SideStix allows amputees to go snowshoeing

by Keith and Heather Nicol

Starting out the Snow Paws trail

      Recently my brother Bruce and his wife Mary Ellen visited from Victoria and they brought their dog Keita and some new crutch attachments that my brother was interested in trying out.  We had suggested they try snowhoeing at Raven Lodge at Mount Washington but since Bruce uses crutches he would have to come up with an attachment to keep his crutches from sinking into the snow. It turn out that SideStix, a BC company, produces just that sort of attachment for snow. As you can see in the pictures it simply is added to the crutch and provides a wide surface area with all important serrated metal ring that digs into the snow preventing the crutches from slipping out on icy or hard packed snow.

     

Along the Snow Paws snowshoe trail

 On Sunday, March 18 he tried them on the multi purpose trail that links Raven Lodge to the Hawk Chair lift and found that they worked very well. So after lunch he and Mary Ellen did the 2.5 km Old Cabin Loop trail (classed as green or easy) and found that they worked equally well on that trail as well. The bonus of that trail is that it winds through the trees yet provides views of the surrounding mountains. The next day we decided to take the dog Keita along and so we tried the Snow Paws trail which is classes as a blue trail and Bruce found that it had more challenging terrain so did about half of that trail. After lunch we did the multi use trail again since it is also dog friendly.  For a video of Bruce testing them click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1AnrqOpB8Y

We ran into a couple of people snowshoeing with their dogs

 For anyone that would like to go snowshoeing and uses crutches then these SideStix attachments are well worth looking into. Bruce had many people ask him where he got them so for anyone wanting to check them out see: https://www.sidestix.com/    If you check out their web site you will see they are all about getting people of all abilities out into the outdoors.  One of the founders of SideStix, Sarah Doherty is an elite US Alpine Skiing Paralympian and  the first amputee to ever summit Mt. McKinley.  Impressive! 

Along the multi use trail

 For more details on snowshoeing at Mount Washington  see: https://www.mountwashington.ca/    Mount Washington Alpine Resort actively supports people with disabilities and has a large Adaptive Snowsports programme run by the Vancouver Island Society for Adaptive Snowsports (VISAS).