I went back to my roots this weekend, chasing 8 weekers around their playground;  lapping the Metro Quad, Village Chair and T-Bar – trying to catch these kids is no simple task.  The youngest are easy – the S formation of tiny skiers playing follow the leader and red light, green light is unmistakable.  The older ones, though, the more experienced skiers and riders, are tricky.  Here and there, you’ll see the telltale flash of an instructor jacket – and with it, the kids in the class. 

I managed to snap this pic of a girl, no higher than my knee, whip into and out of the woods on what the kids refer to as a “shortcut” (the same ones exist now as they did 20 years ago when I was ducking in and out of the “trees”) and I caught a class dropping one of the “cliffs” off of Lower Quai.  I thought to myself, “I wonder if their parents know what they’re up to.” I subsequently laughed at myself. 

It’s not easy these days to disconnect and look back, when we’re constantly rushing ahead, at what got you to where you are.  We chase first tracks and fresh powder, and sometimes forget what we valued most in those early days.  It would do us all some good to revisit our roots, when life was simpler, and relearn some of those life lessons built into the days we learned how to become skiers and riders.  The 8 weekers are taught patience and perseverance, self-dependence and self-motivation.  They are given freedom.  They are encouraged and they are pushed, but not in any aggressive sense; they can try, fail or succeed, and try again.  And of course they “learn” from some of the best skiers and riders in the industry, the people who do this for a living, who spend their lives on the hill.  Why would we, as parents, think we could do it any better?

And while I was tooling around on the Lower Mountain, reminiscing about my own tour as a mountain rat, I didn’t run into Hannah’s group.  It was nearing the end time for the morning program, so I headed down to the meeting area, and met her group heading back up to the lifts. “We’re going up on the Flyer again!” Gracie, a girl in her group exclaimed when she saw me. “Hannah already went up once, y’know.”  And when Hannah saw me, her face was beaming.  I rode along as they ascended just a few hundred feet from the summit, and realized why it’s not a great idea for parents to tag along with these groups – and why handing them off to another to teach them what they need to know is a good idea if you ever want them to become a skier or a rider.