This Is Why I Guide At Ski-For-Light

Ski-For-Light (SFL) is an organization that for one week each year pairs blind and mobility impaired individuals with guides to share the experience of Nordic skiing.

I have been a guide for twenty of SFL’s forty year history. When people ask me what makes the program special I have always had a difficult time finding a short description that describes the friendships, challenges, and personal growth each week delivers. Sometimes it is easier to relate a story of a particular event which encompasses the SFL spirit. This past week in Granby Colorado generated one such event.

SFL week culminates with a contest that allows skiers to choose to compete in either a 10 km race or a 5 km predicted time rally. Race day dawned colder under overcast skies and moderate snow, in contrast to the bright sun and warm temperatures we experienced for most of the week. I was assisting Tim, the Race Coordinator, in the timing shack and everything was going well despite the slower conditions brought on by the accumulation of new snow.

Two hours after the start all but one of the one hundred and three skier pairs had crossed the finish line. The last pair was skiing the 5 km course and was nowhere to be seen. We sent someone out with a phone to locate them and report where they were on the course. By now conditions had deteriorated and the wind was considerably stronger.

The call came in. The guide and skier were only at the 3km mark on the 5 km course. They would be out for at least another hour. Tim and I conferred and considered sending a snow machine out for them as exhaustion and cold could become a dangerous combination. When presented with this option the skier was adamant – she wanted to finish on her own. We agreed we’d keep the course open as long as possible.

Almost all of the two hundred and fifty people at the finish area had long since gone back to the hotel, but a few dozen remained, searching the top of the slope in the distance for any sign of the last pair. Forty five minutes later two heads became two bodies as they crested the final hill before the finish. Spectators ran and skied towards them, forming a moving cheering section around the skier and her guide. Cow bells rang and words of encouragement were continuously shouted. Every few feet someone would call out the distance to the finish line the skier could not see.

The last one hundred yards took fifteen minutes, each step propelling the skier only a few inches. It was obvious she and her guide were cold and both physically and emotionally drained. Wind was blowing snow across their path and pushing like a cold hand trying to impede their progress. Every few feet she would wobble and catch herself just before falling over. If she fell over now I doubt she would have had the energy to get back up.

The skier crossed the finish to the clanging of bells, cheers and hugs. Both she and her guide, and many of us watching, had tears in our eyes. This woman was no athlete. Most people could have walked around that course in a fraction of the time, but this person pushed herself beyond her limits, and to his credit so did her guide.

What will this experience mean for her days, months, or years in the future? I can’t know that, but I’m sure that her life will be changed for the better, if not in a profound, at least in some small way. The same can be said of her guide and each of us who was witness to her resolve to finish.

This is why I’m a Ski-For-Light guide.