We offer classes that cover everything from beginner lessons to advanced tips for seasoned skiers and riders.

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ski & snowboard

-- choose a lesson -- Full Day Half Day  

Full Day: 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Half Day: 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
or 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

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Ready to kick-start that learning curve, build confidence, and enjoy the camaraderie of skiing or riding with others of your ability? Experienced skiers or riders and first-timers alike will have a blast learning to do it right in our full and half-day lessons.

Colorado Discover Ability is the Adaptive Snowsports School at Powderhorn Resort in western Colorado. For more than 20 years Colorado Discover Ability (CDA) instructors at Powderhorn have helped individuals - adults and children with various disabilities - learn to ski, snowboard, snowshoe and race.

Check out our winter programs:

• Skiing
• Snowboarding
• Snowshoeing
• Adaptive Ski and Snowboard Racing

Our snowsports programs are very open and inclusive. We welcome everyone with disabilities, their friends and their families. Participants in our diverse programs come from all walks of life and from all parts of the world.

What are adaptive skiing and snowboarding?

Not much different from regular. All of us require some type of adaptive equipment to have fun on snow. For example, skiers use skis, bindings, boots and poles, which did not come as a standard equipment on our bodies. The same rule applies to all snowsports—we all need some kind of adaptive equipment to ski, snowboard, and snowshoe.

While much of adaptive ski or snowboard teaching concerns the actual mechanics of both sports, it is important to remember that all lessons must revolve around the student and his or her goals and needs. An adaptive skier or snowboarder is a person who requires adaptations to equipment and/or teaching methods. For individuals encumbered on earth by a physical or mental impairment that may make mobility difficult, the act of skiing or snowboarding becomes a rite of passage. This passage allows skiers and snowboarders to do something they never thought they could do, and perhaps do it extraordinarily well. It allows them to be a part of a world that believes there is more to life than work and rehabilitation.

Our adaptive snowsports program work with a wide range of disabled people to provide the unique exhilaration of this sport. To be truly effective, our adaptive snowsports instructors must be versatile and knowledgeable about disabilities so that the experience can be both safe and fun.

Please note that most—if not all—adaptive lessons are taught on a one-to-one instructor-to-student ratio (although sometimes instructors will team up to teach one student).