25th International Congress on Adapted Sport at Mount Hood, OR

Together with 5 other VASS volunteers we embarked on a 5-day trip to Mount Hood, Oregon to attend the 25th International Congress on Adapted Sport in June. Mount Hood is a potentially active volcano in the Cascade Range and it is one of the few places in North America that offers summer skiing on one of its 12 glaciers.

While the ski area is mostly used by race teams this time of the year, we were there to broaden our skills in adaptive skiing and snowboarding. The congress was presented by the National Sports Center for the Disabled and the three instructors were extremely passionate and knowledgable. Including us 6 participants from Vancouver, there were another 18 instructors or so from various ski areas across the US and it was great sharing experiences with everyone.

Each morning we had a 5-hour on-snow clinic covering different topics and techniques followed by lunch and an hour long indoor afternoon session covering topics such as boot fitting, behaviour management, implementing safety programs and using apps to support adapted sports participants and lessons. During the on-snow sessions we covered a variety of topics including teaching exceptional lessons, Rigger Magic (how to use outriggers for three-track, four-track, mono and bi skiing), tethering techniques, visually impaired guiding, snowboarding and competition.
As a fairly new ski instructor in adaptive skiing, I learned a lot, especially the tethering clinic was a lot of new information for me. In addition, my partner during the clinic was a seasoned ski instructor and while we were playing around with the tethers, we tried different ways by giving each other feedback which was a great way to learn. The highlight of that lesson was the run I did in a bi-ski and although I was on a tether I got the hang of it pretty quickly and had a great first run.

The clinic I enjoyed the most from a personal perspective was the one on competition. The instructor teaching that clinic is the coach of the New Zealand Paralympic ski team and knows everything about racing. With my racing background as a kid, this clinic brought back some old memories and I had a great time racing through the course that we had set.

At the end of each day, the 6 of us would gather and compare notes on everything else we learned that day. The intention is to bring some of these new ideas back to Vancouver and hopefully adapt some of them in the next ski season.
A few weird facts about skiing on a volcano: smell of sulphur from the vents, volcanic ash on snow slows you down big time and is very abrasive on the skis.