For once, the children agreed on something. "Forget ski school," Matt and Reggie said in unison. "We don't need it."
They proved their mettle skiing on the back side of the mountain on one of Vail, Colo.'s famed back bowls, the steep snowfields that are the bastion of expert skiers from around the world. They sped down a race course. They jumped moguls. They left me in their wake on every run here at the largest ski resort in the country.
"I think this is the last year I can keep up with them," my husband, an avid skier, acknowledged breathlessly after one particularly brutal race down the mountain.
Nearly 4-year-old Melanie, meanwhile, was happily becoming a "superstar" at Vail's Lionshead Children's Center (where a five-day lift ticket, lesson and rental package cost $325, including lunch). She learned how to stop and make turns down the mountain and was thrilled to ride the gondola to the top "because I'm a good skier, too," she explained. Every night, Melanie proudly showed off her "racing ribbons" and pins.
I figured a lesson or two might be in order for our two hot-dog skiers, too. After all, 11-year-old Matt and 9-year-old Reggie, like many young skiers, are lucky to spend a week a year enjoying the admittedly expensive sport. (At Vail, children's lift tickets, rentals and lunches total more than $50 a day; lessons add more than $25 to the tab, though the five-day package proved a better deal for children willing to spend that much time in ski school.)
So despite the prospect of spending more, I told them about the new Black Diamond Club. Introduced this season at Vail and its sister resort Beaver Creek, 10 miles down the road, the club is designed for ever-growing numbers of children just like Matt and Reggie -- "the kids aged 6 to 13 who think they're too cool for ski school," explained John Alderson, the Beaver Creek Children's Ski School supervisor who developed the highly successful concept.
Rather than "lessons," the Black Diamond Club is designed for children at ease on their skis to explore the mountain with a young instructor, picking up some new skills in the process. Each day has a theme: hunting for treasure or catching up with the ski patrol to learn what it takes to respond to emergencies, for example.
They get a dose of "SKE-COLOGY," learning about the mountains and the animals here, even searching for tracks in the snow. This part of the program was developed with input from the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Division of Wildlife and local schools. (Less advanced young skiers can also sample SKE-COLOGY during their ski weeks.)
Matt and Reggie, who expected to spend the day racing, weren't even disappointed when a heavy snowfall required the group to quickly shift gears, spending their day perfecting their skills at skiing through powder, exploring parts of the mountain they never would have found otherwise.
"Parents may not ski as well as the kids, or they don't realize the kids are as good as they are. This way, the kids can really let it rip -- in a safe manner," explained Jeff Ulrich, the Vail ski instructor who led Matt, Reggie and three Australian members of the club on the recent snowy day. The children were impressed that they stopped for lunch at a restaurant down in the picturesque and decidedly glitzy Vail Village, full of well-heeled skiers, chic restaurants, and shops.
(Call [800] 622-3131 for Vail and Beaver Creek information. Ask about the Family Package that allows a parent and child to receive a day free when buying a five-day lift ticket, lesson and equipment package.)
Vail/Beaver Creek, with hundreds of children enrolled a day in its ski schools and about 400 children's instructors, is known around the country for innovative teaching programs for adults and children alike, as well as simple ideas that make family skiing a lot easier on everyone.
Camp Weenoski enables the 5-to-8 crowd to take Wednesdays off the slopes. Weekend Ski Break allows parents who are skiing with their young children to drop them off at a designated spot on top of the mountain for an hour or two in the afternoon so the children can take a rest -- and the parents can ski hard. The Children's Ski Centers even sell the gear children need most -- goggles and sunscreen, for example. There's a free children's skiing adventure coloring book and an adventure map to help families explore the mountain together, through spooky (but obviously not authentic) Indian Burial Grounds, Lost Silver Mine, Fort WhipperSnapper and Thundercat Cave, among other places scattered on Vail and Beaver Creek's 5,000-plus skiable acres.
But the biggest challenge lately has been to provide something that will appeal to the youngsters who started skiing before kindergarten and now at age 10 or 12 are clearly better skiers than their parents ever dreamed of being, explains Nancy Nottingham, who oversees children's programs at Vail and Beaver Creek.
That's why besides the Black Diamond Club, the two resorts will be offering camps for the highest-level young skiers this year during the March spring break periods (call Vail Golden Peak Children's Center at [303] 479-4440 for details).