Why Wear Ski Goggles?

In the mountains, the weather changes frequently and it can be brutal. You’re at an elevation where the brightness is amplified, increasing the damaging effects on your eyes. In both snowy and sunny conditions, you’re unlikely to have 100% clear visibility and it’s ski goggles, not sunglasses, that provide the real solution and will keep you safe on the mountain.

Lens Tints and Colours
Ski goggles are available with a number of different lens tints and they vary from category 0 clear lenses that are used for night skiing, up to category 4 bright light lenses for blue bird conditions.

As standard with almost all of Summit ski goggles, we provide 2 lenses.
– A category 3 bright lens for sunny conditions
– A category 1 low-light lens, for cloudy or snowy conditions.
* Our Xpose II, Xpose IIs and Evolve Ski goggles boast a quick magnetic lens change system, ensuring this transition is instant.

In bright sunny conditions, lenses with a dark tint protect your eyes from the sun. In these sunny conditions the light also bounces back off of the snow; this is where ski goggles with a close fit around your face keep this reflected light out, where sunglasses do not, with snow blindness being the ultimate price to pay.
* All Summit lenses offer 100% protection from all harmful UV A, B, C rays.

In snowy and cloudy conditions, you will need to wear something that will help you optically. In overcast, low light conditions your eyes cannot adjust to the ‘flat light’ meaning that you will struggle to pick up contours on the snow before you. A yellow or orange lens will create contrast and give definition allowing the lay of the slope to be seen more easily.
* With all interchangeable Summit goggles, we provide a low-light category 1, yellow lens as standard.

Lens Shapes – Flat vs Spherical
There are two basic types of lens shape. The traditional style that appears ‘flat’ is a cylindrical lens. It is generally curved around its vertical axis. Modern technologies have allowed lenses to be shaped to both vertically and horizontally (along both vertical and horizontal axis) creating a spherical lens. The spherical lens produces better optical clarity as it is shaped like the human eye, so will allow for less distortion and therefore a better field of view.

Spherical Lens Goggles
Just like its name implies, a spherical lens will have a curved shape around both vertical and horizontal axis, much like the shape of the human eye.
As the lens mimics the shape of the human eye, it provides less distortion than traditional flat lenses, creating a clearer, sharper vision.
A spherical lens provides a greater peripheral vision than a cylindrical lens. This is very important on the slopes because it allows you to see other objects, including skiers that may be present on your far left or right.

Single or Double Lenses
Double lenses are used nearly universally since they do not fog as fast as single-layered lenses. Sealed properly, they create a thermal barrier that is extremely resistant to fogging.

* The new Summit Xpose II snow goggles are not only double lensed, but are encapsulated as well. This means that it’s almost impossible to get any moisture between the two lens layers, which normally creates fogging. Crystal clear vision all day long!

Double lenses combined with frame venting and the anti-fog coating, which is the final coat to be applied to the lens, provide the perfect solution and prevent Summit goggles from misting up.