No limits: Adaptive skiers and snowboarders take to the slopes
The Daily Mail
Feb. 1, 2009
Up a winding, snow-packed road sits the Gwen Allard Adaptive Sports Center, home of the Adaptive Sports Foundation at Windham Mountain. The exterior walls of the lodge are wood and glass, windows that provide views of a chair lift and more mountains farther off in the distance. Inside, it has a large stone fireplace, its own cafeteria space and an equipment room full of bi-skis, a seat with two skis on its base, mono-skis, a seat with one ski, and a variety of shot poles with skis at their ends, called outriggers, among tethers, helmets and other protective gear.
The room opens right onto the mountain so skiers and snowboarders can glide out onto a trail that leads directly to the mountain’s base. From there, they can board chair lifts and access all of the mountain’s 46 trails. A short chair lift brings skiers and snowboarders from the base directly to the facility, too.
Before the facility was opened, in the 2005-06 season, getting students on the mountain had its own difficulties. Students and parents had to pick up equipment and lift tickets from the main lodge. Often, maneuvering through the crowed lodge was stressful for the athletes and parents who might be escorting children with autism or compulsive behaviors.
The new space is solely used for adaptive skiers, and although it can be crowded, too, it is designed to be a calming space.
The Adaptive Sports Federation and program at Windham teaches athletes of all ages with cognitive and physical disabilities how to ski or snowboard.
Charisse Young, the foundation’s executive director, said the program’s directors and board intend it to be open to athletes with any sort of special need or financial situation.
The majority of students during the 2007-08 season were those with Down syndrome or autism, followed by those with Cerebral Palsy, according to the program’s annual report. But other students include those who survived an accident, those who are fighting or have survived cancer, those who have limited vision and those with a range of other issues that make alpine skiing or snowboarding difficult.
— — —
On a frigid Friday in mid-January, a handful of students, each with two instructors, set out for their morning lesson.
Instructors Mary Weafer and Cathleen Discoll stayed in the lodge and chatted about their shared student for their afternoon lesson and the news out of New York City, near where both women live.
Weafer, who has a house in Cairo, has been a volunteer instructor at Windham for several years.
Her son, Nicholas, who is 13, has been skiing with program instructors since he was five years old. Nicholas is severely autistic and is not verbal, she explained.
She said that the first time she came to the mountain she was struck by the friendliness of program staff.
“I said, ‘Those are the nicest two people,’ and then second time I came, I said, ‘Those are the nicest two people,’” she recalled of her first impression of the program.
Weafer said that she worried at first how Nicholas would adapt to skiing, but he seemed to enjoy his first few lessons. She said that she could see her son smiling as he passed her as she stood watching from the lodge.
“Tears came down my face seeing Nicholas ski down with two instructors,” she said.
She explained that sometimes family activities can be hard with an autistic child, but the Windham program has changed all that.
“We became part of an adaptive family,” she said.
Instructors need to be experienced skiers and are taught how to teach upon entry into the program. Staff and volunteers also have been trained in how to understand the needs of their students. They keep logs detailing the difficulties and progress students have during each lesson. Notes in these files help the next instructor be aware of each student’s unique challenges or compulsions and to know what skills were practiced during the last lesson. Weafer and Drisoll say that during lessons, safety comes first.
Some students are tethered to their instructors to help balance and so they cannot fall or get injured.
“The order is safety, fun and learning,” Drisoll said of a typical lesson.
Weafer said that positive reinforcement is the key to making a lesson successful.
“You praise the kids constantly,” she said.
Every lesson log entry ends with a positive comment or reflection on how well a student learned a new movement or followed instruction.
— — —
The new adaptive sports center was opened during the 2005-06 season, but the program has been around for more than 25 years.
In 1983, Glen Allard, a Professional Ski Instructors of America-certified instructor, approached Dan Frank, Windham’s president at the time, about researching and developing a teaching program for skiers with physical or cognitive difficulties, Young said. Frank liked Allard’s proposal, and the program was born.
Young said Frank continued to support the program as the mountain’s president until he stepped down in 2007. He allowed the new facility to be built on property that belonged to Windham. The land had to be graded so that cars, buses and vans could park outside. The project was made possible by a $4.5 million capital and endowment campaign.
The entire program cost almost $1.3 million over the 2006-07 season, according to that year’s audit.
Students are charged $60 for a full day of instruction, $50 for a half-day and $30 if they come with a group. This fee covers a lift ticket, equipment rentals and instruction. Young said the operational costs of the program run about $350 per day.
She said that about 95 percent of the money needed to run the program is raised during campaigns and at events like the annual gala and silent auction, which this year will be held Feb. 7.
Donations keep student fees low, she said, which distinguishes Windham from larger resorts that charge adaptive skiers the same rates as able-bodied skiers.
— — —
Scot Hollonbeck, of the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs, says that one of the largest problems with adaptive sports programs is that many of them are inaccessible to the very people for which they are designed.
Historically, Hollonbeck said, sports were something that only wealthy people could afford to do, or take the time to do, and skiing was no exception. He said athletic participation widened through the early and mid-20th century, and now adaptive programs are beginning to be more inclusive, as well. But, he said, there is a lot more work to do.
Hollonbeck said he worries that most skiers who would enroll in adaptive ski programs are those who survived an injury later in life, rather than athletes who were born with Spina Bifita, cerebral palsy or with limited vision. Hospitals or physical therapists are sometimes reluctant to refer patients to programs that are not affiliated with their establishments, so often discovering various adaptive athletic programs falls on word-of-mouth or individual research. Also, individual athletes or groups have to provide their own transportation to ski areas, which could become costly, he said.
However, he is hopeful that some of these barriers will disappear as more public schools and community centers develop their own adaptive athletic programs.
“It will be truly accessible when someone can participate in the local community,” he said.
Julie Minihan, skiing development and education coordinator for the Paralympics, has been discussing how to start and develop adaptive programs with ski resorts across the Northeast since December.
Minihan said she relies on local programs to make the Paralympics aware of their most skilled athletes.
“We need to have these grassroots and developmental programs out there,” she said.
Just like able-bodied skiers, adaptive skiers usually train for several years before they reach the top echelon of athletes. Skiers need to race at several competitions in order to be ranked, and they need years of top rankings to move up.
“It’s a somewhat cutthroat process,” she said.
Last year, Windham skier and volunteer Caitlin Sarubbi was named to the United States Disabled Ski Team.
Minihan agreed with Hollonbeck that money is a huge issue for athletes.
Cherisse Young said that many skiers and snowboarders come to Windham solely to use the foundation’s equipment because equipment is so expensive to buy.
Windham Mountain also hosts events sponsored by the Wounded Warrior Project, and although some adaptive sport advocates argue that publicity surrounding these events can overshadow programs designed for more average athletes, Young said the real push for adaptive programs began when a generation of soldiers returned from serving in Vietnam.
Disabled Sports of the United States of America was founded by veterans who experimented creating equipment by putting skis on chairs. Now that there are a variety of different options for skiers with different spinal injuries and muscular needs, Young said, adapting equipment for snowboarders is the new frontier.
— — —
Young said that the program’s greatest challenge is finding enough volunteer instructors to meet the growing number of students. Interest in the program has increased, in part, she said, because schools are putting more students with physical or cognitive challenges into mainstream classes. As more schools adapt classrooms and programs to include all students, she said, more parents seek to include their children in more mainstream activities.
Last season, the program had 1,500 student visits, according to its annual report. The program also recruited 50 new instructors, bringing the total number to around 200, Young said.
Even so, she said, there is a waiting list for lessons, and athletes must make reservations in advance of their desired day and time.
— — —
During their lunch break at Windham that day, one instructor exchanged information with another who was taking over the lesson in the afternoon, telling her that the student will mimic the instructor’s actions immediately. So, if the instructor wanted to show the student where and when to turn, for example, the instructor should overshoot the turn, so the student would be at the right place at the right time.
Across the room, Anthony Tambini, of East Jewett, spoke with his teaching partner about exchanging a piece of equipment for his afternoon student.
Tambini started volunteering at Windham five years ago. Most of his students are children.
“If I’m here skiing, I’m going to work and bring some happiness to some of these kids,” he said.
That day, Tambini and another instructor were assigned to teach Dutchess Community College student Tyler Ryan.
Ryan survived a motor-cross accident a few years ago, but is unable to use his legs. He was a skier before the accident and took it up again last year.
Ryan said that learning to ski while seated and using outriggers is fun.
“It’s just as much fun, if not more,” he said.
Ryan said he was just getting back into the swing of skiing and the goal of the day was to work on turning.
After eating lunch with his girlfriend and another friend, Ryan wheeled himself to the equipment room where Tambini and the other instructor helped him get into his ski seat. Tambini straddled Ryan’s legs to keep the seat balanced and made sure Ryan could lean forward and back. Once Ryan’s ski mask, helmet and goggles were in place, Tambini and the other instructor pushed him out the door and onto the snow. Ryan propelled himself forward with his outriggers and was off for the afternoon.