King of the slopes in a "million-dollar contraption"

Jeffrey Rosenbluth, spinal cord injury medical director at the University of Utah Rehabilitation Center, and his team at Tetradapt have just completed a successful first season of the TetraSki in national deployment.

Three skis introduced exciting opportunities to individuals with complex physical disabilities at nine adaptive programs from New England to Tahoe (including TRAILS in Utah!).

The team also recently took two TetraSkis to the Winter Sports Clinic in Aspen and had a tremendously positive response from Veterans.

Now we are turning our efforts toward building more TetraSkis for next season so hundreds - even thousands - of more individuals can experience truly independent skiing.

To this achieve this goal, we’ve launched an ambitious, nationwide fundraising effort in coordination with our adaptive program partners and we need your help. Please consider donating!

LEARN MORE & DONATE NOW >>>

Need more inspiration?

Numerous people experienced the TetraSki this winter and one of our favorite stories comes from a family whose 39-year-old son skied in Snowmass Village with long-time instructor Jim Wollaway at Challenge Aspen:

(Our son) was born with only one eyeball. His right socket has no remnant of an eye (anophthalmia) and no optic nerve resulting in multiple disabilities. He has autism and a mental disability as well as hemiplegia. His left hand does not function independently from the right making the use of outriggers difficult for him.

How do I explain his delight, excitement and success? I believe this was a mountaintop experience for all of us. He has not stopped talking about it and we share the video of him to everyone even strangers. We applaud your vision and work and are thankful for the opportunity that our son was able to experience because of you. He considers himself the king of the slopes.

Many people recognized that the bi-ski was different and we would stop to explain it often. Jim would begin explaining and (our son) would interrupt and explain how the TetraSki works. He would explain that he was using a joystick to drive a million dollar “contraption”.

Our greatest gratitude to you.

We’re so excited to get this feedback and know that the TetraSki and the adaptive programs that utilize it are making a difference. And we love the newly coined term, “million-dollar contraption”! We’re so glad it feels like a million-bucks … (but also glad the Tetradapt engineering team can design and build this amazing ski for a lot less. The brilliance of engineering and technology is attainable!)

On the fundraiser, you can donate to the main campaign or choose an adaptive program in which to donate toward. Thank you to Challenge Aspen for sharing the family’s story. Here’s a link to the Challenge Aspen Team’s page >>