Sheena
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I felt like I had to report back!
Saturday was our first day of the season. We got our passes, got everyone suited up, and headed up the chairlift. At the top, we got off the chair and my 4-year-old started to freak out. Oops! In hindsight, we should have started on the bunny slope, but he was looking so comfortable on the skis at the base I thought we were ok. The first run was ROUGH. I sent the rest of the family off to ski, and the little guy and I took our time. I didn't rush him, but I did push him to keep moving. By the halfway point everything started to click again, and by the time we got to the bottom (1.5 hours later for a not that long trail), he was having a blast and couldn't wait to get on the lift again!
By the end of the day, the fear was (mostly) gone, and his technique was looking pretty darn good. He was even finishing some turns in parallel! I think after another day or 2 he'll be back to where he was last year. Now I just need to work on him getting back up by himself!
I had a similar experience. My two youngest were 4 last season, and by the end of the year were finally skiing down the bunny hill at Snowbasin independently. I took them up on Thursday for opening day. To say the first run was rough is an understatement. It was so ridiculous, that people were skiing by laughing at me. The epic nature of the meltdowns was pretty spectacular. But we finally made it down, and took a break at the bottom - they wanted to go home, I was able to convince them to try again, and after 3 more runs, they were back in form more or less. We went out again today, and no issues and were back to making nice turns and such. I think that first day is SO hard.
Glad to hear that your little one got back into it too