There are only 25 TetraSkis in the world and now there鈥檚 one in Vermont, thanks to years of fundraising led by and the .
A is a sit-ski designed for athletes with complex disabilities. Skiers control their turns and speed with a joystick or a 鈥渟ip and puff鈥� mouthpiece. It鈥檚 a lot like steering a wheelchair down the mountain.
Vermont skier Chuck Petitpas recently raced at the international in Utah. Before the competition, University of Vermont reporter Henry Miller hit the slopes with Petitpas to see the TetraSki in action.
This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We鈥檝e also provided a transcript below.
Chuck Petitpas: Got snowy conditions. I think it's about 32 degrees. And havin鈥� a blast.
My name is Chuck Petitpas, and I鈥檓 here on a TetraSki on Stowe Mountain.
A friend of mine, Dave Whalen, found out about the TetraSki. I had no idea it even existed. But it鈥檚 exactly what I was hoping for.
I was like, 鈥淢an, if I could just get a joystick controlled thing that went down, I could ski.鈥� And come to find out that that thing exists finally. Because I had tried skiing many years ago, and you're like just basically in a bucket, right? And you鈥檙e not really controlling the thing. They're just tethering you, and it's a glorified sled ride.
This, on the other hand, is you're steering the thing. You're skiing.
It's $40,000 for the ski. So we had to do a huge fundraiser to get it.
But it's here now, and people are in it. And it's people with a wide variety of disabilities. Like I have muscular dystrophy, a form of it, but there's people with stroke, who are recovering from stroke. Cerebral palsy. So very complex disabilities. None of us were able to ski before. And now we're skiing.
It鈥檚 been amazing, and I can鈥檛 wait to get out to Utah and compete. And do gates again.
And this thing's got a sip and puff on it too. So that's a little straw that will allow you to control it. I think Dave Whalen used it during the race. Which is amazing. This guy鈥檚 controlling this 鈥� I don鈥檛 know how much the thing weighs, it鈥檚 probably like 300 pounds. And you in it. It鈥檚 several hundred pounds coming down the mountain. And this guy鈥檚 controlling it with a straw. It鈥檚 amazing. And I think people are having a blast with it.
And it's, you know, all my friends and family are like, "I can't believe you go skiing now." And it's like, "Yeah, I go skiing now."
This story comes from a collaboration between 开云体育 and the , a University of Vermont journalism internship. Production support by Kelsey Tolchin-Kupferer.
