An abridged version of this ran in SKI this fall, but the part about the guy I almost killed got cut. So here’s to you…well, you know who you are.

“Can I ski this?” The question, asked with a smile that belied terror, came moments too late. A friend and I, on our first multi- family ski vacation together, had just crossed a knife-edged ridgeline traverse, and dropped into an unexpectedly steep chute. Above us, the sun ducked behind dark clouds. Below us, our kids were already a pack of distant, hooting specks, accelerating from view. Beside us, a snowboarder careened past in freefall, cursing his friend. Without even looking back I knew retracing our route on the goat path was not an option, so I gave my companion the only answer possible:

“You can now!”

An expert skier was born, as another vacation moment was cemented in memory.

I hadn’t planned on scaring the pants off anyone here. In fact for this vacation on my California turf I had envisioned (ok, even promised the New Englanders in tow), perfect days of sunny skies and cruising on velvety corn snow. Instead, every day we awoke to some form of inhospitable snow or weather conditions. Nonetheless up the mountain we went, at the opening bell, sometimes through a fogbank or into a pelting snowstorm. And every day, four families came off the mountain exhausted, having followed each other through powder, down steeps, over jumps, or into some unexpected situation. Instead of being ready to kill me by apres ski, they were ready for more.

Skiers don’t expect to show up and be entertained. They seek their own unique outdoor adventure, something beyond the well paved trip to the Magic Kingdom, or even the plush 5-star “resort experience” where the more you pay, the more isolated you are. Families that ski together embrace not only a sort of egalitarian social interaction but also an element of uncertainty. They are not averse to cold temperatures, inclement weather, sore muscles, rides with strangers, an entire season of bad hair days and the occasional lost bout with gravity. Not surprisingly, it’s pretty easy to have a good vacation with people like that. And as one friend on that trip observed, “If you start taking your kids early, you very well may still be going on vacation with them when they have kids. “

Of course, any family trip presents challenges. After two successive years of getting stranded with toddlers, first in Atlanta and then in Minneapolis, and spending the first day of each vacation at the Coca Cola Museum and the Mall of America respectively, my husband and I swore off holiday travel. But if you have kids, and they eventually go to school as the authorities insist, you too will be faced with the choice: Travel during high season, or don’t travel at all.

With family (and big snowy mountains) across the country the latter was not an option. And so, we have figured out ways to ease the pain. Whenever possible we fly the carrier with no baggage fees. Of course, to make up for the fact that said carrier also has no entertainment or food, we bribe the kids with unlimited and often inappropriate movies for their iPods and enough snacks for three days. Most importantly, we leave expectations behind and bring a healthy bring-it-on appetite for the unexpected. I even started routing ourselves through Las Vegas, hoping we’d get stuck and have to stay at the really cool giant pyramid we see from the air. Since then, we’ve never hit a snag.

To be sure, we have made our share of mistakes in reaching this point. We’ve lost children  long enough to initiate an APB with ski patrol, tumbled off cornices together, walked 2 miles home in socks, violated the last run rule (see below) to the point of tears, crammed into tiny rental cars, booked a condo with no pool or hot tub, and visited urgent care facilities across ski country, for everything from dog bites and head bangs to hot tub injuries and altitude sickness. But we have also been rewarded with unexpected and unique experiences, together as a family and now as a larger family of skiing friends. There is no better vacation for fostering both togetherness and independence.

You never know what memories are going to stick in family lore. The greatest crash ever by a person under 80 lbs, and the consequences of putting a firecraker in an egg in a snowbank were two of my personal favorites. Will “double ejecting at the top of North Bowl” or “hanging with the liftie until my parents found me” make the life list for my kids? Time will tell. I already know who won’t forget “the time you almost killed me in that chute.” That’s the kind of treasure you just won’t find in the Magic Kingdom.

Sidebar:

Getting there is not half the fun. Pick the most direct route, and whenever possible do not take the last flight of the day into your destination. See Coca Cola Museum and Mall of America reference, above.

Just add water: When in doubt, book the place with the best pool and hot tub.

Pick a meeting spot: This can be in case of getting lost, or as kids get older a way to set them free until the appointed time. Ideally this is somewhere easily visible and fun. (Kids always find the cookie cart)

Down Time: Don’t push kids too hard, especially the first day, and expect to take at least one day off. Typically Day 3 is when fatigue catches up with everyone. Take a break and enjoy it.  Some of the best discoveries are accidental ones.

East Drink and be Happy: Heed the advice on coming up to high altitude and hydrate hydrate hydrate! Feed kids early and often. From breakfast, to breaks on the hill, to apres ski snacks, to early (and quick) dinners, remember that energy and mood go hand in hand.

Get Schooled: Good lessons from enthusiastic ski instructors can do wonders, especially if everyone is at different levels. Get the kids off in their lessons before you even think about getting your equipment organized.
Location location location: If you can afford it ski in ski out takes the stress level down several notches. If not, look for a place close to shuttle bus routes.

Buddy up: If you are lucky enough to travel with friends  and/or family – do it! The kids get motivation from their peers and  may find a little independence  while the parents may get a break in the action. And remind the kids that on the hill the buddy rule is in effect at all times. Stay together!

Scout it out: Explore new parts of the mountain with your kids before letting them go it alone.

Start Slow…: Don’t push your children to exhaustion day 1…But start early: Get out on the hill as early as possible and enjoy the day before trails get crowded and kids get cranky – whichever comes first! A hot cocoa break early may buy you more skiing time in the end. Once you stop for lunch, all bets are off.

Be realistic: Don’t have a fantasy about a family ski day during the vacation. Hope for a good day, and perhaps you’ll be pleasantly surprised with an epic one.

Quit before the last run: If you are on the fence wondering whether or not to take that last run of the day—don’t. End on a good note, with enough in the reserve tank.

Use phones judiciously: Cell phones are great for keeping track of everyone, especially in an emergency but you’ll miss the good stuff (and annoy those around you) if you’re on the electronic tether. And leave the electronic games off the hill.

An oldie but goodie for this time of year…as seen in SKI mag 1999

Late every October, Granite Chief, a ski shop back home in Squaw Valley, Calif., stages something called Junior Race Night. For one spectacular evening, all the junior gear is discounted.

Company reps show up to talk to kids about equipment, parents talk shop about tuning, everyone gorges on Halloween candy and, at the end of the night, the place looks as if it were struck by a tornado. Though the concept started as a way to generate early-season cash flow, “Christmas in October” far exceeded the bounds of a retail event to become the official ski season kick-off.

Watching the mayhem, with kids marching around in whatever piece of new gear they can get their hands on, impatient for the first flake of snow, it always feels like a hopeful occasion¿a snapshot of the camaraderie and enthusiasm that is the real gift of skiing. When kids get into skiing, they are not just joining another youth league, but becoming part of an entire community.

The best part for shop owners Herb and Treas Manning is witnessing the reunion of city kids and mountain kids. “A lot of times they only see each other on winter weekends, so this is the first time for getting together,” says Treas. “We call them ‘foul-weather friends.’”

It’s generally accepted that sports can go a long way toward enriching the lives of kids, enhancing their education by teaching valuable lessons in discipline, perseverance, independence, graciousness and humility. In addition to all those traits, kids that are drawn to skiing¿a decidedly non-mainstream pursuit that pushes the comfort zone in every way¿develop an oddly enduring bond.

A typical training day for any sport includes times of intense focus, drills, repetition and listening. But in skiing, you don’t walk away from the field and go back to your real life.

Skiers spend the entire day together, their training interspersed with chairlift rides, freeskiing, warming up in the lodge, hauling slalom gates and packing courses. These are times when friends learn about each other and often share more than they do with their non-skiing friends.

In school, as the youngest, shortest and last chosen on every playground kickball team, I gave up trying to fit in and instead lived for winter weekends. Ski racing became a parallel life for us, a focus completely removed from schoolyard cliques and popularity contests.

From the start, our priority was simply to set goals and achieve them. That’s how we earned respect, which itself was enough of a prize to glean from the sport. I remember being in the finish corral of a ski race as a youngster. William Shatner of “Star Trek” fame was filming a Christmas special, and there was a staged shot of him with a group of us at the timing board after our run. He asked a few questions about the race and then ended it with, “Do you all want to go to the Olympics?” That apparently was our cue to scream, “Yes!” But I remember being dumbfounded.

Granted, I didn’t really know these kids off the slopes, but the Olympics certainly wasn’t something we ever talked about. It was the first time it occurred to me that we were supposed to get something concrete out of the sport.

People tend to ask a lot of sports, especially when it comes to their kids. Too often the focus is put on potential rewards or tangible benchmarks as a measure of the worth of the experience.

That helps explain why, long before the U.S. Ski Team or the Olympics were a reasonable goal, we’d see some pretty wild and strange behavior–parents yelling at their kids for not doing well in a race, or chasing them down the hill, pushing them to go faster. But with skiing it somehow seemed easier to leave disappointments behind on the mountain.

There was much more to our lives as skiers than what went on between the start wand and the finish. Yes, it’s an individual sport, but with a team structure for support.

Foul-weather friends could be counted on to put the experience in perspective instantly, in a way parents rarely can. At the end of the day, the crowd was not split down the middle, winners and losers.

Rather, we treated each other the same as ever¿with brutal honesty and short attention spans that rarely kept score. On occasion, when people speak to me of their competitive sports experiences, they first qualify it with, “I never went as far as you, but…” As absurd as that lead-in may seem, I admit to having done the same thing.

For most of my years on the U.S. Ski Team, I thought an Olympic gold medal or World Cup title meant being set for life, that it would validate my time spent in ski racing. It seems foolish now, but I think many of my teammates believed it, too.

For a long time after competing, what stuck in my mind was not what I did, but what I didn’t do¿namely, win an Olympic medal. But it’s pointless to gauge success in those terms.

The real success is what you learn from competing. I was reminded recently of ski racing’s enduring brotherhood at a double ex-racer wedding.

My husband grew up racing in Vermont and I grew up racing in California. Our collection of friends came from both coasts and everywhere in between.

The weekend ended up being a huge reunion of foul-weather friends. Some competed together into adulthood, others had barely seen each other since they were 15.

All of us had enjoyed varying levels of “success” in regards to “results,” whether that meant being World Champion or qualifying for the Junior Olympics. Viewed en masse, these ex-ski racers showed an edge from the experience¿confidence, independence and an unrelenting drive to seek new challenges.

The day was filled with laughter and spirited conversation but very little mention of skiing and no reference to past accomplishments. Of all the stories told, none were of the medals won, the career-ending injuries, the fat endorsement contracts, or the forced retirements.

It was as if the soccer coach, the TV commentator, the new mother, the ski shop owner, the investment banker, the resort ambassador and all the rest were right back on the chairlift, their characters fully exposed. There’s an honesty to the relationships built out in the elements that allowed the assembled athletes to transcend time, to jump right back in each other’s faces, and to settle into that comfortable place where individuality and familiarity coexist.

Checking out the excited kids getting fired up for the season, I don’t look for the next gold medal winner. Rather, I see strong characters and friendships in the making.

They may get a medal, the tools to build a good career, a lifelong love of the outdoors, or a pile of memories. At the very least, they’ll get a bunch of great friends and the makings of a really fun party in 15 years

Peaking too soon

Our team just got back from a big weekend at the races, where we experienced a rollercoaster of high expectations and low moments. At the end of the weekend events conspired to create some truly valuable perspective, both on the weekend and on the general purpose of our relationship with this sport. Bear in mind, this scenario could have played out after any junior sporting event:

After the awards ceremony and an excruciatingly lengthy raffle, our family headed for home, with two kids who had achieved their goals for the weekend. As good as they felt for themselves, they also felt badly for their less fortunate teammates who had worked just as hard, dreamed just as big, yet gone home disappointed.

One topic of conversation in the car was about the “big winner” of the weekend’s events, and how he thrust his arms in the air as he crossed the finish line after each run. At the awards, he brought the first trophy along when he went up to receive the second, and hoisted them both overhead in victory. Certainly, he had earned the right to celebrate, but something about the rock star act had made all of us cringe and we didn’t really know why. Was it jealousy? Undoubtedly a bit, but it was also something else.

Half an hour later we stopped for dinner with a small group of kids and parents from our team. The kids were seated in a separate room, but within sight and hearing distance. Our exhausted kids sat quietly, talking and laughing with each other and practically licking their plates clean. Partway through the meal another group of kids came in, and were seated at an adjacent table, stuffed in the back corner. They were loud and boisterous, running around the restaurant, spitting the paper ends off the straws that came with their kiddie cups (our kids were all given regular glasses), ordering piles of food that was left uneaten.

Every time we parents looked over to that zone of the restaurant, and saw that the noise and flying objects were not emanating from our kids, we reminded ourselves of how proud we were of our kids for the manners and respect they were showing towards the other diners, the servers and each other.

When we got back in the car I found out that the other table of kids included the “big winner” from the weekend races.

“Why do you suppose they had kiddie cups?” my son asked.

“I think the server sized up those kids pretty quickly and knew how much she could trust them with real glasses.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “I think she was right.”

We proceeded to have a conversation about the bigger picture of sports and why we do them.

“If you think we do this so you can win races and get trophies you are dead wrong,” I assured the kids.  “We do it so you can learn to push yourself, to test your limits, to set goals and work towards them. We do it so you can learn to be good teammates, who genuinely support and most times respect each other. We do it so you can get beyond kiddie cups and the back corner of the restaurant that much faster.”

It was a great conversation that we picked up again the next morning on the way to school. I shamelessly used it to yammer on about the many lessons we learn through sport. Among so many other things it is a vehicle to becoming the type of confident, self-reliant, well-rounded person we all hope to be. It’s a long road there, filled with high hopes and disappointments, victories and failures, but always driven by the instinct to get back up and try to do better next time.

Somewhere along the line I realized what was so troubling about the arm-pumping and trophy-waving. It seems that whenever someone feels the need to tell the world that he or she is the greatest, he or she may have just peaked. I think I can safely assume that none of us really want our kids to peak at anything, except maybe video games, at 12 yrs old.

The lessons these kids are learning, just by getting up and coming back for more, are the ones that best assure them long term success. They are growing steadily and at their own pace as skiers, as athletes and as people. They, and we, have a lot to be proud of, even on a bad day.