This is not one of my how-to "ski tech" sections but, instead, a note of appreciation, admiration, and genuine awe for the handicapped skiers you’ll see on the slopes of Purgatory and other Colorado ski resorts. Calling these skiers blind skiers, one-legged skiers, paraplegic skiers, "physically challenged" skiers, or "adaptive" skiers, as we do nowadays, doesn’t do justice to the hurdles they have overcome or properly recognize their determination and their very real athletic gifts. The wonderful thing is that so many have become, simply, skiers.
Purgatory, like Winter Park, has a terrific reputation for teaching the handicapped to ski. And if you have a friend in a wheelchair or on crutches who you think might love to try skiing, these are the two resorts to consider. Specially trained instructors, using amazing ski-seat contraptions as well as the more usual outriggers for one-legged skiers, can do wonders with people whom common sense tends--wrongly--to classify as permanently excluded from the skiing experience.
There is a very effective program for blind skiers, called the Bold Skier program, at many Colorado ski areas. Blind skiers ski with guides who give them verbal information about where to turn and what’s coming up on the slope ahead of them. Both the blind skier and the volunteer guide are identified by bright orange bibs.
But there are relatively few serious ski-teaching programs oriented especially to the needs of variously and seriously disabled skiers. Purgatory and Winter Park, and nowadays Snowmass, are exceptions. Both Winter Park and Purgatory have been pioneers in this area. Bravo! My hat’s off to these skiers and to all who have helped them to ski.
For more information on this remarkable program, you can contact the Adaptive Sports Association. ASA runs their Purgatory ski program from a small wooden building just below the base-area plaza, and their phone number is (970) 247-9000, ext. 3217. Or you can phone the DPASA Durango office at (970) 259-0374.