I grew up about 2 hours from the local ski area. Many weekends, (and some weekdays when my dad thought skiing might be more educational than my school’s football coach lecturing about something between ESPN and his wife’s poor cooking skills), my parents would roll my brother and I out of bed and tell us we were going skiing! At the time my brother and I thought we were skiing the best the world had to offer. In reality we were making tracks on man-made snow that covered barely 400 ft. of vertical. Sometimes it was icy and we could barely get our edges to grip. But we loved it…every minute of it (except, of course, putting my boots on…I never enjoyed trying to get my EEE feet into a boot a half size to small). It didn’t matter that the ski lodge was basically a glorified barn, or that the double blacks were in reality intermediate runs. We got to go skiing! Whether you have 3000 feet of vertical outside your back door or 300 feet three hours away it won’t matter to your kids. Take them to the snow, let them grab their board or skis and play all day long. Not only will they have fun, you will ingrain in them a form of exercise that can last a lifetime. Heck, I can turn an edge in the worst of conditions because I learned to ski on an icy ski hill in Ohio. Enjoy the snow and start the year off right…on the slopes.

Check out where I learned to ski

Stay Fit Skiing!
Andrew Hooge