7-year-olds in the backcountry

I have a 7-year old son who has been skiing for a couple of years at Steven's and I would like to know if this is the time to introduce him to backcountry (more downhill oriented).<br><br>He has a super strong snowplow and is starting to deal with parallel to some degree.<br><br>We also had him out X-C skiing a bunch of times so he is reasonably comfortable with general locomotion on skis.<br><br>I know that I can continue to do more or less flatland type trips, but I was wondering what is a good time for introducing him to the concept of skiing up to achieve fun downs (along with all the other benefits).<br><br>I also will have to grapple with the issue of appropriate gear, but if the trips are short, which they will need to be I think I could deal with that. Even carry his downhill stuff on my back while he climbs with his X-C skis with some old skins I still have.<br><br>Any ideas or experiences along this line would be appreciated.<br><br>Alan

My parents started me off XC skiing in the bc when I was five or so. Remember that to a kid, even a short climb feels like it's an eternity. Keep the tours short, don't push him, make sure it's fun, or the motivation won't be there. I remember always wanting 'real' gear, because the lack of control of XC skis always scared me. Above all, keep it fun. I started wanting to do more ambitious trips only when I was older, around 12 or so. I couldn't enjoy long slogs until then. <br><br>Lou Dawson has a great article somewhere on his site ( www.wildsnow.com ), as does Mitch Weber on teletips.

But go for it! Sharing a sport with a parent is a special thing.

don't push him, make sure it's fun, or the motivation won't be there. <br><br>But go for it! Sharing a sport with a parent is a special thing.

<br><br>From a mothers perspective, pick a nice sunny day, (don't forget the sunscreen) make it a very short tour. Might even be something you and your son can have fun picking out together. Probably a good idea to not start at "oh dark thirty", when you get to where you're going, let him decide how far he would like to go, even if it's only 100 yards, then have some fun feeding the birds or playing in the snow, or even brew up some hot chocolate. What a great thing to do with your kids. Charles from TAY takes his kids out, in fact there are some pictures on his front page of their latest outing.

wildsnow.com/articles/louie_buttermilk/buttermilk_2001.html

telemarktips.com/KidsFeature.html

The idea of kids' alpine boots on AT bindings sounds quite effective to me.

Thanks for the comforting words and encouragement! The articles were great. I think that I will take his boots to an outfitter and see if they are the size that can fit into an AT setup. Though I am a tele skier, I had assumed that he would go AT in any case. Heck I have even given some thought to that. I just don't want to add any additional complexity to the situation. Heck he's really just starting to learn the parallel.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Alan

Alan, my experience is mainly from skiing with my now 10 year old daughter, and I agree with all of the advice of Mad_Dog and pbelitz. My daughter has never ridden a chair lift, so we don't go out for turns, but she loves exploring the woods on skis, and especially snow camping, and she is willing to try just about anything that I suggest she can probably do. We started really small (100vf climb to camp when she was 5) and have slowly increased the difficulty.