Susan Hughes from CADS flew in from Vancouver to run the level 1 disabled ski course with members of the Powdertrip ski seasonaires. Wednesday evening was a theory session at Alpenrose, focussing on the ways disabled ski instructing is run across Canada and in British Columbia down to resort level. The main types of equipment were also introduced, along with an outline of the two days of practical sessions at Kicking Horse Resort.
The blind led the blind on Thursday morning… literally, starting in the Day Lodge, the group had to pair up and lead each other to the top of the Catamount Chair before skiing down again – all with one person’s eyes closed! The morning continued with more laps of the Catamount Chair, practicing instructing blind skiers. After lunch, eyes were opened but this time a ski was taken away to practice skiing with a single ski all afternoon, assisted by specially adapted poles called outriggers. The group became quite confident and they even mentioned joining the rest of the skiers on the race course! With rested eyes and a tired leg they got stuck into the paperwork homework that evening in anticipation of another challenging day ahead.
Friday started with some white-knuckled sit-skiing! Using one sit-ski, the group took it in turns to tether, guide and ski in the seated ski with outriggers. Apart from flying down the lower runs on a seat with a ski attached to the bottom, the scariest moment came when a snowboarder lost control and crashed into Nick, who was guiding the sit-ski. Carnage followed with Caroline in the sit-ski and Nick fortunately escaping uninjured! The snowboarder left after an ear bashing from Susan, in the false knowledge that he’d just knocked over a disabled skier! Friday afternoon was thankfully less eventful, and the group learnt about adaptive skiing before all being awarded their CADS level 1 certificates.
Thanks to Susan and CADS BC.
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Tags: CADS, Canadian Association of Disabled Skiers, ski instructor, skiing
