by Tony Crocker » Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:05 pm
The first choice is obviously to leave an infant or small child at home with grandparents or other trusted family. But if push comes to shove, it's better to take the kid with you than not have a destination ski vacation.
As far as logistics are concerned for easterners going west vs. the Alps, I'll defer to James on that.
For taking a kid skiing at a big/diverse mountain either west or in the Alps, that to me is a function of ski interest and skills just as for an adult. Adam was certainly at that level at age 7 when he skied some of Crested Butte's North Face and most of Telluride. For that matter, perhaps half of Vail was within his reach at age 5, and he progressed well with two days of excellent lessons and skiing with us the rest of that week.
Great skiers get started at an early age based upon:
1) The kid's interest, not something you can control. I had one kid very driven to ski and one not so much.
2) Accessibility for a large number of short sessions per season, as most very young kids don't have the strength or attention span to put in full days. JSpin in both Montana and Vermont had that easy accessibility. NYC is not the worst location in this regard, but it's definitely a challenging one. The New Jersey contingent of our Iron Blosam group lives 20 minutes from Mountain Creek. I rarely hear much positive about Mountain Creek as a ski area, but it has been effective in getting those kids making ski progress at an early age.
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Ski Records
Season length: 21 months, Nov. 29, 2010 - July 2, 2012
Days in one year: 80 from Nov. 29, 2010 - Nov. 17, 2011
Season vertical: 1,610K in 2016-17
Season powder: 291K in 2011-12