Skiing with Hemiplegia in Sainte Foy Tarentaise

Disabled Skiing in Sainte Foy-Tarentaise

Skiing with a disabled son proved to be a magical experience in France at the family friendly ski resort of Sainte Foy-Tarentaise. The family had contacted Ski 2 Freedom to see if there was a sit-ski available for them to use with their son.  Being able to enjoy a totally inclusive ski holiday is an empowering experience for a family and now increasingly parents are undertaking a training course offered by a number of ESF (French ski schools) to enable them to guide their disabled child around the mountains in a sit-ski. The proof is in the pudding so to speak and as the family told Ski 2 Freedom: “Just to update you with respect to our skiing holiday! *“We cannot thank Ski 2 Freedom enough - it's such a wonderful thing for Barnaby to be able to do and, perhaps more importantly, it makes him so much more part of the skiing holiday - on an equal footing with his sister, Olivia, and the other family we ski with. Thank you also to Simon, Lionel and Agathe at ESF La Rosiere who were all so accommodating and to the ski lift operators at Sainte Foy!*Our son, Barnaby, is six years old with hemiplegia and global development delay - he sits very well, but is unable to walk.  The first afternoon we took him out on the uni-ski (with pilot bar), he coped very well, but didn't seem over-enamored with the whole thing.  However, we persevered and the next day he was much more relaxed.  His confidence grew throughout the course of the week and though he was still signing that he wanted to go home, seemed more than happy when we said that to get home we needed to go up two chairlifts and down a couple of reds! We were in Sainte Foy from 23rd to 30th March 2014.  Julian met with Lionel (one of Simon's trainers) in La Rosiere on the Monday and got the necessary tuition with respect to skiing with an adult dual-ski and how to use it on the chairlifts.  We were then loaned a Ski 2 Freedom child's piloted uni-ski for the rest of the week.  The bottom chairlift in Sainte Foy has been updated this year so can now cope with the uni-ski (the lift needs to be slowed down a little and a plastic seat divider removed, but otherwise it was very straightforward) and lifts from the mid-station were no problem - the lift operators were very obliging (possibly helped that it was a very quiet week!). Julian did his leader training with the Ski Club of GB in 1999 and led a number of holidays for them - his involvement has lapsed in recent years with the arrival of children, but is something he would definitely like to be involved with again.  During the training, Julian found it easy getting the dual-ski pilot on and off the lift, but skiing with it took a little getting used to as you can catch your skis on the back of the dual-ski. The uni-ski was a lot easier in this respect with just the one ski going down the centre - however, I think you need to be a strong (and very confident!) skier to use it. As a family we were concerned how we were going to handle skiing ongoing as there will come a time when it's not appropriate for Barnaby to have a nanny -  we now have no such concerns - the uni-ski has opened our eyes to a whole new world of possibilities - we could even take it off-piste!  In subsequent years it may be too much to expect Julian to push Barnaby for the whole day and we need to think carefully about how we keep him warm, but we understand that we can hire someone to help push the uni-ski and some decent thermals would be a good start!  With thanks" Katy #### Useful Contacts:

Sainte Foy-Tarentaise ESF La Rosiere Ski 2 Freedom Tesssier www.selfcateringcottagecotswolds.co.uk