For a seemingly simple piece of gear, ski goggles have some serious tech, from heated membranes between lenses that fight fogging to invisible filaments that change tint when hit with electricity. Designers have come up with brilliant ways of combating most of the potential visual maladies facing skiers, but there is one issue up here in the Pacific Northwest that no goggle can battle alone: Cascade concrete (a.k.a. really wet snow). It clings to my lenses and can render me blind during a serious storm. The good news is there鈥檚 a surprisingly low-tech fix that costs less than a cup of coffee: the ($3).
As the name implies, it鈥檚 essentially a squeegee in miniature. The rubber fin has a ring on one end for grip and a curve on the other end that contours for wiping snow and rain residue off spherical goggles. That rubber build doesn鈥檛 harden in the cold, meaning the Skigee won鈥檛 turn into an ice scraper and scratch your lenses.
And it鈥檚 considerably more effective than the other options. If you use a goggle bag to wipe rain or wet snow off your goggles, it quickly becomes saturated and worthless. Same with the finger of a glove. Plus, neither of those options creates the same squeaky, residue-free clean as the Skigee.

You will not look cool while Skigeeing your goggles.聽I admit I was self-conscious about it at first, afraid I鈥檇 look like a gaper. (I鈥檇 try to discreetly clean my goggles the way someone would wipe away tears while watching a rom-com on a plane.) This changed recently when I saw my buddy鈥攗ndisputed cool guy and founder of , Graham Hiemstra鈥攑ass a Skigee to pro snowboarder Austen Sweetin while we shared a gondola ride in Whistler. I tried to appear nonchalant as I asked them how long they had been Skigeeing. Their response: 鈥淔orever.鈥 Hiemstra added,聽鈥淚t鈥檚 a staple of the Pacific Northwest. The day you get your first season pass, you get a Skigee. It鈥檚 a right of passage.鈥
Costing only three bucks, weighing damned near nothing, and taking up about as much space聽as a Ring Pop, a Skigee is easy to stuff in a jacket or backpack pocket. But it can be easy to lose. My suggestion: couple yours with a retractable leash like . This might seem to up the dork factor even more, but don鈥檛 worry, all the cool kids are doing it.