3 Trackers

About This Chapter

3 Trackers starts up every January and runs each Sunday and Tuesday through the end of January. “Heavy snow” sounds like the exact thing you’d want for ski season, however North East Ohio and the urban areas within were put under a winter weather advisory as roads became hazardous. For about two weeks, 3 Trackers was put on hold.

The equipment required to run this program is one of its bigger ongoing challenges, one met by mostly discarded equipment, ingenuity, trial and error, and persistence. More manufacturers for this specialized equipment exist today than 30 years ago, but they are by far a fraction of the size and scale of most other ski brands. The mono-skis and bi-skis of today are the result of constant improvement, and the evolution of technology - the originals are kept high on the shelves as reminders of how far they’ve come.

Fundraising keeps students skiing, and the doors open. Every couple of years, 3 Trackers runs an organized campaign of sorts, but are always accepting donations. One of them this year came in the form of an oversized check from the Brandywine Ski Patrol, and another came as the result of a presentation featuring some of my images to a local community support organization.

One of the highlights of each Sunday was lunch. Just one trait of a real community, home made stew, chili, and soup in a crockpot waiting around noon each day. A food motivated group, on Valentines day, the entire table was full of food, spilling onto the gear racks for the annual potluck. It was a bit difficult to get back out there with a warm and full belly!

Once a student themselves, some of the volunteers learned, or re-learned to ski here. Now they go out with minimal if no help at all to guide, support, and hang out with other 3 Tracker students, new and experienced. Ellen and Rod are two that come to mind. 

The program is proud to “graduate” students as well. Some go on to purchase their own equipment so they can ski whenever they’d like, and travel if desired. Zachary and his family did just that. They still come out and are part of the community, but are now self-sufficient.

Most of the long-term volunteers came from physical therapy and related fields, some came from completely other fields. The tenure of volunteers is impressive to say the least. Dan Lipka has been coming for over thirty years. Steve Lumpp for most of the twenty-five years he's been skiing. Inge Reschke spent decades teaching in New Zealand and at Deer Valley before coming back to Ohio and finding this program, and there are several more.

For those with a background in physical therapy, it shows. For those without, the time they’ve dedicated to 3 Trackers has taught them how to read a student's capabilities in real time, knowing when to hold back and when to push. The bonds and relationships between the returning instructors and students runs deep, you can’t replace that.

The thirteen people in this chapter are not the whole story. They're who I could get to in less than two months of Sundays and a handful of Tuesday nights. There were students as young as four and others well past retirement age. Everyone had their own reason for being there, their own relationship to the outdoors, their own version of what getting down the hill meant.

I wish I could have gotten to everyone, I’m honored by their acceptance, and warmed by their stories.