Portraits of Adventure / 3 Trackers / AnnaBeth
AnnaBeth
Brandywine Ski Resort, Ohio
February 2026
AnnaBeth is four. She's sweet on everyone, she’s the kid who'll give you a hug at the end of a day and thank you for skiing with her. Sundays at 3 Trackers developed a small ritual around her: a bit of anticipation over who was going to get to take her out that day. This is her second year coming out each Sunday to ski.
Her dad, Ben has been snowboarding for about twenty years, long enough that having kids who could ride alongside him was a dream he carried before he had kids at all. AnnaBeth was born with spina bifida. Her parents don't know exactly how much feeling she has in her legs and feet. Physical activity tires her out fast, especially in winter, when cold adds its own cost on top of everything else.
On the hill, her dad keeps a steady supply of snacks going, mostly to keep her engaged through the lift line, the part of the day with the least to look at and the most waiting. It works, she's four, and a snack goes a long way.
Tethering takes practice, and for most of the season it was experienced volunteers who'd been holding on. Ben spent the year watching, learning, and picking up tips. Snowboarders aren’t as prevalent in adaptive skiing, so the approach is a bit different. By the end of the season he was holding the tethers on his own. Her dad got to watch her ski, and ski with her, a unique experience and bond for them both.
Ben worked as a lift operator at Boston Mills in high school, so the program had always been somewhere in the back of his mind, something he'd seen come through without a direct reason to pay attention. He lived near an adaptive ski program's headquarters in New Hampshire for a year too, watching it from the outside there as well. It wasn't until AnnaBeth that any of it became personal.
When asked what he'd have done if the program didn't exist, Ben doesn't hesitate. He'd have found a way to get her out there regardless, and rolled the dice on what happened next. What he found instead was a place designed to help kids like Annabeth join everyone else on the hill, a place full of big hearts who hope to work with a daughter like his.
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