San Diego has two XC rental shops. Norpine Mountain Sports claims they are the only XC store south of Mammoth.
http://www.norpine.com/
UCSD rents skis at Outback Adventures, part of the campus recreation program, but available to the public.
http://recreation.ucsd.edu/outb/ They don't take reservations, and they are only open when school is in session.
I saw ancient rental skis at the Angelus Oaks store a few years ago. The last time I looked at the rental skis on San Jacinto, they were also ancient narrow light touring skis with nearly worthless soft boots.
Most of us in the Ski Section (Sierra Club, San Diego Chapter) now use the lighter plastic telemark boots (Garmont Excursion or Scarpa T3) and light weight backcountry touring skis such as the Atomic Rainier/Fischer Outtabounds. These skis are shorter, wider, and have much more sidecut than the old Karhu XCD/Fischer E99 skis that were the standard 10 years ago.
A brand new outfit of this gear is nearly a $1000, half that at the end of the season. Then it takes several years of lessons and learning before you are any good at it.
That's why snowshoeing is more popular than backcountry skiing these days.
Any of you are welcome to join our outings and come to our meetings. A small group will be skiing SJ on Sunday.
http://sandiego.sierraclub.org/ski/
Mike Fry, Chair, Ski Section, Sierra Club, SD chapter.