The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Life can change in an instant.

John Vcelka was 40 feet from the chairlift on his first run at Breckenridge Ski Resort when he went to catch a little air off a cat track.

“The trail just dropped out — the landing was not pretty, but the jump was pretty,” Vcelka said with a smile.

On the landing, Vcelka hit a tree and was paralyzed from his naval down. That was 2005.

Since then, Vcelka’s life has only sped up. He started the booming Handcycling Club of Colorado and can rattle off his packed weekly schedule of events, from tennis and handcycling to rugby and softball.

On Wednesday, it was wakeboarding at Bald Eagle Lake.

Vcelka’s optimism was contagious, rubbing off on the other 14 participants at Steamboat Springs’ second annual Water Ski & Wakeboard Camp for People with Disabilities. Hosted by Adaptive Adventures and Access Anything, the three-day camp united participants of all ages and abilities for two days of instruction and exclusive riding at the private lake just south of Steamboat. Participants rafted a section of the Upper Colorado River on Friday.

Many people have heard Niko Landeros’ story. The 17-year-old Berthoud High School junior was fixing a flat tire in early January when he and Tyler Carron were struck by an SUV. Both boys lost both their legs. The pair were wrestlers for Berthoud, and they received a standing ovation during a ceremony to kick off the high school state wrestling tournament at the Pepsi Center in Denver last spring.

On Wednesday afternoon, Landeros lounged lakeside in the sun, thinking about his next ride.

“I tried wakeboarding with prosthetics, but it was hard with the short legs,” said Landeros, who spent plenty of time wakeboarding before his accident. “I like this better than before. It’s fun to be low, next to the water, and fun to cut. …I play sled hockey and stuff, but this is probably the funnest thing I’ve done bi-laterally.”

Landeros was lying low, not attracting attention until he hit the water for a high-flying second ride.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pick it up so quick,” said Steamboat resident and Access Anything president Craig Kennedy. “On his second ride, he was jumping over the wake.”

Progression is a fundamental element of adaptive wakeboarding.

“Adaptive water skis have been around for 20 years. Eventually, someone got bored as wakeboarding was becoming popular and said, ‘Why not put a seat on a wakeboard?’ and created a whole new sport,” said Adaptive Adventures co-founder Matt Feeney, who has been pioneering and experimenting with the evolving sport for seven years. Feeney hosts camps at Denver’s Sloan’s Lake Park and is contracted to instruct adaptive wakeboarding camps this summer in Lake Albany, N.Y., and Lake Powell. “It’s kind of always been, ‘Hey, let’s see what this does’ — that’s why it’s called adaptive.”

Feeney was busy Wednesday giving feedback to 13-year-old Pierce Grandchamp. “You’re turning is fine, but you got caught outside the wake, so you need to lean more,” he said while also helping install the outriggers on a new board to help camp participants like Vinny DeLaCruz go for a ride.

“Last year, we heard he was in town and got him out here skiing,” Kennedy said as he watched DeLaCruz slide over the water. “That’s a C-5 quad(riplegic) out there — that’s one guy that sure makes this camp special.”

“I used to ride motorcycles a lot and I miss the speed — it’s liberating,” DeLaCruz said after his ride, also noting the atmosphere on the beach creates an even more uplifting experience. “With the other guys in wheelchairs, it doesn’t make you feel like you stand out.”

Bruce Grandchamp, whose son Pierce was born with a spina bifida malformation and bound to a wheelchair his entire life, couldn’t agree more.

“Sometimes you hang out with kids with birth defects and the parents just coddle them,” Grandchamp said. “Here, it’s all so self-sufficient, and you can’t beat that for role models.”

Pat Williamson certainly was inspired by her experience. The 54-year-old was disabled three years ago when, while heading southbound on Colorado Highway 131 from Oak Creek to Phippsburg, she collided head-on with another vehicle. Between recovering from four broken limbs and a month-long coma to realize she had a broken heel, to a staff infection that resulted in a hip replacement and the eventual loss of her right leg below the knee, Williamson has had to re-learn to walk four times. The 21-year Steamboat resident has not skied since.

After cruising on the outrigger wakeboard, Williamson only had one word to describe the experience — thrilling.

“I haven’t gone that fast out in the open air for a long time,” Williamson said. “That’s the most exciting thing I’ve done since the wreck. …Now maybe I’ll give (skiing) a try.”