In Park City, Utah, an Adaptive Sports Center Sets a New Standard

24.06.2024 - 22:07 / cntraveler.com

After a full day’s lesson in monoskiing, stiff, slightly bruised, but euphoric nevertheless, I was pushing my wheelchair towards the Pig Pen pub, a local favorite après-ski in the heart of Utah's Park City, when my instructor Dale Hentzell stopped me in my tracks. “You see this building?” Dale said, nodding with a nostalgic head tilt towards a weather-beaten mobile trailer. It was attached clumsily to a couple of derelict sheds. “This is where the National Abilities Center (NAC) used to be based.”

It was a stark contrast to the state-of-the-art, two-story, 9,400-square-foot slope-side facility where we had met earlier that morning, complete with heated storage space for specialized adaptive ski equipment, locker rooms for instructors and adaptive competitive athletes alike, and even a sensory room—a.k.a. the recently unveiled October 2023 new home of the NAC, now named the McGrath Mountain Center.

The state-of-the-art McGrath Mountain Center opened in October 2023 in Park City, Utah.

There are other (unaffiliated) abilities centers in the US, also offering adaptive experiences for people with Disabilities year-round activities.

1. Adapted Sports Center, Crested Butte, Colorado

The ASC, serving over 100 disabled participants annually, is a leading therapeutic outdoor adventure program that operates in Crested Butte. Its adaptive sport activities range from biking (they host an annual competition) and sit-skiing, to adapted ice-climbing and kayaking.

2. Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center, Colorado

The Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center offers adaptive recreation and education programs for people of all abilities, including skiing, snowboarding, ropes courses, and wilderness adventure camps.

3. National Sports Center for the Disabled, Winter Park, Colorado

The NSCD is based in Denver but offers downhill ski and snowboard lessons at the nearby Winter Park Resort. Operating for over 50 years, it started as an adaptive ski program. Now, the sports center provides access to everything from rock climbing to sailing.

Established nearly forty years ago by a Vietnam veteran named Pete Badewitz and his friend Meeche White, the nonprofit organization, initially known as the “Park City Handicapped Sports Association,” was established in 1985 with the sole objective of helping Disabled vets get back on the slopes. From there, the NAC evolved into the world-class operation it is today, the self-proclaimed epicenter of the adaptive nation, serving more than 5,000 Disabled people last year alone, expanding its services to civilians with physical and sensory impairments, as well as neurodivergent children and adults.

Rolling into the McGrath Mountain Center that morning, I had admittedly been nervous,