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“It sounds cliché,
but adaptive sports
saved my life.”
Laurie Wood, Navy Veteran
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Downhill skiing is his “new norm”
By Jason Strickland Chief Amplifier His tenure of military service was brief, but his status as a disabled Veteran will last the rest...
Mar 31, 2025


Triumphant return nearly 20 years in the making
By Matt Saintsing Eighteen years have passed since Kevin Blanchard first stepped foot on the mountain in Snowmass, Colorado. As a...
Apr 16, 2024


Collaboration from VA, U.S. Air Force Veteran Advances Adaptive Sports
By Medina Ayala-Lo, Public Affairs Specialist, Bay Pines VA Healthcare System SNOWMASS, Colo. – Five decades ago, earning the title of...
Apr 16, 2024


Winter Sports Clinic helps MST survivor heal
By Janelle Beswick, Interim Public Affairs Officer, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System SNOWMASS, Colo. – Her eighth trip to the...
Apr 16, 2024


Ski instructors: “You get more than you give.”
By Janelle Beswick, Interim Public Affairs Officer, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System SNOWMASS, Colo. – At the top of the mountain...
Apr 16, 2024


Team Miami VA is Ready to Go in Sand, Snow
By Medina Ayala-Lo SNOWMASS, Colo. – Draped in neon orange fleece, the assembly of Veterans and coaches who comprise the Miami VA...
Apr 16, 2024


Blind Veteran enjoys being back on the slopes
By Janelle Beswick, Interim Public Affairs Officer, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System SNOWMASS, Colo. – With seven gold medals and...
Apr 16, 2024


Air Force Veteran defies limitations at the Winter Sports Clinic
By Janelle Beswick, Interim Public Affairs Officer, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System SNOWMASS, Colo. – One warm August night in...
Apr 16, 2024


USMC Veteran Finds Camaraderie, Embraces Challenges on the Mountainside
By Medina Ayala-Lo, Winter Sports Clinic writer SNOWMASS, Colo. – If life has taught anything to U.S. Marine Corps Veteran Erik Jansson,...
Apr 16, 2024


From tragedy to triumph on the mountain
By Kevin C. Miller After a yearlong deployment to South Korea, Army mortarman Jeremy Miller finally returned home to his wife, Viola, at...
Apr 7, 2024


U.S. Air Force Reservist Aims High at Annual Winter Sports Clinic
By Medina Ayala-Lo SNOWMASS, Colo. – For U.S. Air Force Reserve Citizen Airman Maj. Monica Riggs, “aiming high” isn’t a belief that’s...
Apr 7, 2024


Adaptive sports offers soldier new sense of purpose
By Janelle Beswick, Acting Public Affairs Officer VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System SNOWMASS, Colo. - Command Sergeant Major...
Apr 6, 2024


Army Veteran and amputee focuses on Paralympic dream, future goals
By Donna J. Bell, communications director, VA Office of Integrated Veteran Care “Anger is not a perfect circle of stages you work through...
Apr 4, 2024


Clinic shows disabled Army Veteran she can ‘do anything’
BY ELIZABETH DEPOMPEI Brenda Reed out-processed from the Army on crutches. Reed had injured her foot while running in ill-fitting combat...
Apr 4, 2024


Army Veteran nearly killed in Iraq personifies determination
BY BRIAN BUCKWALTER When Army Veteran Erik Castillo came out of a nearly two-month coma, he was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in...
Apr 4, 2024


U.S. Army Veteran, VA recreation therapist Foster Enduring Bond on Miracle Mountain
By Medina Ayala-Lo Winter Sports Clinic writer SNOWMASS, Colo. – It’s been nearly three decades since U.S. Army Veteran Brent King and...
Apr 3, 2024


Disabled Air Force veteran to others: ‘Life doesn’t suck’
Matthew Kosto has an honest, if not blunt, catchphrase: Life doesn’t suck. It’s a mantra that took on a new meaning for him after he lost...
Apr 1, 2023


Veteran, Cyborg or both?
SNOWMASS, Colo – John Wade, or Big John, as he is known to the Winter Sports Clinic community, also goes by his own self-proclaimed...
Mar 31, 2023


Combat-wounded veteran finds peace in fly-fishing
The first time combat-wounded Army veteran John Thomas went fly-fishing, he found peace. “It was [like] no other feeling,” he said. “I...
Mar 31, 2023


Happy trails
On a cold clear morning, sunlight glints off snowbanks as a line of snowmobiles zip through groves of aspens and towering firs. Pyramid...
Mar 30, 2023
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