I recently had the opportunity to holiday in the French Alps and try my hand at some wheelchair skiing while I was there.

Wheelchair Skiing Video

2 hours of skiing with a specially trained instructor cost 88 euro and my pass for the ski lifts was free. After receiving our passes we proceeded to a large cable car or cabin which would take us to the first stop up the mountain, where I met my instructor Christoph. I transferred from my chair to a dual ski-ed chair with handles that Christoph would use to control the ride. When strapped in, the chair felt very secure even though the suspension allowed the chair to lean quite far to either side. After a few minutes instruction and the procuring of goggles, gloves and a woolly hat, we were off.

First stop was a ski lift. You know the kind, basically a metal bench attached to an overhead pulley, the kind that, sometimes, even able bodied people will make a mess of . Well, using an air hydraulics system under the ski-chair Christoph could raise it (and me) to a more upright position which could then hook onto the bench of the ski lift. Very clever stuff and the entire operation only took a few seconds. At the top of the ski lift the process is reversed. Another ski lift or two and we were at the summit of the mountain, 2700m with a panoramic view of the Alps  stretching into the distance. For me, this by itself would have been enough to justify the trip, but we still had some skiing to do. For the next hour and a half we traversed some of Serre Chevalier’s 250km of slopes.

It was a lot of fun and much faster than I had anticipated for my first trip. Christoph was very competent and at no stage did I feel in any danger. All in all it was exhilarating and I would recommend that any disabled person should try it at least once.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites