Ski Scholarship, Adaptive Sports, Durango, Colorado 02/20/11

What an incredible experience! I received a ski scholarship from Adaptive Sports and flew to Durango, Colorado where I went snow skiing for 4 days. It was so beautiful! But, boy, was it exhausting! 

God is so good and this trip was such a blessing. It was the first trip I had actually taken all by myself, driving to the airport myself, transferring planes, etc. Traveling alone along with snow skiing gave me great confidence.

When I landed at the Durango airport I was looking out the window and mentioned to the person sitting next to me how pretty the mountains looked. She said “Honey, those aren’t mountains, those are barely foothills.” I realized why when we started driving around, the real mountains were just beautiful!

While there I stayed with a host family along with another amputee. We had a great time. The hosts were wonderful people and were very hospitable and gracious to me. There were also some amazing women on the trip (also amputees, one with MS) who were very inspiring and still are good friends. 

The instructors at Adaptive Sports are absolutely the best anywhere! They were SO patient and encouraging!

The weather was great, it snowed Monday night and there was a great base all over. The temperature was sub-zero but since I was dressed appropriately I was never cold. Plus I was sweating so much from the exertion of skiing!!! My shins continually seized up. I was lucky because the instructor carried with him a little seat that he could pull out for me to sit on if I got tired. Often, I'd have to stop in the middle of the slope for him to massage my shins! I'm sure we were a sight to everyone zipping around us!

I managed to ski on one ski and held on to two poles that had small skis on the tips. So I had to control the little skis as well as the one I was on! I’m used to having my crutches when I feel off balanced so when I’d try to catch myself and plant a pole, it would shoot out from under me!

I have to admit that after the first day I was pretty disappointed in myself since I didn’t pick it up easily. And the last day I was so exhausted I didn’t know if I would be able to even ski. But the Lord came through when I kept rolling 2 Corinthians 12:9 in my head - “My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I got on the slopes that day and had a surge of energy! God came through once again!

The last day I was there they strapped me into a toboggan-like contraption called a mono-ski. It sat on one ski (actually 2 put together) and an instructor had me tethered to him (he was holding two long straps with me on the end). He skied behind me in the case I didn’t make the turns in time. Our whole group went to the top of the mountain and skied down together. Boy did that thing fly! It’s no wonder they saved that for the last run because I would have wanted to do that the previous days! I felt so free!

Yes, God is amazingly good!