Longtime Juneau cross country ski enthusiasts Scott and Betsy Fischer have joined the family. So have Carl and Lauren Heine. Ken Leghorn and spouse Julie Coppens were already a part of it.
When people speak of Ski For Light International, an annual week of classic cross country skiing on winter trails around the United States for visually and mobility-impaired adults, they speak of transformational relationships – like those of a brother or sister. The family numbers approximately 250 individuals – a mix of visually impaired and sighted skiers and volunteers.
The four current Juneauites: the Fischers, Leghorn, and Coppen; and two past Juneauites, the Heines, all volunteered as sighted guides at the 42nd annual SFL that took place Feb. 5-12 in Grandby, Colorado, a small town 20 miles north of Winter Park.
Leghorn, who has guided in the last six events and was awarded the President’s Award this year, recruited the Fischers to ski in their first SFL.
“It’s an intense eight-day experience in a convention hotel, eating all your meals together and skiing every day together,” Leghorn said last week. “So it becomes like a huge extended family and every year it’s a reunion of friends from not only around the country, but a lot of skiers from Canada and Europe and England.”
The first SFL first took place in 1975 in Frisco, Colorado — 11 years after the founding of a similar event in Norway known as the “Ridderrenn.”
“They are such amazing people,” Leghorn said of the visually impaired cross country skiers who attend SFL. “You feel like you come away having received a lot more from them than you’ve given them.”
According to Leghorn, classic cross country skiing is one of the few activities blind and visually impaired adults can do completely under their own power. Deep ski tracks help the skiers remain on the trail. Sighted guides ski in tracks next to their partners and give them verbal instructions along the way. First-time guides undergo a mandatory one-day training before the week gets under way that teaches them all the necessary commands. The training includes a portion in which the guides ski blindfolded.
“You don’t realize how much you rely on your sight for balance and anticipation of what’s coming,” Betsy Fischer said, who is a cross country ski instructor at Eaglecrest. “So it gives you an appreciation of the type of instructions you have to give the skier.”
After making their travel reservations in September, Scott and Betsy didn’t quite know what to expect when they got to the Snow Mountain Ranch, the site of this year’s event, in early February.
“We got nervous about it,” Betsy laughed.
“It’s kind of a step into the unknown,” Scott said. “We couldn’t conceive of being with over 100 visually impaired people, period, let alone being out skiing with them.”
As first-time guides, the Fischers were paired with two of the more experienced skiers to attend: Bob Hartt and Bonnie O’Day. Hartt was participating in his 12th SFL, O’Day in her 14th.
“[O’Day] is this very sweet woman and very low-key, kind of like, ‘Oh I just want to do this for fun,’ and, ‘Sometimes I can ski faster than my husband, and sometimes he skis faster than me.’” Betsy said. “She lulled me into this sense that on the last day at the ranch when we were going to have this race, we’re just going to go out and have fun, and everything would be a good time.”
Then O’Day took off like a rocket.
“There were times where I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can keep this up,’” she said.
O’Day finished in first place in the 10-kilometer race for partially sighted women 58 and older. She finished the course in 1 hour, 5 minutes, 29 seconds – more than 10 minutes in front of the next finisher.
The 1, 5, and 10 kilometer races held the last day of the event were split between those “58 and older” and “57 and younger,” male and female, and “partially sighted” and “totally blind.”
The Fischers say they have already planned on returning to next year’s SFL, which will be held Jan. 21-28 in Truckee, California.
To learn more about Ski For Light and apply to be a guide, visit sfl.org.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Bonnie O’Day’s 10-kilometer race time as 1:15:18. O’Day’s actual time was 1:05:29, This article has been updated to reflect the change. The Empire regrets the error.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
Ken Leghorn, left, accepts the President’s Award, a large mounted elk drinking horn from Norway, from Ski For Light President Scott McCall. The award recognizes outstanding commitment to the event that teaches visually or mobility-impaired adults classic cross country skiing. (Photo courtesy Julie Coppens)
Chris Leghorn, left, skis with cousin and guide Ken during the Ski For Light International Feb. 5-12, 2017 at the Snow Mountain Ranch in Grandby, Colorado. (Photo courtesy Julie Coppens)
