In February, 2009 I travelled to Boyne City, Michigan and stayed
and worked at a facility called Challenge Mountain. They provide adaptive
skiing options for children and adults with physical disabilities. It was a
very cool experience seeing how they would go about getting someone to ski that
had been paralyzed from the waist down. They used ski bras that would hold the
two ski’s together and an experienced skier would ski behind them using roped
to help guide them down the hill. We stayed in the lodge and got to meet a lot
of the families and individuals that spend a majority of their time at
Challenge Mountain during the winter months.
I think this issue and trip hit really close to home because one of my
best friends growing up was born without arms and legs, and to see the
adjustments and personalization they would make to the equipment so that anyone
could experience skiing was a very cool thing for me. I had always seen my
friend find ways to be able to do whatever he wanted to do in life; he played
baseball, soccer and basketball. It was really great to see other people go out
of their way, donate their time and make those types of experiences available
for people that may not have the abilities to figure out how to do something
like that for themselves.
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