Heroes of the Slopes - Featured Segments

Featured Segments

Ricci	"There's more than one answer to all these questions"
	Sit-ski racing, horse back riding and poop-sack chasing keep Ricci’s life moving fast and enhance her SCI rehab and her life. Sit-ski racing is tops and what she has dedicated her life’s pursuit to currently and she has just made the 2010 Paralympic team in adaptive alpine skiing. She also continues to push the limits of her SCI recovery and rehab by going off-shore to receive experimental treatments of stem cells to cure her paralysis. Marriage and little Ricci Jo became part of the plan for her in 2008 and challenges have come to Ricci in waves. Click here to see Ricci's YouTube clip.

Michael	"Always pushing the envelope"
	Michael Milton has been pushing the limits on one leg his entire life since losing a leg to bone cancer at age 9. His parents were ski patrollers and he quickly took up skiing and joined his athletic friends on the slopes after seeing videos of amputees like Ted Kennedy Jr. skiing on just one. He grabbed the reigns of the men’s one leg race circuit in the 90s which was culminated by his winning 4 golds at the Salt Lake Paralympics in 02. After Salt Lake, looking for a new challenge, he took up speed-skiing and descended/rose very quickly to the top speeds of the Les Arcs track in France. His last record of 133 MPH was the record for all Australians, one leg or two. He is a Paralympian and record holding cyclist as well and also recently overcame a second round and type of cancer 25 years later while at the same time becoming a new dad. Good, fast “go for it” karma. www.michaelmilton.com

Erik	"Once I was blind, but now I ski"
	Erik became totally blind as a young teenager and took up skiing later on in life as an extension of his rock climbing and mountaineering pursuits. He is world renown as the first blind person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest with the truest team ever assembled for that endeavor. His guide gives a great description of guiding skiing for the totally blind and Erik gives a great testimony on the uniqueness and importance of skiing to him and his life.

Marc	"Freedom is achieved by being yourself"
	Marc went head-on into ski racing after learning how to ski on one leg. It was a head-on with a street bike while riding his 250cc dirt-bike to the trails during his high school senior year that claimed his right leg. But while ascending to and making the US Disabled Ski Team in a relatively short amount of time on the elite race circuit, he soon also found that his heart and soul for skiing (just like in biking - both motor and pedal) was away from the pavement and was instead much more into the ever changing challenges of the off-piste - the bumps, steeps and powder. Pushing the off-piste envelope on one leg resulted in his top flight ability to use regular poles on powder days and to his using very short outriggers for all non-pow occasions which are designed mainly for the bumps, off-piste and steeps. It also resulted in many more conversations, exchanges and extreme one track ski runs with other top free-skiers and he has no regrets about switching from pushing the envelope in racing to pushing it in free-skiing on one leg. Silver spoons, paved paths and buffed runs make for too many boring stories within skiing, and for sure none of Marc’s skiing, stories, trails or paths are boring.

Luanne	"We leave our tracks in the sound"
	Luanne has been progressively losing her sight and also adapting in skiing her entire life to her loss of vision. Her love and feel for skiing took her all the way to the top and to the US Disabled Ski Team where the communication and bond between her and her guide was the key to everything. But she then left skiing for many years to pursue her other passion as a sculptural artist. Her subsequent return to skiing years later reinvigorated her career and her life. "Skiing opens up my creative flow with its movement, and movement stirs creativity." – www.luanneburke.com.

Monte	"Heroes may not always win..."
	Monte Meier is the ironman of adaptive ski racing and the US Adaptive Ski Team whose dedication and contribution to the sport and to one-leg racing has lasted for more than 4 Subarus (a long time). He was all hopped up on wrestling in high school also but chose ski racing as his sport to slide into. He came up a pup at a time when men’s one-leggers were dominant on the circuit and plentiful on the US Disabled Ski Team and he had to endure many times being passed over for Paralympics and US Team big events. But persistence and ripping out old pages paid off and he eventually became the one-legged man to beat on the planet in Slalom. His good senses of balance and humor have also transferred well into his appearances in ski films and commercials. If he’s not the King of one-leg Slalom then for sure he’s the Jack......and perhaps you don’t really know Jack.

Jim	"Started out down a dirty road"
	Jim is the first ever ski patroller in a chair and is a quadriplegic which means he also has limitations in his arms and hands. But with great rehab and desire he has regained use of his arms and become a master of the mono-ski which requires much more skill and balance than does the bi-ski which most quads select to ride in.

Kenny	"Evolution is mind over body"
	Kenny was paralyzed while racing his motorcycle at Woody Creek race course in Aspen in the early 80s and ever since he has applied his motorcycle riding, building and design background to the improvement and evolution of the sit-ski instead. He is the mad scientist and tester of his top end sit-ski and is bringing the “Lacome” sit-ski to everyone with lower body limitations to ride. He’s been advancing the sit-ski since the early and “sledding” days of its evolution and he and his rig represent part of the future of sit-skiing.

Kevin	"Take a good thing and make it better"
	When we filmed Kevin for Heroes of the Slopes it was just after he had returned from Italy with his second Paralympic Downhill Gold in the sit-ski division.........and it was a socked-in day high up in the bowls. Kevin was ripping when he unexpectedly went into a cartwheel which ended up being six sick revolutions end over end. We lamented not getting most of the sequence on camera, but then marveled at the fact that neither rider nor machine had gotten tweaked. It was a wacky but quite entertaining way for Kevin to prove what he preaches about the ski to other serious sit-skiers that “it’s durable and won’t break skis like other models”. He ripped many more serious lines in bumps and steeps after that to continue proving the point. Kevin’s charging rig and charging ways helped to bring about the sit-ski (mono-ski) division of the X-Games where many mono pilots (Kevin included) use his model for both take-off and landing. He learns from and makes modifications after every X-Games and those improvements are incorporated going forward for those who like to go big.

Greg	"Leading the Way"
	Greg dominated the toughest category of disabled skiing in the late 80s and 90s, the men’s one leggers. While leading that group in racing he also helped revolutionize skiing for leg amputees by wearing his fake leg all over ski area bases and only kicking it off at lift bottoms for actual skiing. He also helped kick start the integration of top disabled skiers with the top able-bodied racers and circuit when he began directly competing with them and opening up many eyes to just how competitive and equal disabled skiers are to able-bodied ones.

Theresa	"Not just waiting around for the other shoe to drop"
	Theresa has been progressively losing her sight her entire life, and sometimes in dramatic increments. In the midst of doing her blind skiing story her final retina detached while simply walking at home, requiring surgeries to regain and maintain just a small amount of sight. She hit the slopes again though not too long after surgery and with virtually no sight at all for the first time ever, calling upon her guide’s voice and her sense of feeling even more. She had another great day of sliding and the sport of skiing allowed her to adapt once again. She has a great career as an injury rehab massage specialist and skiing will always be a big part of her soul and her life even as she has now indeed gone totally blind.

Jesse	"The original knuckle dragger"
	Jesse was born without legs but as a Jackson Hole local with outdoor loving and skiing parents. His dad got him out on the mountain in a back pack at age 2 and he got his first snowboard at age 5 which they quickly modified ….and the rest as they say is history(and adaptation).

Kira	"Youth is a state of mind"
	Kira was also born (like Rudolph and Jesse) with her “abnormality”, in her case a leg that was not hinged, therefore needing many surgeries and amputation to remedy and allow her to wear a fake leg. While everyone in the film reinforces this, Kira in particular reminds us that youth is a state of mind.

Sam	"At least I'm enjoying the ride"
	Sam Ferguson is a pioneer in all-mountain and back-country adaptive skiing. He has also been a major advocate and proponent for the sit-ski/mono-ski division to have come about and become a very popular and unique event of the X Games. The communal spirit and bond of both adaptive skiing and back-country skiing are definitely brought together in Sam’s segment and are embodied by him and his skiing brothers and sisters in and around Aspen.