(Host) Cross-country skiers of all ages and abilities descended upon Stowe over the weekend. Sunday was the second annual Stowe Tour de Snow. It’s a family oriented cross-country ski event, with activity stations along five miles of Stowe’s Recreation Path.
This year, event organizers set out to make the Tour truly accessible to everyone. They partnered with groups such as the Northeast Disabled Athletic Association to introduce Nordic sit-skis for wheelchair-bound athletes to try out.
Patrick Standen is president of the association:
(Standen) "The Nordic sit-ski is a relatively new adaptive program, certainly here in Vermont. The Northeast Disabled Athletic Association purchased a number of adaptive sit-ski buckets for Nordic about five years ago and we now have an ongoing presence throughout Vermont."
(Host) The adaptive equipment includes a bucket-style seat that clips into a pair of skis. Skiers use a short set of poles to power over the snow, as Standen explains:
(Standen) "As you can imagine, sitting down and propelling yourself without your legs/// can be very strenuous. But if you hit the wax correctly and you’ve got a nice groomed trail, it’s amazing the glide that you can get because you’re just going to be double polling the entire time."
(Host) Event organizer Pascale Savard says she’s happy to make the Tour de Snow even more inclusive.
(Savard) "My favorite part of it is it regroups every segment of our community, including the businesses, the locals, our neighbors, our visitors. And we all get together and we play games on the Rec Path, which is really fun."
(Host) Proceeds from this year’s event will provide Nordic equipment and instruction to students at Stowe’s public schools.