The holidays mean that its time to travel down to dreaded southern Maine to visit my parents. The mountains are a good hour away, and when theres no surf, theres nothing to do. Since I had christmas shopping to do, and was in the south portland area, I decided to venture into Wilderness House. They just opened up locations at Sugarloaf (my home mtn.) and Sunday River, so I figured it was worth checking out. Well I was extremely disappointed. I mean, I do read a ton of stuff about skis, and whats the latest gear, but it was pretty bad that I knew more about gear than the guys that worked there. They had a really random and not so great selection of skis, and other gear. On top of it all, their customer service sucked. Anyways, what I'm getting at, is that you should all support your local ski shops...i'm sure that first of all their customer service is way better, and chances are they have more knowledge about their product than these guys. Don't let the chain stores take over!peace