Willing and Able

The calm atmosphere on the 40-acre complex, with its stunning views of the Wasatch Mountains, belies an impressive multifaceted program. The staff of 80 full- and part-time trainers, supplemented by dozens of volunteers, provided more than 21,000 training sessions last year.

Kristen Caldwell, a sports therapist who oversees the NAC ski program, led this non-skier on a tour of the ski center. The lodge was packed with equipment retrofitted for the disabled, including outriggers, ski poles with a sliding platform especially designed for those with agility challenges; mono skis, which resemble small sleds and are used by those who have difficulty standing; and tethers, which trainers attach to skiers to help guide them downhill.

"You'd be amazed how many folks come to us with no hope that they could ever ski and end up, after some training, managing the slopes quite well on their own," Caldwell said.

Some trainers specialize in therapies for those with more severe challenges. Kim Desautels, an occupational therapist from North Carolina, is an expert in hippotherapy, a treatment in which a horse is used to elicit movements in patients. It's sometimes prescribed for those with neuromuscular problems. With the help of two trainers, Desautels propped her patients in various positions on a bareback horse, including backward, sideways and standing up. Eventually the patients adjust to the horse's gait and other movements.

Salt Lake City resident Jerry Green, 59, who has difficulty walking because of multiple sclerosis, told me the treatment had helped him regain feeling in his legs. Following an hour-long session riding backward and sideways on Captain, one of the NAC's horses, he explained why. "Somehow after a long time in a wheelchair I forgot how to walk," he said. "The horse helps my body recall what a gait feels like. After a couple of months of this treatment, I can already stand far longer than I ever thought I would be able to."

At every turn, I met an NAC patron with a story. I spent an evening watching a Salt Lake City "quad rugby" team, a group of amateur athletes in wheelchairs practicing the rough-and-tumble sport, and came across Una Taufa. As a teenager, the muscular Hawaiian had been hit during a football game and left paralyzed from the neck down. Through years of therapy, he had regained partial feeling in his limbs. Now 22 and a student, he rediscovered his first love. "I can't get enough of rugby," he said. "It's the closest I can get to playing football."

One afternoon in an NAC hallway, 21-year-old Ali Schneider from Salt Lake City leaned on her crutches and reflected on her try-anything-once approach to sports. Paralyzed from the waist down at childbirth, she was brought to the NAC's ski center as a 4-year-old by her parents. "I looked down the mountains at all the things I could hit," she said. "Of course, I was scared."

She pushed on, eventually mastering mono-skiing, which allowed her to sit as she rocketed downhill. Encouraged by sports-minded parents and NAC trainers, she moved to water-skiing, biking and horseback riding. Now, Schneider has found her niche: bobsledding. "There is no thrill like hitting those curves at rocket speed," she laughed. "It is so me."

Reflecting on these sagas made me curious about how disabled athletes cope with challenges. So when Desautels, the hippotherapy expert, invited me to try a mini-therapy, I jumped at the chance. It seemed like an easy place to start. With the help of Desautels and a couple of trainers, I mounted one of the horses backward. I later switched to a sideways mount, allowing my legs to dangle along the side of the horse. For a few minutes, Desautels guided me and the horse around the stable. Back on my feet, I could feel the rhythm of the horse's gait in my legs.

The next day I went further. After watching several others ascend the NAC's indoor climbing wall, I decided to try it with my eyes closed. Strapped into a halter, I ran my hands along the ridges and began to feel my way up. Grabbing for crevices with my hands and then feet, I worked my way up slowly. Trainers standing below urged me on. A few minutes later, I grappled but could not find anything to grab onto. My hands went numb, one of my legs dangled out. Cold feet. "Take your time," came a voice from below. "You can do it."

Gradually I found something to grasp, enough to pull myself up. And after a couple more minutes, I touched the top.