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Very young children do not have the coordination, patience or motor skills to learn downhill skiing, and may find it a demoralising experience. However, nordic skiing, which is basically a development of walking, is much easier. Downhill skills are not needed for forest track skiing, but they will soon become interested and start to learn once they get the idea. The fairly constant rate of exercise also avoids some of the hazards of getting very cold associated with queuing and sitting on lifts at downhill resorts. However, do remember that young children don't have huge energy reserves, and may not know to tell you when they are starting to feel cold - keep a close eye on them at all times, and make sure they are very well wrapped up.
For very young children (as soon as they have head control and could be carried in a backpack - say six months), nordic skiing can be great fun if they are well wrapped up and placed in a pulk. This is a specially designed sled which can be pulled along by a skier, and has a waterproof cover, seat, plenty of insulation and maybe a wind-shield and even anti-roll bars. Purpose-built pulks are not easy to come by in the UK (try Highland Guides in Aviemore, who deal with the manufacturers in Norway and can import one to order), and are very expensive (over £300). However, some designs of cheapo plastic sled can be adapted with a little thought, for less than a tenth of this.
A heavy nylon cover, plenty of karrimat padding, some sort of upright seat bolted in, to which can be attached the sort of harness you would use in a high chair. A see-through plastic cover will help keep the wind off the face (but do allow some ventilation !). Attach the front of the sled via two light aluminium tubes to either side of a waist belt (eg. the waist harness of your rucksack). The tubes need to be long enough that the back of skis don't foul the sled on long strides, and also so you don't lift up the front of the sled each time you step forwards (makes it pretty tiring) - 2m seems to be about right. The very young need to be well insulated, as they invariably go to sleep in no time (our daughter Sarah's first trip on the Stang was at age four months, and I'm not sure she really noticed it - a month later at Val d'Isère she slept round 90% of a 6km round trip, despite a temperature of around -10°C).
Older toddlers really enjoy the downhills, providing you avoid bumps. Do be sure that the sled is stable - a capsize may provoke a whinge at low speeds (especially in soft snow), but can be a bit more serious if you were speeding downhill ! We found with daughter Sarah at age 3 that stability was fine when she was awake, but she tended to slip over to one side or the other as she fell asleep, which unbalances things somewhat. With no upright seating or harness, both children (now aged five and three) were accomodated, though they stayed awake and were only towed on flat fields - this much weight is difficult to keep steady on downhills and extremely hard work on uphills !
At five, Sarah has already started skiing herself (at skischool in the alps, but at this age alpine skiing in a "jardin de neige" and nordic skiing are almost the same). Michael (just three) also played out on short skis and, with no pressure to achieve anything in particular, really enjoyed it, so maybe next winter ...
Meanwhile our home-made pulk design has somewhat stopped evolving to deal with new problems as the load gets bigger. What is more likely now is that the pulk will be used to haul "stuff" on days out, avoiding the need for any of us to carry rucksacks. Mail us if you fancy having a go yourself, or if you have any tips to pass on from your own experiences.
Watch this space - there should be a few photos for this page soon !
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