Most rental waivers borrow the same skeleton: I understand the activity is risky, I release the company, I will pay for damage, sign here. For a kayak that is nearly enough. For a ski shop it is not, because a ski shop does something no other rental business does: it adjusts a mechanical release system based on numbers the customer gave it.
That changes what the waiver is for. It is still a release of liability, but it is also the fitting record, and it is the only document that proves what the customer told you about their weight, ability and boot sole length on the day. When a binding claim arrives two seasons later, that sheet is the entire defence.
Below is the structure Ribbe’s ski and snowboard template follows, with notes on why each part is there. It comes from the waiver library in the template designer, so you can import it and edit the wording rather than typing it from scratch. This is not legal advice; have your own attorney read whatever you end up using.
Open by naming the activity (“skiing and snowboarding on rented equipment”) and the equipment as a system: the skis or snowboard, bindings, boots, poles and helmet issued, “as adjusted and set by the Company”. The last phrase matters. You are not renting a plank; you are renting a plank you configured.
A court takes a risk list more seriously when it is plainly written for the activity. For skiing the list should include:
Falls, and collisions with other skiers, trees, lift towers, snowmaking equipment and terrain features.
Knee, leg, shoulder, wrist, head and spinal injury, including while wearing a helmet.
Variable snow and ice, moguls, ruts, changing visibility, cliffs and unmarked obstacles.
Avalanche, tree wells and deep-snow immersion where out-of-bounds terrain is accessed.
Lift loading, riding and unloading incidents; cold injury, altitude illness and sun exposure.
Bindings releasing when not expected, or failing to release when expected, and that neither can be eliminated.
That last line is the bridge into the clause the whole document exists for.
This is the clause most generic templates do not have, and the one the standard of care in the rental industry expects. It has three jobs.
Tie the setting to the customer’s own information. “The ski-boot-binding system has been adjusted for me using the information I gave about my height, weight, age, boot sole length and skier type, and the release setting has been recorded as [DIN] for skier type [type]. I confirm that the information I gave is true and complete.”
Say, in capitals, what the system cannot do. That it will not release at all times or under all circumstances, that it is not possible to predict every situation in which it will or will not release, and that it is therefore no guarantee of safety. Shops sometimes soften this because it reads harshly. Do not. The harsh version is the honest one, and the one the industry standard asks for.
Forbid tampering and require a reset on change. The customer will not adjust the bindings, and if they change boots, equipment or their declared skier type they come back to have the system reset and retested.
In Ribbe the DIN and skier type in this clause are tokens, not typed values. The template prints whatever the fitting station recorded, so the number on the waiver is the number the technician set. If you are new to how that value is calculated, the post on DIN settings from rider profiles walks through it.
A ski and snowboard rental agreement in the Ribbe template designer, with the binding-release and fitting-record fields
a pair of skis with ski poles attached to them
The customer accepts the Skier Responsibility Code and whatever ski safety act applies in your state: stay in control, yield to people below, stop where you can be seen, obey signs and closures. They also accept that choosing terrain within their ability is their job, and that out-of-bounds, closed areas, terrain parks and off-piste carry additional and severe risk.
Quote your state’s statute rather than paraphrasing it. Most western ski states assign the inherent risks of skiing to the skier by law, and the wording is there to be used.
The standard release, indemnity and assumption-of-risk language sits here, naming the company, its owners, employees and agents. Keep the heading in capitals and the paragraph short enough to read. A release nobody could have read is a release a court can set aside.
Check jurisdiction before you lean on it. A few states will not enforce a pre-injury release for recreational activities at all, and several more read them narrowly. The waiver library marks these tiers so you know what the document can and cannot carry where you operate.
Short, imperative, and specific to the shop:
Have the shop reset and retest the bindings if your boots, skis or declared ability change.
Do not adjust or tamper with bindings yourself, and do not lend the equipment to anyone else.
Wear the helmet issued and use the leash or brake fitted.
Return the equipment on time and report any binding release problem, damage or loss immediately.
You are responsible for equipment left unattended at the mountain.
No skiing under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
A parent or guardian signs for anyone under the age your shop sets, and signs in their own name as the parent of the named child. Make the fitting information section apply to the child regardless: a wrong weight is a wrong setting whoever signs. Ribbe can require a date of birth at signing and insist on a guardian for minors; a later post covers the mechanics.
Finish with the lines the technician fills in and the customer confirms. On paper these are blanks; in a digital template they print from the fitting:
Height, weight and age, in the customer’s own words.
Boot sole length in millimetres.
Skier type I, II or III, declared by the customer and never assigned by the technician.
The DIN setting and the release test result.
Technician initials and date.
The practice that goes with it: have the customer state their own skier type, never “round up” for an expert who wants a higher setting without recording that request, and re-run the form on a mid-week boot swap. The swap without a new record is the classic gap.
In Ribbe, open Templates, choose the Waiver Library and pick Ski & Snowboard Rental. You see the full document, the capture lines and the regulatory notes, acknowledge that it is a starting point rather than legal advice, and import it. It becomes an ordinary editable template: change the wording, add your logo, attach it to your rental products or set it as the site’s default waiver, and it is what guests sign at the counter, on the kiosk, on their phone or at home. The next post covers each of those signing channels.
The Ribbe waiver library: activity-specific liability waivers you preview and add to your templates
Put the binding-release clause on every waiver you sign Ribbe’s waiver library includes a ski and snowboard template with the DIN record built in. Import it, edit it, and sign it on any screen in the shop. Start a free trial