Childcare in Fresh Mountain Air
Learning to travel with kids on a multi-family ski vacation in the Allgäu.
Stella on the move
Travels with my friend Ryan used to be carefree. We pub-crawled through London during a college spring break, camped on mountaintops in Morocco, toured the Casbah of Algiers, ate grilled fish by the sea in Tunis and pasta on the piazzas of Rome. Once I even booked a last-minute Algiers-Paris flight to crash his romantic weekend with his wife-to-be, Alex.
All that was before we had kids.
Now, with their two boys (aged 3 and 1) and our Stella in tow, spontaneous meetups are a thing of the past. Convening our families this month for a week-long ski trip in the Alps took far more planning than any of our previous trips. (“So, uh, we’re not planning on going to any restaurants, right?” “Oh, God no.”) And executing the plan involved countless tantrums, snack breaks, and plein-air diaper changes. But it worked!
Dad stuff
After a seemingly endless and dreary winter, fresh off a Covid infection (our first and hopefully only of this pandemic), and thoroughly fed up with quarantine, Nina and I packed Stella and her copious accessories (and even a few things for ourselves!) into the car and headed south from Kassel. Ryan, Alex, and their boys flew in from their home in Jordan. Our destination for the week was the Allgäu (pronounced AL-goy), a region of verdant highland pastures ringed by steep peaks along the German-Austrian border.
Each morning in our Airbnb, we rose with the kids, did our best to dress and feed everyone without too many tears, then ventured out for hiking, skiing, and other activities. (Lucky for me and Nina, Stella sleeps far later than their boys' pre-dawn wakeups. "The Mediterranean baby," Alex dubbed her, with just a hint of bleary-eyed envy.)
The daily drives themselves were a highlight. Our phones pinged repeatedly as we zigzagged back and forth across the border, wending our way among the mountains. A hardy farm cat seemed to crouch in every field, stalking hardy mountain mice.
Alpine hiking scenes
Most days, Ryan spent a few hours leading his oldest in ski lessons while the rest of us sledded, sunned and snacked. Conditions couldn't have been better. The valleys were warm and sunny, while plenty of snow still clung to the peaks. And unlike our last ski trip (also in Austria), it was warm enough to ski in just a single layer.
Thanks to the generosity of our wives, we dads got in a day of skiing for ourselves. For that, we picked the highest peak around: the Nebelhorn, which offered stunning views and an unbroken 30-40 minutes of carving from top to bottom, even at a good clip.
Mom stuff
If that was the highlight of the trip for me, for Stella it was cake. She celebrated her first birthday that week, and Nina made sure she had all the trappings a 1-year-old could ask for: apple sponge cake with frosting, copious balloons, and friends and family to clamber and slobber on.
The trip came at a pivotal moment for Stella, who was just mastering the art of walking on her own two feet, unsupported. She wasted no time reveling in the freedom that new skill conveyed. My most enduring memory of the trip is Ryan and Alex's youngest peering over the edge of his high chair, mildly concerned, as Stella pushed it—and him with it—to and fro across the dining room floor.
All three asleep on our backs? Perfection.
