The Joy of Skiing.
20017/18 saw another great winter here in Bansko. Conditions were fantastic the hotel was full and the restaurant is going from strength to strength!
I have noticed a bit of a change this year, it hasn’t come suddenly but has crept up on me. I’m still ski touring and skiing off piste (like a god!), I’m still cooking at the curry nights and the supper club. The cocktails are as splendid as ever. The Awesome Avalon team are getting better and better (if that is possible!! ). No the change isn’t in what we do it is who we are doing it with!
I have noticed that more and more of our guests are starting to have children, the party animals of a few years ago have become loved up couples and those couples are now coming with bigger and bigger and bigger children!
Dylan is now ten and I don’t really know how that happened, one minute I’m a dashing young blade and the next I’m the father of a dashing young blade. The little man who used to need daddy to do anything is now a mini ski god and a fantastic helper behind the bar and in the kitchen.
This winter was all about mountain life with Dylan!
Skiing with Children
Mountain life is a perfect environment for children, fresh air and exercise are part of the daily routine, eating healthily and socialising with friendly people are the norm, and Dylan withall the others is loving it ! The real shocker has been seeing the number of humongous children. We’ve been open for nearly 15 years now so those 3 and 4 year olds who came to stay for their first ever ski holiday are now 18 and 19 year old giants!
As skiers and snowboarders we want our children to ski with us. The learning is a fun family adventure, skiing together is a joy, being beaten down a piste by your son or daughter is fantastic. Hot chocolate and picnics in the snow, blazing sunshine in January and the buzz of doing sport together are all brilliant.
6 top tips for enjoying skiing with your children
#1 Know your child.
I’ve seen 4 year old girls in -20 happy as pigs in poo, I’ve seen 14 year old boys miserable on a sunny day in -5. Know your child. Are they a rufty tufty little bruiser who will keep getting up even after a thousand falls or more of a thinker who needs to be coaxed and reassured down the hill. Be honest with yourself, just because daddy likes hucking 10 foot cliffs in chest deep pow doesn’t mean Tarquina does.
#2 The baby is the boss.
You want to ski, that’s why you are here, you love it, you’ve only got a week maybe ten days a year to do it so you fill every day from first lift to last with hell for leather charges down black runs. Now Berti is three it’s time he joined in the fun. 4 hours a day in ski school should do it you’ll get time to ski with the Mrs. If the instructor is firm and Berti would only stop crying like a wimp you should be skiing together as a family by the end of the week!
NOOOOO!!!!! Don’t do it!!!
Let the little beast be the boss. Let your child set the pace. When Dylan was small we used to drive up to Chalin Valog with a sledge and some skis and boots. We would build snow men, have snow ball fights. Play on the sledge. Drink hot chocolate, eat chips and meat balls, make snow angles we would do anything other than ski. It didn’t take long, only a few days of playing in the snow, before he was asking to try on the skis. I would tow him around, he would slide a couple of meters and we would go back to building snow men. He set the pace. He was the one asking for lessons. He wanted me to let him ski …..
#3 All the Gear All the Time.
The little blighters grow and grow and grow and grow. It’s bad enough buying new shoes every five minutes and then they need equipment. You can rent skis and helmets so there is no problem there but the rest of the kit costs a fortune.
If you want to enjoy skiing with your children that means buying them the right kit. Warm technical jackets and trousers, good quality thermals and gloves, goggles at actually protect their eye. Body armour. YES! Body armour, they will crash and crash badly, a back protector, wrist protectors for boarders, knee protectors the works please!
Being warm and dry, surviving crashes unharmed, being able to see even in the worst weather will make the difference between your child loving and hating skiing. Spend the money, it’s worth it!
#4 Feed the Beast.
They forget to eat, they forget to tell you they are hungry and then suddenly you are at the top of a red run in full meltdown mode. Tears, tantrums, zero self confidence and they just can’t do it. WTF has happened? The three of you smashed this piste yesterday and now Billy is being a Drama Queen! It’s probably because he’s hungry. Regular snacks, every 45 minutes is best something small something healthy. Regular snacks save the holiday!
#5 Warm them Up.
One of the great paradoxes of mountaineering is that the first sign of hypothermia is you don’t feel cold. You ask your climbing buddy all the time if they are cold, if the answer is yes then everything is ok. The moment they say no panic! Children are the same but with a lot less internal fat, they get cold and get cold quick.
They don’t notice because they are too busy having fun, but once they are cold they are miserable and once they are miserable so are you. WARM THEM UP! Stop every couple of hours for a 30 minute warm up in a restaurant. Bring extra socks and gloves, a spare layer, a spare jacket if you have space. They are going to fall over a lot and if they get wet they will get cold.
#6 Make it Fun.
Dylan is a better skier than I am. He’s had years of slalom training, hundreds if not thousands of hours smashing gates with the ski team. His weight is forward his knees are bent, edges are well and truly in he can beat me down most slopes in a straight race and beats me every time though gates.
So we mess around on blue runs, he likes it! He likes going over the little jumps on the side of the pistes. He loves getting air (all 6 inches of it!) he likes to play. Yes he can ski powder on 45 degree slopes off piste, but he likes to play, so we play!
If he asks we go off piste, if he asks we go in the jump park, black run? Yes, when he wants. Under the lifts? Yes, when he wants. It’s all about him having fun. The more your children enjoy skiing the more you will enjoy it.
