SNOWMASS VILLAGE — It’s finally snowing in the mountains, but that’s not why Alex Gonzalez is so stoked. The 21-year-old from Commerce City is on day three of lessons at Snowmass, and things are finally clicking. He and his instructor, Anna, have been lapping the Meadows lift just above Elk Camp, and skiing behind them, you’d never know this is Alex’s first time on snow. After lunch, he takes off ahead of the rest of the group, his chartreuse Challenge Aspen jacket cutting through the falling snow.
Before this weekend, Gonzalez had never done a winter sport of any kind. Growing up in Denver, “it just wasn’t really in our budget,” he says. Then, at 15, Alex sustained a spinal cord injury that resulted in paraplegia. The months and years that followed had nothing to do with extracurricular activities and everything with learning how to live — figuring out school, driving, independence.
Before the Snowmass trip, Gonzalez worried that the whole thing might be too much, that he “was reaching for something I might not be able to grasp,” he says. By the final day of the ski camp, his perspective had shifted.
“Coming here, it’s so cool to be able to see snow not as an obstacle but as an opportunity. It’s changed my mindset — knowing this injury won’t close doors for me, it’ll actually open them.”
Last weekend, Gonzalez was one of six young adults participating in a three-day sit-skiing camp at Snowmass, a partnership among Craig Hospital, the Kelly Brush Foundation and Challenge Aspen. Before the camp, none of the participants knew each other, but they had one thing in common: They’d all been patients in Craig’s adolescent spinal cord injury program. The ski camp brought together the Craig alumni to try adaptive skiing with on-snow instruction and support from Challenge Aspen volunteers and Kelly Brush Foundation staff skiing alongside them as mentors.
The camp marked the first time all three organizations had come together on a single program, and it was carefully timed: Each participant was at least one year post-injury, cleared by physicians to travel and ski, but still early enough in life after spinal cord injury that questions about identity, independence and what the future might hold were still being answered.
“I was able to be more honest with myself there because I wasn’t trying to put on a fake face …”
Preparation for programs like the Snowmass sit-ski camp begins at Craig Hospital, the spinal cord and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation center in Englewood. Through its Teen Rehabilitation and Community program, or TRAC, the hospital supports adolescents and young adults with spinal cord injuries during the most destabilizing phase of recovery. The program focuses on patients ages 15 to 21, most of whom are still in school and navigating a completely different phase of life than Craig’s adult patients.
“The whole program is about peer support,” says Danielle Scroggs, the recreational therapist who heads up Craig’s adolescent spinal cord injury program. “Having a spinal cord injury at 17 or 18 is different than when you’re 40 or 50. You’re in a different life stage. Why would you treat those patients the same?”
TRAC brings adolescents together in weekly meetings, where topics range widely. A cornerstone of the program is that it’s for teens only — no parents allowed. The rule isn’t meant to exclude families, Scroggs says, but to give adolescents space to talk honestly and begin practicing independence.
Scroggs typically meets with patients within 48 hours of their admission to Craig to explain TRAC and her role as a recreational therapist. She usually brings another patient — one who’s already engaged with TRAC — with her so that the new patients see “someone who looks like them,” she says. Often, most of the new admits are not initially thrilled to see her.
“I said probably four words to Danielle for the first three weeks I was there,” says 20-year-old Craig alum Jace Buck. “You go through a life change and the first thing isn’t like, ‘hey, let’s go make new friends.’”
But, Buck says, eventually the purpose of participating in TRAC with other adolescent patients became clear — and worthwhile.
“Once I embraced it, I really started to enjoy it. It was a moment where I could get away from my hospital bed and my mom and everything … and I was able to be more honest with myself there because I wasn’t trying to put on a fake face for her.”
“The whole point of the program is to put them around people their age who truly understand what they’re going through so they can lean on each other, support each other and encourage each other,” Scroggs says.
TRAC is also where Scroggs begins planting seeds for what comes next. As patients stabilize, she introduces them to outside organizations that can help bridge the gap between rehab and real life — groups that provide equipment, instruction and community once patients leave Craig.
“Craig is not the end-all, be-all,” she says. “We’re just the start.”
The inspiration of Craig Hospital
Twenty years ago, Kelly Brush was one of those teen patients at Craig.
In March 2006, Brush crashed into an unprotected lift tower during a ski race at Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort in Massachusetts. She was 19 years old and a sophomore at Middlebury College. After 18 days in the ICU, she transferred to Craig with a T7/8-level spinal cord injury. There was no formal adolescent program then, but Brush said Craig staff quickly recognized who she was and what mattered to her.
“I was extremely motivated,” she says. “First things first, it’s learning how to live — how do you get into your wheelchair, how do you get in and out of bed, how do you go to the bathroom, how do you do wheelies so you can go over curbs. Just basic, basic stuff of how to live.”
Before her injury, Brush was a Division I athlete. After it, she assumed that part of her life was over.
“When I got hurt, I didn’t know anything about adaptive sports and I didn’t know anyone who had a spinal cord injury,” she says. “I thought that part of my life was gone.”
What changed that assumption was exposure and Craig’s willingness to provide it. Brush credits the rehab center with truly getting to know her and understanding what was important.
“So many rehabs I would have gone to, and they would have been like, ‘We don’t really know about sports, and we don’t know if you can do anything,’ and that would have changed my perspective a lot.”
It was during that stretch of rehab that Brush began talking with her family about what would eventually become the Kelly Brush Foundation. She says the vision then was strikingly similar to the foundation’s mission now, with adaptive sports at the center.
“We’ve expanded on how we provide service, but adaptive sports is the largest thing we do,” Brush says. “We do that by providing grants, hosting camps like this, and we have an education platform called the Active Project that is used so people can learn about adaptive sports — that’s been hugely helpful for people in rehabs. We also do scholarships for people to try sports.”
The foundation’s largest program is the Active Fund, which provides grants to people with spinal cord injuries to help purchase adaptive sports equipment — from monoski rigs and handcycles to wheelchairs for tennis, basketball and rugby. In recent years, the foundation has distributed nearly $1 million annually in grant monies. Its first grant, awarded in 2007, helped someone purchase an adaptive Nordic ski.
Over time, Brush says, she realized that equipment alone wasn’t enough.
“What we realized at some point was that while the equipment is wonderful and gets people out and active, there’s a lot of people who aren’t quite ready for their own equipment yet,” she says. “Helping them get out and learn about adaptive sports, try different adaptive sports, and even more importantly, experience the camaraderie that comes with being with other people who are in similar situations.”
That realization led to camps like the one at Snowmass — and to partnerships with organizations that could provide what the foundation could not.
“We’re not the experts in instructing,” Brush says. “So we partner with the people who are experts in instructing and who have the equipment. It works wonderfully.”
“It just feels so new”
On the bunny hill at Snowmass, Buck is working through the mechanics of his turn, learning how to “open the door” with his outriggers — the short ski-tipped poles monoskiers use for balance and steering. An Aspen Skiing Co. instructor gently steers Buck’s Monique monoski from behind, while Buck tries to keep his body and eyes pointing downhill.
A few turns in, adaptive instructor Greg Durso skis up beside them.
“Open the door,” Durso says, timing it just as Buck hesitates. “It’s a weird thing to think about because you want to get on your edge. Committing down the fall line is a scary thing sometimes.”
“All the different feelings I get,” Buck says, shaking his head, “it all just feels so new.”
“Even better,” Durso replies, laughing.
Each camp participant skis with an instructor and a volunteer from Challenge Aspen — a resource-heavy model designed to keep people safe while they fall, get back up and try again. The instructors handle the technical teaching while the volunteers hover close, ready to assist but careful not to overdo it.
And then there are moments like this one, when mentorship fills the space in between. Durso knows the terrain Buck is navigating — on the hill and off — because he’s been there himself.
Durso was injured on New Year’s Day in 2009, after hitting a tree stump while sledding. He completed rehab in New York before finding his way to Colorado, where he learned to ski with Challenge Aspen and began applying for grants for equipment through the Kelly Brush Foundation. Over time, those early lessons and pieces of equipment turned into a full athletic life: skiing, mountain biking, travel — and eventually, a job.
Today, Durso works full time as the Kelly Brush Foundation’s chief program ambassador, a role that often looks like this: skiing up alongside someone at exactly the right moment, offering a tip, a laugh, reassurance.
“That’s what we do really well at Kelly Brush Foundation,” Durso says. “I call it our concierge service.”
Challenge Aspen also recruited other mentors for the ski camp, including local monoskiers Sam Ferguson and Soren Lindholm. Ferguson was one of the organization’s early participants in the 1990s and has since gone on to win X Games medals and ski first descents, including the first monoski down Highlands Bowl. Lindholm, also a Craig alum, returned to the mountain with Challenge Aspen during the pandemic and hasn’t stopped skiing since; over the weekend, he was training to become an instructor with the program.
For the camp participants, it’s inspiring to have these folks around — to see where this path can lead — but at the moment, Buck is focused on one thing. He pushes off again, pointing his monoski down the fall line. He commits, opens the door and links the turn.
Advocacy, friendship and finding ways to keep having fun
After three days of skiing, two nights of the X Games, and one of the best storms of the winter, the camp winds down with dinner and a movie.
Buck and his girlfriend, Ashlyn, are eating spaghetti and meatballs across from another Craig TRAC alum, Noah Miller. Miller also brought his girlfriend, Molly, to the ski camp at Snowmass. Participants are encouraged to bring someone with them to camps like this one — just not their parents. The idea, Scroggs explains, is to give friends and partners a window into what life looks like now, while giving participants space to practice independence with people who will be part of their lives long after rehab.
This is Miller’s second adaptive sports trip. He traveled to Utah last summer on a Kelly Brush Foundation trip with the National Ability Center. Before his injury, he snowboarded. Molly also rides. At first, Miller wasn’t sure how it would feel to have her along.
“When I was in Utah, I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I would want my friends here experiencing this whole thing and having to take care of me,’” he says. “But afterwards, I was like, ‘Oh, that would be so much fun.’ Yeah, you might be more comfortable with a parent, but the feeling of being independent enough to be with your friends — it can be so much more casual.”
“Being here really opens up your world to your friends and helps them realize what you’re going through,” Molly says. “It makes it more like, ‘You’re still a teenager, even though you’ve been through this.’ You’re still able to hang out with your friends.”
After dinner, the group settles in to watch “Best Day Ever,” a short documentary about Durso and an adaptive mountain bike trail project in Vermont. The film, currently on the festival circuit, isn’t about sport so much as what comes after injury — about advocacy, friendship and finding ways to keep having fun.
When it ends, people from the various organizations — Craig, the Kelly Brush Foundation and Challenge Aspen — share parting words. Challenge Aspen invites the group to come back and ski — or to visit in the summer. Kelly Brush reminds them about the foundation’s Active Fund grants for adaptive equipment, as well as scholarships for lessons and classes.
Buck raises his hand.
“Can the grant money be used for something that’s not traditional adaptive equipment?” he asks.
He’s been eyeing an adapted toy hauler — a small camper he could use to travel with his side-by-side and camp more comfortably. Camping, he says, is hard now. He and Ashlyn tried to go last fall, but a tent makes everything more complicated. Having his own space — somewhere to get ready, somewhere to manage bathroom needs — would make being outside easier.
“I love being in the mountains,” he says. “I work on a ranch. I love being outside in the middle of nowhere.”
Buck pulls out his phone to show Miller photos of the camper. It’s been adapted so that someone can transfer easily from the bed to the toilet to the shower. There’s a lift to get inside. As he scrolls, there are other images of his hobbies outside — a deer he harvested during hunting season. His side-by-side, outfitted with hand controls.
Before this weekend, Buck says, he would never have thought to apply for a grant for something like this. Now, he’s confident he could make the case.
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” he says.
Durso hears him from across the room and nods.
“As long as you can explain what you’re doing and why it’s important to you,” he says. “Call me, and I’ll walk you through it.”