Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you planning on skiing a lot? My 13 year old had never skied and I sent him with his uncle (my brother) and his older cousins to Deer Valley. He learned to ski in a day with his cousins just by being taken up and down the bunny slope twice then to the greens and the blues. The second day he could solidly ski blues and tried a black run. The third day he could ski black runs in powder with moguls.

So glad I didn't pay for ski lessons when he was younger. We were thinking of going skiing one year but the pandemic ruined our plans. I just mention it because doing other sports (he skateboard, surfs, plays soccer, etc) makes it really easy to learn how to ski. My sister spent thousands on private ski lessons when her kids were young. They would only ski once a year so I am not sure it was really worth the cost.

Your son may have been able to get down those blue and black runs but there’s no way he did it with appropriate control.

He did. It’s not that hard to learn to ski if you are a coordinated 13 year old who likes some adventure.

Agreed

Anonymous wrote:One thought if you're willing to make it a longer trip, and admittedly a far greater time and financial commitment: go to Park City, UT. It's a nonstop flight from DCA/BWI, very easy access from the SLC airport and the ski school infrastructure is exceptional (kids and adults alike), the conditions usually very good for kids (softer powder vs. ice and manmade snow). It's where our kids started at a very young age and are now all black diamond skiers. Again, I recognize it's a far greater commitment but if it's in the cards you won't regret it.

CO is also wonderful, and equally accessible from DCA/BWI to Denver but the trip from Denver Airport to the various resorts can take hours (vs. ~45 mins from SLC to the Park City base) and the road conditions more challenging, from my experience, if you're renting. But the resorts in that area are also wonderful.

Either way, it's a life sport they'll never regret!

I live in park city and my kids mostly learned to ski here, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a place to teach your 4/5 year old to ski. The triple whammy of lift, lesson and lodging costs is a lot. Not to mention flight and rental car. Also, the logistics of taking kids to ski school at big resorts can be a backbreaking slog if you are not lodged right next to the school. Parking, getting ski rentals, walking uphill and standing in line to register kids - I have seen a lot of parents and kids absolutely lose their minds on the morning of ski school at PCMR and deer valley.

We took our beginners to the poconos, where walking them from the car to ski school didn’t make require a full cardio workout and a second mortgage. I would go to a small rinky dink mountain and pay for private lessons, which are probably the same cost as group lessons at the bigger mountains. Consecutive days are the most effective, but weekends are fine too.

Once they have achieved mostly parallel turns on greens and blues, bring them to park city or similar and watch them go! I would only bring beginner kids to a big resort if adults/advanced skiers wanted/needed more terrain. Beginners pay to access the whole mountain but only use 1% of it.