A Magic Carpet Journey To Remember—Skiing With My Young Kids for the First Time

On a Sunday in February, I awoke to something that was all too common last ski season.

Even early in the morning, the sun shone brilliantly through our east-facing windows. Its intensity warmed everything it touched, almost impatiently like a late spring afternoon. Had the roof had any snow on it, it surely would have dripped on and on. Instead, just the paltry snowpack left on the ground relented to another late-winter scorcher.

But while the day marked just another in a long line of crummy ski days, for me, it held a certain promise. With my wife on a needed gal’s trip to Santa Fe, I made the lofty decision that today would be the first day I would ski solo with my children, no matter if they outnumbered me.

How could things go astray, making turns with four-year-old Ted, who had the build of a small linebacker but perhaps couldn’t turn (or stop)? And what could go wrong bringing along his sweet little sister, known for her determined demeanor, but whose downhill technique recalled overdone linguine? 

In a word, after hurdles, mostly small, nothing.

Our first move was pointing the stuffed car toward our local hill, a steep blip of a mountain near town that may not be as bougie as the ski area across the valley, but has a more modest if meaningful role. The same one it shares with every local hill the world over, as the nexus of the skiing universe. No paying a day’s wage for parking. No waiting in lift lines, all to ski miles of groomers, rubbing shoulders with ten thousand of my closest megapass friends.

Just skiing. And that morning, it would include my two young kids.

Some could say the first run was nearly a disaster. I might prefer adventurous. The reality may well be somewhere in between.

Regardless, I schlepped the little one (we call her Iggy) to a flat, snowy area by the magic carpet to set up camp, where I laid out our gear while four-year-old Ted was briefly on his own, front-pointing it up the steep cat track that led from our parked car to the base. Ted summited just behind us with only some misgivings. Then, by some stroke of luck, we managed to all get our skis and gear on. 

I then had to develop a technique on the fly for holding my beskied little one—still reeling from being forced into boots and skis—while simultaneously pushing Ted toward the magic carpet, a distance of thirty yards whose one-degree incline made it seem like a journey we might never cover, but persevere we did. We shuffled toward the conveyor, surrendered to its cycle, and were whisked to parts unknown. 

Ted stood on the magic carpet a few yards in front of us, looking for snowcats, while littlest Iggy stood between my legs. Our egress was comical; Ted went left, toward nothing, instead of right, toward the run. Iggy and I made it up to him, where I again nudged him onward, this time toward the run, with the help of the liftie, before I commanded him to follow his sister and me, and listen to each word I said.

As ever, sternness failed. Ted fell almost immediately into a contorted pile that would have blown both my knees. Shouldering my daughter, I sidestepped up to him, where I had to set Iggy on her side on the sloping ground for a moment while I helped her brother. She passed the thirty seconds wailing into the snow while I righted her brother.

Ted was again pointed downhill; Iggy was back in the saddle. And there the cosmos nudged me towards perhaps the best decision of my life; I capitulated and told Ted just to go. And off we went.

In a powerful snowplow, Ted led, making a trench of the bunny hill, arms flailing, with his sister in tow, herself with little skis now on the snow. At the bottom, stress had morphed into triumph—we were doing this. A chocolatey stroopwafel emerged from my pocket as a reward for the kids as we again hopped on the magic carpet, this time in redemption, but with a curious, even profound bent. “Where’d you get this?” Ted inquired of the baked good. “From the internet, buddy,” I enlightened him, only to be outdone by my philosophical young son.

“What’s the internet?” he replied. I didn’t have a good answer, except to say that maybe we’d get lucky and the whole thing would crash before he got too much older. A mom my age in front of us turned around, laughing at Ted, but with a serious point to make. “We should just take the whole thing down now,” she waxed. 

We had arrived. Wavelength tuned, universe aligned, we made three more runs, Ted leading each one, with me skiing behind with Iggy between my legs, where I entreated her to say ‘weeee’ at least once. And she did. And then we were done.

Just like anything in adulthood—or perhaps like life itself—it was all over as soon as we had started. All that was left was the beautiful feeling of having shared something so meaningful with my own children. Was it the best ski day of my life? It was definitely up there. And I hadn’t even made a single real turn myself.

On the car ride home, we returned a few books to the library that were weeks past due. I let Ted deposit them into the slot on his own as I tried in vain to get Iggy the Sleepy Stoic to smile one more time before nap. We then got into the car and headed for home.

“Where’s home?” Ted asked.

“You know!” I said, “over yonder,” pointing toward our house, just a few blocks over.

“What’s yonder?” the young philosopher inquired.

“It means somewhere far away from where you are now,” I replied.

The spirit of a local hill and a little adventure flowing through him, Ted then asked in the most poetic of ways to both go home and onward.

“Can we go yonder?” he asked. And we did.

About The Last Chair Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Last Chair’ column. Click below to read the previous column, What Happens When You Take Skiing Too Seriously?

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