Should You Teach Your Munchkins To Ski?
[Editor Note: From time to time, SeniorsSkiing.com re-publishes an article from its archive. Here’s one from Harriet Wallis about teaching your grandkids to ski from way back in 2014. Comments welcome.]
Five Non-Obvious Tips For Making Learning Fun For All.
Because you love to ski or ride, you probably hope that your grandkids will also share your passion for the snow. Here are some ideas to get things off to a good start if you plan to teach them yourself.
How about those smiles?
Credit: Harriet Wallis
Look for deals. Some resorts offer free or low cost tickets for youngsters. A cheapo ticket can take the financial pressure off you, especially if the day’s weather is iffy, or if your grandkids are in town only for a short, gotta-teach-them-to-ski-right-now visit.
Start on flat ground. “A child will not miraculously assume a balanced stance on the beginner hill,” says Jo Garuccio, a Snowbird, UT, instructor and PSIA trainer and examiner. “Children should have some prerequisite sliding time at the bottom of the slope.
“It’s imperative that the child stand and slide independently on a flat surface before giving the child a downhill experience,” she says. “Initially, the terrain should be flat enough so that the child can go straight, lose momentum and stop.”
My friend Larry Green did just that with his granddaughter. He gave little Yoella her first sliding experience on virtually flat snow. “She loved it, and she egged me to pull her up that slight slope again—and again— and again—so that she could slide down. I even used my old snow skates to make it easy for me to maneuver with her. But I’m exhausted,” he said. “That three-year-old totally wore me out!”
Cool kids. Pediatric journals say that children heat and cool differently than adults. Their bodies cool off faster than adults because they have proportionately more outer skin surface in relation to their body size. So even though you have them bundled up—and you might be comfy—when kids say they’re cold, it’s time for a hot cocoa in the lodge.
Edgie-Wedgie keeps ski tips from wandering
Credit: Amazon
Gizmos. The snow sports industry offers a variety of devices such as harnesses, leashes and Edgie Wedgie tip clamps. “But aids are not a substitute for skill,” says Garrucio. “Don’t take your child on to high level terrain with tip clamps or leashes. Stay on easy green or very light blue slopes.”
Stifle your own expectations. Be sure to make it fun for the kids, says Mary Whittke, retired ski school director of Brighton Resort, UT. Even if your grandchild is super coordinated and athletic, put your own expectations aside. Kids don’t instantly morph into Olympic champions just because you love the sport. Give them little tips, but back off from the overkill of teaching, teaching, teaching. Help them have fun on the snow.
There’s a warning that comes with teaching your grandkids to ski or ride. Kids catch on and progress so rapidly that they’ll ski and ride compatibly with you for only 15 minutes of their lives. After that, they leave you behind. But maybe that’s okay.
Would you teach your grandkids to ski or ride? What’s your advice?
Apres Ski: Artisanal Cocktails At Silver Star
Smoky Cocktail Better Than A Beer And Chips?
Bar Supervisor Tom Falland creating his signature Smoked Old Fashioned drink at the Den Bar and Bistro in Silver Star Mountain, BC. Credit: Yvette Cardozo
The food and beverage manager over at the Den calls it classic cocktails “with a twist.”
And, indeed, these are not your usual Old Fashioneds or mojitos in the Den & Bar Bistro at Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia, Canada.
Downstairs in the basement, below Coffee+ cafe, along Silver Star’s main street, the Den is doing its own thing with alcohol.
Manager Mark Lehmann has turned his bar supervisor, Tom Falland, loose.
What resulted, among others, was the Smoked Old Fashioned. Yes, it’s a show. Yes, it’s delish.
“Sometimes less is more,” Lehmann said. “I think gone are the days of sweet hyper-colored drinks, saturated with artificial flavors and so much sugar. In the Den, we have taken to infusing our own tinctures and flavorings using all natural ingredients to develop a unique taste and profile. We have also found in doing so we are using some older style spirits that have been collecting dust for an age. Aperitifs are heavily used in our lineup, as are spirits like Campari, Aperol and gin.”
So, of course, I wanted to watch Tom make his Smoked Old Fashioned.
Infusing the glass with wood chip smoke while making the Smoked Old Fashioned. Credit: Yvette Cardozo
Originally, they used a smoker, trapping smoke in a huge beaker, then pouring it into the drink. But the smoker is now broken, so Tom torches wood chips. Honestly, a better show.
First, he lined up his ingredients along the bar: a couple of bourbons, vermouth, bitters, a ball of ice in a glass, orange rind, cherry wood chips, and a beaker with a strainer.
Then, he torched the wood chips on a cutting board, and, when the smoke got going, set an upside down glass over the smoke. This lets the smoke flavor adhere to the sides of the glass.
Next he mixed the alcohols, bitters and sugar syrup. All this was shaken with ice cubes. He put the ice ball into the smoke infused glass, then poured the alcohol mix (minus the cubes) over the ice ball in the glass, finally adding a slice of orange rind. The ice ball, rather than cubes, keeps the drink cold without melting and diluting it, he explained.
The result is a smooth taste that rolls gently around your tongue. There’s a hint of whiskey, a hint of orange, and the barest hint of smoke.
Ok, if this isn’t smoky enough, Tom has his Campfire Sour. It’s made with two bourbons and a single malt Scotch whiskey Laphroaig, then topped with frothed egg whites, a slice of dehydrated lemon and two charred cinnamon sticks. All this is to make it look like a campfire. The cinnamon plays the charred logs.
Be warned, though, Laphroaig is a very special taste. It’s a single malt whisky from Scotland infused with enough peat smoke flavor to bring tears to your eyes. I once hiked a multi-day coastal trail in Canada and after a week, everything I owned including my skin smelled of campfire smoke. This drink is that campfire smoke on steroids.
My favorite drink at the Den, honestly, was Tom’s Chili & Ginger Mojito. This is more than your usual by-the-pool mojito. It has the lime taste, to be sure, but there’s also ginger and, to wake you up, red chillies. A mojito with a kick. Perfect after a day of skiing and before you tuck into the Den’s BBQ ribs.
Enjoying drinks at Den Bar and Bistro, Silver Star, BC. Credit: Den Bar and Bistro.
This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Jan. 3)
The Top 10 SeniorsSkiing.com Articles Of 2019.
Here are our readers favorite articles from the past year, deducted by looking at the number of comments, clicks, and the help of Google Analytics. It is certainly a diverse collection of pieces, ranging from our very popular Mystery Glimpse feature fueled by historic photographs from ski museums around the country, to a variety of advice stories, our directory of senior-friendly ski resorts, and, emerging this year, a series of articles about on-slope collisions, a major source of concern to readers.
All links will bring you to the original article. These are listed in reverse rank order.
Enjoy all of them. Share with friends. Thanks for all your support in 2019.
10. Mystery Glimpse: Who’s This Unhappy Fella? This popular feature asks readers to guess the person, place, or thing in a photo, usually submitted by a ski museum. This one features a candid shot of a very famous racer.
9. First Ever List of 145 US/Canadian Resorts Where Seniors Ski Free. Or almost free. SeniorsSkiing.com has an exclusive listing of these resorts. Very popular and located in Subscriber-Only content.
8. Coping With Flat Light. Advice on dealing with bad visibility, so vexing that it can ruin a day’s outing.
7. Season Ending: The Last Perfect Turn. A lyrical view of the end of what was a record-breaking season in many places. From last spring.
6. Ask The Expert: Ski Boot Advice. Basic advice from MasterFit’s Steve Cohen on how a 65 year old can buy his/her first ski boot.
5. Incidents & Accidents 1. As our Spring Survey revealed, out of control skiers is the number one aspect of skiing that upsets our readers. This is the first of our ongoing series of reader reports about collisions and accidents on ski slopes. We are collecting this portfolio of these to see if we can identify a common thread to use in influencing
4. Putting Away Your Skis And Stuff. Practical advice for caring for your gear at the end of the season.
3. My Knee Replacement Story. A full recounting of the process, from initial onset of painful symptoms to rehab.
2. Gone In a Flash. Advice on not taking any season for granted, especially poignant when you are physically barred from participating.
1. Blind-Sided & Body-Slammed. A personal account of a bad collision and its consequences started our reader-written series of Incidents & Accidents. This was the inaugural story from SeniorsSkiing.com correspondent Roger Lohr that created a huge amount of attention. This issue is serious and important to continue to understand. We hope that eventually the data we collect will be useful in influencing ski patrol and area management safety practices.
This Week.
Our Mystery Glimpse looks at a statute that has meaning for a special museum. The location and back story of the Fountain Mountain is revealed.
Harriet Wallis reminds us that five simple words can mean a world of difference to people skiing alone.
Start at the top at Snowshoe Mountain Resort, WV, Credit: Snowshoe Mountain
As we learned last month, the mid-Atlantic states have high mountains, higher, in fact, than New England. So, here’s a resort review from Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia. It’s an “upside down” resort with lodge and parking at the top.
Herb Stevens, the Skiing Weatherman, explains how a weather pattern that evolves over the Indian Ocean and gradually moves east can impact temperatures in North America. Regional forecasts for the week also included. Fascinating stuff.
We are happy to answer our reader’s technical questions. This week, a reader asks about whether old bindings can be used on new skis. Find out what realskier’s Jackson Hogen says.
Our Incidents & Accidents feature this week is by an individual who was severely injured in a collision at Steamboat Springs, but was never able to successfully track down the person who hit him. Lots of lessons learned here.
Thanks again for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. We are looking forward to a wonderful 2020. Please tell your friends about us, and, remember, there are more of us every day, and we aren’t going away.
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