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January/February 2010: Good Sports |
Good Sports
Double H Ranch's adaptive-ski program
by Tracy Frisch
 At Double H Ranch children—some who cannot walk or talk—fly down the mountain as fast as their instructors allow. You can hear their laughter. In a wheelchair they may never travel over a mile an hour, but on skis they can reach 30 times that speed.
The story of Double H Ranch—the Hs stand for Health and Happiness—begins in 1991, when Charles Wood, best known as the man behind the Great Escape near Lake George, bought an old dude ranch in Lake Luzerne to use as a summer camp for children with serious illnesses. Wood enlisted actor Paul Newman, who had opened similar facilities elsewhere. Newman described his camps as places “where kids can be kids and raise a little hell, just like their siblings.” At Double H all services to the children and their families are provided free of charge, thanks to philanthropy and a busy fund-raising staff.
A dozen years ago Double H added an adaptive winter-sports program for youngsters suffering from crippling, chronic and life-threatening diseases and injuries, such as cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, cancer and HIV/AIDS.
In addition to two downhill ski slopes with about a 100-foot drop over a 900-foot course, the facility maintains five kilometers of cross-country-ski trails. Most are old horse paths and wagon trails from the dude ranch. Employees run snow-making equipment and groom the trails, while 140 volunteers provide individual instruction, serve on ski-patrol crews or work in the lodge.
Double H sets up its winter sports schedule so that each child can come three or four days a year. The 28-day season includes every weekend from January through March, as long as the ski conditions are adequate. Three years ago a long-overdue major expansion of the ski chalet allowed Double H to double its daily capacity to 30 students and their families.
The winter program’s spirit and know-how trace back to Gwen Allard, its founder, who is returning in 2010 as a consultant. Dubbed the mother of adaptive skiing in the Northeast, a ski lodge was named after her at Windham Mountain, in the Catskills, where she started an adaptive-ski program. One Double H-er characterized the tall, vivacious septuagenarian as “looking like she’s 50 and skiing like she’s 20.”
Allard’s commitment to helping people with disabilities ski began 35 years ago. “I got a little frustrated with the ‘I can’t’ attitude of able-bodied people,” she says.
In the early 1970s she assisted a fellow ski instructor’s daughter, who had cerebral palsy, get into the proper position to ski. The encounter piqued Allard’s interest, and research led her to adaptive-skiing pioneer Bruce Gabet at Haystack Mountain, in Vermont. From him she learned to work with blind skiers and amputees and went on to develop an incredible breadth of experience.
The adaptive-sports movement took off after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Under this landmark law ski centers that provide lessons to the public have to offer them to people with special needs. Some meet the requirement through their ski schools, while others hire the Adaptive Sports Foundation, a private organization based at Windham.
At some ski facilities Allard has assisted everyone from people with Down’s syndrome to “wounded warriors,” such as bilateral amputees also suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as an 84-year-old man with two knee replacements. Once, she worked with an uncommunicative autistic boy who made no eye contact and wouldn’t tolerate being touched. At the end of three days he approached her and gave her a hug and kiss.
As a small child in Saranac Lake, wheelchair-bound Michaela accompanied her parents on cross-country-skiing excursions until she grew too big for her parents to pull her on a sled. At Double H Michaela’s remarkably expressive face communicates pure joy as she descends the slope on bi-skis. This sit-ski device, a molded bucket seat mounted on two skis, is used by people with serious impairments to their upper and lower limbs. “The coarser the treatment, the better she likes it,” reports Ken Brust, of Chestertown, one of the ski instructors.
At middle school in Saratoga Springs, an aide trails Nick to make sure he doesn’t fall. Born with cerebral palsy, he requires assistance to descend stairs. When he started skiing at Double H, at age seven, his weak right side and poor balance prevented him from walking without help. But now he whizzes downhill on his own. Such mastery is a phenomenal accomplishment for Nick.
Fourteen-year-old Alexandra, of Troy, also has cerebral palsy. She came in first place in her class on the slalom slope at the 2009 Empire Games at Whiteface, in Wilmington. She beams when she recounts her time of 37 seconds for the 1,800-foot course.
Six winters of skiing at Double H have helped Alex become braver and more self-assured, an instructor explains. She’s also gained more endurance and strength, and better resistance to cold. “I’d like to go to the Olympics and show people that you can conquer anything, no matter what the disability,” says Alex.
She started skiing downhill with the teddy bar. That’s a piece of equipment created by Ted Lafforthun, the camp’s new ski-school director, when he was a volunteer. The bar enables students to ski at arm’s length from the instructor, who guides them while going backward. Next Alex progressed to a tether, a line that allows the instructor to control the student’s speed. Now she skis independently. Her instructor follows behind.
Given the weakness of her legs and hips, to support her body weight she uses outriggers, which are poles mounted on little skis. For those who need more than outriggers to ski upright, Double H has the slider, which resembles a walker on skis.
Every parent wants to see his or her child blossom. Seven-year-old Nick, who is autistic, confidently barrels down the slalom course, eager to excel. Even his first time on skis, in 2008, no one would believe that he had never skied before. Nick, who lives in Gloversville, returned from the 2009 Empire Games with a gold medal that he proudly wore to school.
Yet his father says he originally predicted that introducing Nick to skiing would be a waste of time. When he was first diagnosed with autism at 18 months, Nick wasn’t talking and had stopped walking. He retreated inward, stopped interacting with people or his environment and became increasingly rigid. Horse therapy helped some, but Nick never learned to ride a bicycle and his attempt at playing soccer devolved into a “nightmare,” his father says, since he couldn’t focus. Nick’s success at skiing “gives him a sense of pride that he has something that he’s good at,” says his mother.
With the challenges of raising an autistic son, Nick’s parents also cherish Double H’s nonjudgmental atmosphere and mutual support among their peers. They keep their weekends flexible so they can fill last-minute openings at the camp. Double H instructors don’t have to be champions on the slopes, although certain situations call for stronger skiers—like the autistic child who might take off like a rocket or the paraplegic who has to be pulled on a mono-ski. Volunteers receive extensive formal training in how to teach skiing the conventional way, plus a range of strategies to compensate for disabilities.
Savita Sharma, the program’s physical therapist, works with the children to develop motor skills. “I love to ask an individual, ‘What do you want?,’ and then make it come true,” she says.
While the challenges may appear monumental, the bar is realistic. In the words of Ronnie Von Ronne, the intensely warm, reassuring man who directed the Double H ski school from its inception until 2009, “A successful day is if you don’t hurt the kid. It’s a more successful day if they have a good time, and even better if they learn something. All three make a great day.”
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