Winter Sports Clinic Shows Veterans What’s Still Possible

More than 1,000 veterans, volunteers, caregivers and family members convened at Aspen Snowmass in Colorado April 4–11 for the annual National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic. While skiing has always been the event’s main draw, this year was different. A mild winter across the West left limited snow. But that didn’t detract from the event’s success. Veterans from nearly every branch of military service, with disabilities including amputations, traumatic brain injuries and paralysis, came together, creating an uplifting hum of energy, excitement and possibility. 

“It’s very unique,” said David Uhl, a Mountain States Chapter member who participated in the event for the first time. “You’re surrounded by individuals who still have that zest for life.”

Earlier this winter, Uhl learned about an adaptive sit-ski he could use as a person with quadriplegia, and he signed up to try it. Injured in a 2022 motorcycle accident, he hadn’t skied since the year before his injury. The TetraSki, which he controls with a joystick, “is like having a power chair for skiing,” he said. He took four ski lessons at a mountain near his home outside Denver in the lead-up to the Clinic. Although the snow during the Clinic resembled “mashed potatoes,” he said, “I learned a thing or two about how the device performs in different conditions. Now I can’t wait to come back next year.” 

Skiing is only part of why he wants to return. For him and many other veterans, camaraderie is the bigger draw. “You’re in a group that sort of feels like coming home,” Uhl said. Although about 60 percent of participants were stand-up skiers and used a variety of adaptive solutions, everyone was united by the same desire to be there and take on the challenge.

“We’re all pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone,” he said, “but we’re there with ‘family.’ So it feels good.”

Richard Spears, Mountain States Chapter member, echoed that sentiment. He returned to the Clinic for the third time for “the excitement of challenging myself and meeting other people who are doing the same,” he said. This year, Spears approached each ski run like an obstacle course, steering his sit-ski around patches of exposed dirt. “Even bad snow is good snow,” he said. “It pushed me to plan where I was going.”

An unexpected upshot of not being able to ski every day, as Spears did in years past, was that he signed up to try a new sport—sled hockey, one of the Clinic’s alternate activities. Having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2020, he had figured that the opportunity to play hockey was “gone and done,” he said. At the Lewis Ice Arena in Aspen, he discovered otherwise. Within 30 minutes, Spears learned to balance in a bucket seat mounted on two blades (the sled), and propel himself across the ice using two sticks with metal picks on the ends. He loved it. 

That experience on the ice captured the essence of the event, which Spears said is “finding out how much you can do.”

Feature photo: Richard Spears enjoys the snow at Aspen Snowmass in Colorado during the annual National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in April. Photo courtesy of Aspen Photography.