Blind Skiers Keep Good Company

Close your eyes. Imagine your body moving, the wind in your hair. Imagine feeling a sense of acceleration that you’ve never felt before. Imagine you have no idea if something is in front of you, how far away it is, or even if you’ll know about it before it’s too late. Try imagining any of these things, and you’ll come close to understanding what the thrill is for the blind skier.

The term “blind skier,” I’ll admit, sounds about as foolish as “blind truck driver,” “blind pilot,” or even “blind surgeon.” But what barriers do the slopes pose for the blind skier? When you think about it, there are actually very few. The sight-impaired skier can stand, balance, and, inevitably, fall like any other skier. The only snags are the potential obstacles on the slopes. Get a guide to tell the skier when these are approaching, however, and the problem melts away. Just as pilots, while “flying blind,” rely on their instruments to tell them of looming disasters, the blind skier’s traffic controller is right behind, in front of, or wherever the skier needs him or her to be. Opening the slopes to the sight impaired was a simple idea, but one that required somebody somewhere to make a quantum of leap of understanding.

Skiing for people with all varieties of physical challenges became very popular at the end of World War II. Injured veterans wanted to return to their former active lifestyles, and programs addressing the need began appearing at ski resorts. Today, very active programs are run at resorts like Winter Park, Colorado. The development of specialized equipment, like the mono- and bi-ski, can bring the thrill of the slopes to those with almost any kind of physical challenge.

While the methods employed to propel disabled skiers may differ, the thrills that skiing provides them know no distinctions. The sense of freedom, the joy of speed, and the sweet taste of the first après ski cocktail last long after the snow has melted. My fondest memories of my first season as a sight-impaired skier, however, have nothing to do with any of these. They come from two extraordinary people who guided me down the slopes. The story is not mine so much as it is theirs.

My Guided Tour

I’ve been sight impaired my entire life. I’d heard about skiing for the blind back in the early 1980s. I understood the concept, and though I wasn’t particularly frightened of the idea, I wasn’t especially motivated to try it. At that point in my life, I felt stimulated enough. I felt I knew the world, my place in it, my strengths and my limitations. I thought it was a great opportunity – for those who needed it – but I didn’t. I had my other interests and stories of the hot cocoa, steam tubs, and beautiful people all around me simply didn’t interest me.

When I decided to try skiing many years later, my life was a little different. I was feeling a little confined, a bit stifled. It wasn’t the speed, the snow, the cocoa, or the lifestyle that attracted me, but the idea that I would be doing something so illogical for someone with “my limitations.” I approached the American Blind Skiers Foundation (ABSF), based in the Chicagoland area, not knowing what exactly I’d find. I was, at most, hoping to find an activity I could enjoy. I never expected the difference it would make in my life.

I don’t think I’ve ever been sorer than the day after I first strapped on a pair of skies. Every inch of my body ached. Skiing, I realized, wasn’t easy, sight or not. I had told myself that everything would be fine if I just learned how to stop when I needed to. My entire time on the slopes, however, was spent stopping, usually in a prone position. So much so that a joke began to circulate: “Hey, have you seen Dan skiing? “No, but I’ve seen him lying on the ground.” I realized that, before I should waste my energy worrying about smashing into an unseen tree, I needed to stay vertical for at least ten feet of hill.

As I stumbled and scraped my way through my first season the slopes, however, something hit me with a far greater force than any centrally located tree ever could. My guides were some of the most giving and caring people I ever met. After one particularly horrific day, when my guide, Kurt, had convinced me to try a “nice simple” blue slope at Copper Mountain Resort, I had bruised my way down it and I asked him, “Why do you do this? Why do you, a great skier, want to stand there and watch some idiot like me make a mockery of something you love to do so much?’ “Because people like you inspire me,” was all he replied.

I hadn’t quite thought of it that way before. All the time growing up, trying to do the same things my friends did, I had always thought I should try to be exactly like them. I thought that being a part of what they did meant my having to overcome my limitations. In his response, Kurt showed me that this wasn’t the case at all. There were people out there who were, in fact, fine with what I was—people willing to let me be what I was, despite any strain or inconvenience it might cause them. More importantly, there were people out there who were happy that I was just who I was. It may seem a simple notion to many, but believe me, this is not a perception of their place in the world most people with disabilities carry with them easily.

My Non-Fall from Grace

On the last day of my first ski season, I had one request for my guide, Dawn. “I want to go down the slope one time without falling.” I didn’t care which slope, just one time without falling, and so we started out. We chose one of the easiest slopes available. Groups of eight-year old kids seemed to wiz by me every second; I tried not to listen. On the way up, Dawn and I talked about life, skiing and Italian food. I think she was trying to ease my conscience over the promise I’d made myself. The first time…a fall. And the second. And the third. She explained a certain tricky portion of the slope to me again and again, and warned that, when she said to turn right, I really should turn right, that it wasn’t simply a suggestion.

On my fourth and final attempt that day, I made it down the slope without falling. It remains one of my proudest moments. It’s customary that the blind skier provides the first round at the après ski for the guide. That day, however, Dawn treated me. That’s when I came to understand what it meant to be skier. Why the slopes failed to attract me twenty years ago, I have no idea.

My whole life, I have read books on philosophy, searching for answers. I have poured over thousands of years of great thoughts and epic struggles and tried to learn from them how I should live my life. In some ways, a handful of ski outings gave me a much better perception of the course my life should take. I indeed loved the rush of the slopes, but more importantly, I loved the dedication of the guides that made my rides down them possible. Just as I may inspire them, they have inspired me to try and help others in realizing their own potentials. I ski now as much for the guides as I do for myself. I simply enjoy the company I get to keep.

By Dan Barrett