fbpx

The DREAM Evolves

DREAM Adaptive athletes team up with Great Northern Powder Guides for new, advanced adaptive powder-skiing program

By Molly Priddy
Courtesy Kameron Barge

The three skiers loaded into the snowcat machines, destined for deep powder near the Canadian border. A 25-mile trip from the Great Northern Powder Guides basecamp on U.S. Highway 93 brought the crew to untracked lines on Stryker Ridge, where they would make turns down at least 1,000 vertical feet on each drop.

Cat-skiing can be a breathtaking experience for any athlete, but for the skiers on this trip, it became more than a mere day on the hill. As athletes attending a powder camp through DREAM Adaptive Recreation, the three skiers, all of whom use a sit-ski to carve up the snow, represented the first group to head out on this new, more-advanced backcountry opportunity.

David Poole has been sit-skiing for nine years, ever since a skiing accident completely severed his spinal cord. He’s been skiing on “probably 15 mountains” this season, but the DREAM cat-ski trip stood out.

“It was definitely a very exciting event. It’s hard to describe in words, really, how much fun we had and how it challenged us,” Poole said. “It was like neck deep on us all day long and we wrapped out 10 laps each day, which was very successful in my mind.”

DREAM, which stands for Disabled Recreation Environmental Access Movement, is a nonprofit started in 1985 and dedicated to helping people with disabilities access, engage with, and enjoy outdoor recreation. DREAM’s typical winter program includes a chance for people with disabilities to learn to alpine ski or snowboard at Whitefish Mountain Resort, generally covering a spectrum running from beginner to intermediate.

DREAM executive director Cheri DuBeau Carlson said the recent expansion to make the new powder program available for advanced adaptive skiers has been one of her goals. The more programs for adaptive participants, the better, she said.

The recent trip with Great Northern Powder Guides was a bit of a test run, she said, and was a roaring success.

“It was like everybody rode a high for several days afterward,” she said. “I’ve never had an experience like it.”

When considering adding the new camp, Carlson turned to Lucas Grossi for assistance. Grossi, who lives in Whitefish, lost his left leg below the knee to a car crash in 1988, when he was 12 years old. It didn’t keep him from the mountains though – Grossi ski raced until he was 16, and then started snowboarding in 1992. His passion took him to the competitive circuit, where he competed from 1999 until 2014. He trained for the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, but was injured prior to making the team.

Grossi also helped coordinate the first adaptive snowboard competition in the world, which took place in New Hampshire. He’s organized training camps for adaptive riders, including at Windells in Mount Hood, Oregon and High Cascade Snowboard Camp, in Government Camp, Oregon.

With its new powder camp, Grossi said DREAM is the first program in Montana to have such an advanced option for adaptive athletes.

“Part of the camp model is we have to make sure the sit-skier is proficient enough to be able to have a good day in two feet of powder,” Grossi said.

Poole said that while the powder was 18 inches deep, for him and the other camp participants, it meant it was neck high. It was “hero snow,” the kind you can fall in without worrying about injury, he said, but it requires stamina and skill.

Guided cat-skiing tends to follow a similar pattern: an employed guide, in this case through Great Northern Powder Guides, goes down the mountain first, followed by the participants, then a tail-gunner bringing up the rear to make sure everyone makes it down the hill.

Grossi said the DREAM trip was identical – he served as the tail-gunner – with the addition of support skiers and boarders along for the ride if the participants needed them. There is at least one support person per DREAM participant, but participants do not have to use them.

“We insist on the maximum amount of independence,” Grossi said.

The group was able to use its time more efficiently, he said, because the skiers using the adaptive equipment were given the option of staying in their sit-skis on the trip back up the mountain in the cat for another run, or they could transfer out and sit in the seat available to them.

Each skier on this trip opted for remaining in their equipment, Grossi said, which saved about 15 minutes on each end of a run. The snowcat pushed snow into a ramp formation, similar to those found on ski hills underneath the chairlift, and the skiers loaded in that way.

The trip also included other activities, including top-notch meals provided through local restaurants. And due to public and private donations and grants, along with community support, each skier on the cat trip was able to attend for $800.

It was such a success that DREAM is looking to increase the number of participants for next year’s trip from three to seven. Poole said he hopes to be able to go again, to feel as free as he did on Stryker Ridge.

“The volunteers and Cheri and DREAM Adaptive were all there for us, making things happen, just doing the best they could to make sure we had the best time we possibly could. And to be able to have that experience when we’re so limited in the beginning – every day we wake up with limits,” Poole said. “And being able to go on a backcountry ski experience like that with a group of friends who might have similar abilities, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s freedom, it’s liberating, it’s me living, it’s me being alive. I feel alive.”

For more information, visit www.dreamadaptive.org.