Tony Crocker":1gtlyrgp said:
High performance kids' gear is not cheap, especially if you're replacing it every 2 years, and sometimes every year. Note from the other thread that JSpin already has 8 and 6 year old powder snobs. Adam skied powder competently at age 7, but we didn't really start actively looking for it in terms of trip planning until age 14 or so.
I realized that I wanted to follow up on some of the comments on skis for kids.
In terms of hand me downs, it’s like Tony suggested, the skis aren’t anywhere near being worn out when Ty is done with them – whether new or used, they look essentially like they did when he got them, so Dylan doesn’t really seem to care at this point. These guys are skiing mostly powder/soft snow/good coverage and splitting the use between 2 to 3 pairs of skis, so even with 30 to 40 days or so a season, the skis just aren’t getting that worn out. Like most people, I’m sure Dylan would love to have brand new skis that nobody else has ever used before to call his own, but at least on a minimal level, he gets it that it’s a waste of money and resources to do that, and it’s especially hard for him to complain when he’s getting kick ass gear in great condition anyway.
As far as gear costs go, I consider them pretty minimal, even having to buy some brand new gear and with each boy having a pair of all around alpine skis, a pair of Telemark skis, and in Ty’s case a pair of powder skis. We buy all the standard alpine stuff at swaps, so we’re generally talking $50-$100 for even decent performance skis, and half that for boots. When one divides those numbers by four years of use, it’s really not much on a per year basis. The reason we have to get some things new is because little kids Telemark gear and powder gear isn’t really available at the swaps, even here where it’s sort of a ski swap Mecca. Still, even buying new, kid’s gear is ridiculously cheap relative to adult equipment. Ty’s new Gotamas, which seem to be one of the hottest rockered soft snow skis available for kids, were still only about $300 including bindings and mounting. Divide that out by four years (although I think we may be looking at even a bit longer in this case with the way their Telemark boots are fitting) and we’re talking the price of a day ticket per season. I’m assuming racing gear costs more, but as the boys aren’t into that, it hasn’t been an issue yet. I guess we’d deal with that if things go that way. We’re finding that tuning costs have also been minimal so far. With the snow the boys are skiing, the number of days, and again splitting it out among multiple pairs of skis, I’m finding that I’ve only been doing a tune after two years when the skis are being handed over to Dylan. Even if they haven’t quite needed it, it seems like the least we can do since he is getting hand me downs.
Costs will undoubtedly go up as the boys get older, but going with season’s passes and not needing to travel all around to check out a bunch of different areas makes it pretty economical and really helps to alleviate concerns about gear costs. For about $1,000, the whole family has unlimited access to Bolton and not quite unlimited access to Stowe for the season. I’m sure there are families that could easily spend that for just a week of skiing somewhere. Heck, just the flight for the four of us to head out to the Western U.S. would probably cost more than that unless we found some really good deals. At this point, even though the boys are now at the stage of endurance where they could handle a multi-day trip, it hasn’t seemed worth it to double, triple, or whatever, our ski costs to make a long-distance ski vacation, especially when the specter of spending the money to travel to worse conditions is always out there. It’s exciting to see new and different terrain, but I hate spending money to go to lackluster conditions when there are often better conditions at home that cost nothing. It wasn’t as bad when all it cost me was a few hundred bucks for a plane ticket, some lift tickets and some shared or free lodging, but it’s a lot bigger risk and hassle now. The only real way to get around that is to do spur of the moment stuff, and I’m not sure how practical that is with the whole family. So far, the boys haven’t inquired about going on a big trip, so fortunately we haven’t had to concern ourselves with it just yet.
