If you were on the mountain the past couple of weekends you may have noticed a group of people in yellow Spider jackets tearing up the mountain on various specialised ski equipment, such as sitskis, outriggers, hula hoops, long and short poles and tethers! Yes, I have just become a volunteer for the Powder Hounds Adaptive Ski Program, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching kids and adults with disabilities to ski!

We had a great time this weekend training to become a disabled persons ski instructor! As I am a snowboarder, I realised pretty quickly that it is quite hard to teach a person to ski while on a snowboard! Luckily my housemate let me borrow his skis for the training weekend!

One thing I noticed was all the other volunteers were so friendly because, clearly, they all want to be here and they all are here to help other people. Most of these cheerful, caring people range from college students to parents, teachers and/or citizens of the community and selflessly use their spare time to come up to the mountain to help out.

We had two lovely Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing (CADS) instructors, Bruce and Gilles, come all the way from Whistler and John from Big White’s Powder Hounds, training us to work with people with various disabilities. One of the first things we had to do was to put ourselves in the shoes of our potential clients. So, many of us felt nauseous as we were lead around the Village Centre Mall blind, skied with our eyes shut (with a guide of course!) and fell over plenty of times as we skied with only one ski! However, there were many laughs and cheering as we attempted to use the different types of training aids and equipment! We realised quickly that it is definitely harder than it looks to use a sitski. My funniest home videos moment was hurtling off the bottom of Woodcutters Trail in a sitski head first into the deep powder-filled ditch! Without the powerful upperbody strength of a paraplegic I had to wait upside down for someone to help me out! Sarah, a Powder Hounds volunteer, Kelowna resident and proficient sitskier since 1995 was also there to demonstrate and give us tips on how to sitski.

If you or anyone you know are interested in participating in the rewarding program, you can visit the website http://pimbc.ca/powder-hounds.html or contact Tony (the program’s Director) on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The program caters for all people old and young with disabilities ranging from amputees, autism, cerebral palsy, deafness, down syndrome, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries, visibility impairment and more.