and when they outgrow it, trade it back for 50% credit after one season or 30% after two, toward the next size up.

Come get fitted

The best selection of sizes is early in the fall, and the fitting itself is the whole game — it's what makes the rest of the season easy. Stop by the shop at 1554 Post Road East in Westport, or call us at (203) 255-2294, and we'll get your family set up for the winter in one visit.