The snow is coming down in a “wintry mix,” big flakes and tiny snowballs of graupel collecting in our laps as we ride the chairlift at Alta. No matter how many times you’ve done it, riding the lift is always a bit of a thrill. Maybe it’s more exciting for our companion, Krishna Khushalani, who sits on a TetraSki elevated a few inches higher than the lift seat, the snowy world far below.

It looks like Khushalani is sitting precariously, but he’s anchored in and doing great. His ski instructor, Cullen Robinson, sits on one side while volunteer Rob Jones sits on the other, each gripping the TetraSki’s handle. The Khushalani family came from Georgia to ski at Alta, alerted to the opportunity by their physical therapist.

TetraSki is a sit-ski developed by TRAILS Adaptive, a community program at the University of Utah’s Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital. Its advanced electrical and mechanical engineering allows people with complex physical disabilities to ski alongside the able-bodied – having a truly self-directed experience. Until now, ski participants with extremely limited mobility may have ridden on a sit-ski, but the TetraSki makes them the drivers.

At the top of the lift, the instructors hoist the handle and the TetraSki seat rises to allow the skier off the lift, then lowers down and locks in place over its attached skis. Khushalani, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, controls the TetraSki by hand.

“I’m really focusing on the joystick and trying to get the movements right,” Khushalani said. While the controls are like the motorized wheelchair he uses when playing soccer, there’s a new element to master. “When I go forward on a normal joystick it just goes forward, but on this it changes the shape of the wedge,” he said. Wedge-shaped skis slow a skier down; making them parallel lets a skier glide and turn.

Robinson, TRAILS program coordinator and instructor, skis behind his student with two methods of emergency override – a remote control and a 10-foot tether. Jones keeps an eye out for wayward beginners who might cut into the TetraSki’s path.

“With today’s technology … for heaven’s sake! … if we have the tools to do this, why not?” exclaimed Tanja Kari during a break inside the Albion Grill. As the head of TRAILS, Kari oversees the TetraSki training program and promotes TetraSkiing as a sport.

A two-time Paralympic cross-country skier, Kari champions the power of athletic participation for all. She notes that the impairment she was born with – a below-elbow amputation – was overcome by her willingness to play and compete with other kids.

“I feel what I was able to get out of sports should be more available,” she said. “Some participants are telling me, ‘For the first time in my life I feel like I’m not a piece of luggage. It’s me making the choices. I can push myself as an athlete.’”

 

As it goes with sports, the TetraSki was made possible by a team. Dr. Jeffrey Rosenbluth, medical director of the Spinal Cord Injury Acute Rehabilitation Program at University of Utah Health, conceived the idea. A frequent skier with one of the first adaptive programs in Southern California, he recalled, “That’s where I met people with spinal cord injuries, where I saw some of the new equipment and skis that were coming out. The energy and excitement – and the rehabilitation people were experiencing through adaptive sports – was really incredible to me.”

Inspired by that experience, Rosenbluth set out to develop a sit-ski based on existing wheelchair technology that would allow steering by joystick or “sip and puff,” enabling skiers with even more limited mobility to control turns by drawing air in and out of a tube. He was thrilled when an opportunity arose to do this work in Utah.

That’s when engineer Ross Imburgia dropped in. Imburgia spent two decades as a sponsored skier, helping create the popular ski video series Line Traveling Circus. His senior project in mechanical engineering at the University of Utah was a gas-powered winch used by trick skiers to gain speed when there’s no natural hill nearby. Dr. Rosenbluth saw a bigger application.

“It incorporated a lot of things he’d drafted up for adaptive ski equipment,” Imburgia said – including the right combination of software and electrical hardware to let a seated skievr with limited muscle control move the skis from wedge position to parallel for carving.

Rosenbluth made the young engineer a humorous offer: a low-paying job that left him time to ski. “I don’t think either of us expected it would be a long-term gig, but we made a lot of progress right off the bat,” Imburgia said. “After a year and a half, Jeff and I both could see this project had potential to go out into the world and change lives.”

They built a prototype based on a Snow’Kart, a manually controlled adaptive ski by French company Tessier, which later collaborated with the TetraSki team on frame design. The first prototype was tested during the 2015-16 ski season at Alta and Powder Mountain, where most TetraSki lessons take place today. Imburgia was the first test pilot – his trick-skiing background giving him the ability to bail out when things went wrong.

Brian McKenna, an avid skier who had recently sustained a severe spinal injury, gave essential feedback on the TetraSki’s sip-and-puff steering. “He was pushing the ski and his body much harder than they probably should have been, out of his pure enthusiasm,” Imburgia said.

This is the height of Kari’s passion. She has placed TetraSkis and instructors in seven countries; a minimum of eight are required before the sport can be considered for the Paralympics. She hopes to see TetraSkiing in the 2034 Games in Salt Lake City.

Two Utahns, Becca Farewell of Sandy and Travis Berenyi of West Haven, are regular TetraSkiers and participants in the annual race.

Farewell, who was paralyzed in a 2021 professional skydiving accident, steers by sip-and-puff. When asked if she’d like to try qualifying for the Paralympics, she gave a resounding yes.

“If it’s possible, I’m gonna do it,” she said. “Because where else in the world do we have opportunities like this?”

Farewell met Dr. Rosenbluth in spinal rehab, where he introduced her to the TRAILS program right away. “I very distinctly remember thinking life doesn’t have to be over. That was such a game changer for me because I’ve been an extreme athlete my whole adult life.”

Berenyi, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, enjoys ski racing as a change from the ordinary. He has steered by joystick and straw and said steering with just your breath is “kind of a shocker to the mind.”

TRAILS now hopes to “tetra-fy” everything – developing more self-directed sports and daily activities. So far, they’ve built a watercraft and have a working prototype for a mountain bike.

“I am so excited about the idea of the bike,” said Farewell, who sails but gravitates toward more aggressive sports. “The serotonin is awesome,” she said, describing a pleasant tiredness after a challenging session, “like I did something good today.”

 

It’s hard to understand what it’s like to head down the slopes as a TetraSkier until you’ve joined them for a run. Nick Capano, who was born with spina bifida and breathes with a ventilator, came to Utah from Boston with his brothers, parents and extended family. They’d skied together at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire with New England Disabled Sports (NEDS), but since the passing of a beloved doctor, the NEDS team can no longer take a skier with a ventilator down the mountain.

But the Capanos had a connection. They’d met Robinson when he worked with NEDS, and he later enticed, cajoled and encouraged them to come to Utah.

“Cullen had such excitement, and I had such reservation,” said Patti Capano, Nick’s mother. “Who possibly could take care of [Nick’s] vent, tracheotomy, his oxygen requirements up at the mountain?” The TRAILS team convinced the Capanos they were prepared to handle Nick’s respiratory needs. “They were talking about what Nicholas needs as if it were a cup of coffee,” Patti said. “I decided that we’re going to take the leap and make that our family vacation.”

Skiing started indoors with training on a simulator. Then the family met Robinson at Alta, where he was waiting with an entire team of experts – including two respiratory therapists – to give the Capanos a ski vacation to remember.

Robinson tries to ski imperceptibly, taking his cues from the TetraSkier’s subtle body language and the sounds the actuators make as they move the skis. “When you get to this point, it’s like dancing,” he said. “We’re skiing together and in tune.”

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Nick said. “Cullen tethered me, but I still felt like I was on my own.”

After skiing down the Crooked Mile with family all around and Mount Superior in the distance, Capano summed up his experience: “I’ve never felt so free.”

 

Smooth Sailing

For Tetra athletes, the watercraft offers a calm counterpoint to the adrenaline of the slopes

While the TetraSki is seen as intense and rigorous, participants say the Tetra watercraft offers the exact opposite experience. “It’s very relaxing, especially if you’re stressed out,” said Januel Gomez. “It’s a nice escape from reality.”

Gomez, who is studying finance at the University of Utah, says he needs a way to chill. On a sunny summer day, he and his family might be found picnicking along the shores of East Canyon Reservoir, where four people at a time can go out on the Tetra watercraft, built on the frame of a Hobie Mirage Tandem Island sailing kayak. There are six Tetra watercraft in the U.S., all leased to adaptive programs by TRAILS.

The sailor uses joystick and sip-and-puff technology together to control four motorized applications on the boat: a winch for the sail, a roller furling, the rudder, and a propulsion motor. As an electric wheelchair user with spinal muscular atrophy, Gomez is used to the joystick, but the two sip-and-puff straws are more challenging.

The right straw controls power; the left one turns the sail. “Since sailing is very calming, you can easily make a correction,” Gomez said. On a windless day, he can still cruise the lake under power with the sails furled.

Like the TetraSki, the Tetra watercraft includes a remote-control override, allowing an instructor to follow on a jet ski so participants can enjoy a private or family cruise. Instructors also provide sailing lessons.

Gomez may enjoy calm days on the water, but he’s got an intense side. He’s a member of the Beehive Honor Society at the U., has testified before the Utah Legislature in support of a disability bill, and he’s the 2024 TetraSki champion.