STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Brent Hansen would never profess to be a miracle worker. But he has helped the lame to walk again.

Hansen spent 35 years fitting ski boots for World Cup ski racers and creating foot orthotics for great-grandmothers—his foot wizardry advertised by the big foot hanging outside Ski Tek and Hansen Orthotics Lab on Sun Valley Road in Ketchum.

As the end of the year approached, he fit his last ski boots as a full-time employee of the shop before handing the keys of the shop over to Claribel Nunez, the new owner, boot fitter and certified pedorthist of Ski Tek Orthotics Lab.

Hansen will be available as a consultant, but he’ll have far more time for skiing and whitewater kayaking.

Hansen spent his last day fitting Mark Harbaugh, a former fishing guide for Silver Creek Outfitters, who came from Ashton in Eastern Idaho to get fit.

“I drove three hours to see Brent because no one’s doing what he’s doing,” said Harbaugh, as he prepared to climb back into his van for the drive home. “He’s an unbelievable boot fitter. One of my friends couldn’t ski at all if not for Brent.”

It was a fitting moment in the circle of life as Harbaugh was the first to fit Hansen’s ski boots early on when they were starting out.

Hansen started working at the old Snug sporting goods store in Sun Valley out of high school, while Harbaugh got his start at Bob Greenwoods in Boise. But both ended up at Formula Sports in 1978.

Harbaugh eventually went to work for Patagonia as the brand’s first global sales manager for its fishing division. And Hansen started Ski Tek in 1990, destined to build more than 12,000 customized footbeds and fit 6,000 ski boots over the next 35 years.

Hansen came by his foot know-how the hard way, getting into boot fitting because he was desperate to get something that fit his special needs.

An uber athlete, he was a speed skier and a ski racer on the Can-Am and professional circuit. He coached New Zealand’s Olympic team, as well as a Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation team. He served as a technician on the World Cup circuit.

In 1973 he even won the first Boulder Mountain Tour Nordic race, then called the Sawtooth Mountain Marathon, taking two hours and 40 minutes to classic ski the 32-kilometer course in fresh snow.

But when a hang-gliding accident in 1990 in Greenhorn Gulch crushed his back and slightly paralyzed his calves, he had to figure out a way to just keep moving.

He designed a foot bed out of soft gel and leather that helps him push off and roll through his gait. Then he turned his attention to others with not-so-happy feet.

Skiers have flown in from as far away as Europe to have Hansen sandwich their feet into the perfect ski boot fit. Others have tapped him to build custom-made insoles after having total ankle replacements following years in which their feet rolled inwards for so long that it felt as if they were walking on ankle bones.

People have come to him for help when one leg’s shorter than another. He’s made orthotic  inserts for collapsed arches, foot paint, neuromas, plantar fasciitis, circulation issues, and toes mangled by bunions for ski boots, cross country boots, even ice skates and sandals.

And he’s built gels into insoles to create a human fatty pad for those with metatarsalgia, a flattening of the ball of the foot caused by age.

Hansen says ski boots are particularly difficult to fit because they’re one shape, and no two pair of feet area alike, just as no set of fingerprints are alike.

But he’s gotten around that by using hydraulic pressure on boot shells to conform them to the foot before rounding them out with liners and custom-made orthotics.

“It’s a really hard job but super satisfying as we see people who are overjoyed to have boots that feel good,” he said.

Nunez now heads up the shop, which has boasted signed posters from athletes like Dick Dorworth, Reggie Crist and Langely McNeal, who have been the beneficiaries of Hansen’s work over the years.

She was a baker at Cristina’s before she came to work for Hansen. And she knows the value of having good foot support having spent up to 14 hours a day on her feet.

She is completing the studies she needs to become a certified pedorthist.

“I needed a change of industry and I was driving around when I happened by the shop,” she said. “I always wanted to stop by because it’s a cute little shop. I fell in love with it because it’s not part of a corporation. It’s grassroots community. Now, I just want to do what I can to offer people the best fit possible.”