After a full day’s lesson in monoskiing, stiff, slightly bruised, but euphoric nevertheless, I was pushing my wheelchair towards the Pig Pen pub, a local favorite après-ski in the heart of Utah’s Park City, when my instructor Dale Hentzell stopped me in my tracks. “You see this building?” Dale said, nodding with a nostalgic head tilt towards a weather-beaten mobile trailer. It was attached clumsily to a couple of derelict sheds. “This is where the National Abilities Center (NAC) used to be based.”
It was a stark contrast to the state-of-the-art, two-story, 9,400-square-foot slope-side facility where we had met earlier that morning, complete with heated storage space for specialized adaptive ski equipment, locker rooms for instructors and adaptive competitive athletes alike, and even a sensory room—a.k.a. the recently unveiled October 2023 new home of the NAC, now named the McGrath Mountain Center.
Established nearly forty years ago by a Vietnam veteran named Pete Badewitz and his friend Meeche White, the nonprofit organization, initially known as the “Park City Handicapped Sports Association,” was established in 1985 with the sole objective of helping Disabled vets get back on the slopes. From there, the NAC evolved into the world-class operation it is today, the self-proclaimed epicenter of the adaptive nation, serving more than 5,000 Disabled people last year alone, expanding its services to civilians with physical and sensory impairments, as well as neurodivergent children and adults.
Rolling into the McGrath Mountain Center that morning, I had admittedly been nervous, estimating it was close to a decade-long hiatus since my last attempt to master the art of skiing sitting down, an activity my high-level spinal cord injury makes challenging. But any apprehension was instantly knocked out of me as a young man with cognitive disabilities rushed over, arms extended, and grasped me in a hug. “I love your motorbike!” he said, explaining that he had been following my travels on social media, specifically a cross-America road trip I had taken on my adapted CanAm. Buoyed by his confidence and the sign behind him that read, “We empower individuals with disabilities through the transformative power of ADAPTIVE recreation and ADVENTURE,” I transferred from my chair into a rented monoski, buckled up, and followed suit. It was time to face the fear and get out there.
The act of balancing my bodyweight over one ski, at first, took every ounce of concentration I could muster. I was soon sweating in layers of thermal clothing. As the slopes steepened and I picked up speed soon, like riding a bicycle, the motion became more fluid. Dale layered on the words of encouragement and an hour in, I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having. When I would fall, I was quickly helped back up and dusted off to try again. By the end of the day, I was leaning into turns, finding the edge of my ski and lifting my outriggers—the skis on my arms that assist in balancing, stopping, turning, and getting on and off the lift—in the air, just for the thrill of it.
In addition to ski and snowboard lessons for people with learning, physical, and sensory disabilities on Park City Mountain, the NAC extends into a neighboring 26-acre ranch on land generously donated by Vail Resorts, where indoor climbing walls have hoists to help people with mobility impairments, and pickleball courts, an accessible high ropes course, and more adapted bicycles than I knew existed or could begin to count, are located. On arrival the day before, I had been given a tour and was so overwhelmed by the scale and grandeur of the place, especially in the jaw-droppingly impressive Equestrian Center, that I was politely asked to keep it down; my unbridled enthusiasm might frighten the horses.
