BACKCOUNTRY FOR THE BLIND

Tyson Rettie was living his dream, skiing endless powder as a guide at Great Canadian Heli-Skiing, when he mysteriously lost sight in one eye. He carried on mostly undeterred, even passing his full mechanized ski guide exam. Losing sight in his other eye, in the summer of 2019, derailed all his plans. He was eventually diagnosed with a rare genetic condition.

“The doctor told me the first six months would be the hardest,” he says. “They were right.”

As last winter arrived, Rettie was figuring out how to function without sight. Like most blind people, his vision wasn’t completely blank; he could see shadows and shapes in his peripheral vision. It was just enough that he thought he could try skiing. But rather than at the resort, where adaptive ski programs are now common, he craved a return to the backcountry.

With friends guiding him along, he relearned how to paste skins to skis, put on ski-touring bindings and feel his way up the skin track. On the way down he rediscovered the freedom he’d lost in much of the rest of his life.

“I have to rely on a sighted person in trees or tight terrain, but when we get into big, open alpine slopes I can ski fast and freely,” Rettie says.

To give other blind skiers the same feeling Rettie founded the Braille Mountain Initiative. In April 2021 he’s taking a small group of blind skiers and their sighted guides into Sorcerer Lodge, a backcountry ski operation, for an introductory backcountry ski week. He hopes the program will build from there. It’s the only blind backcountry ski program he’s aware of.

“I want other blind people to feel that same sense of freedom I do,” he says. “I hope it shows that you don’t have to be sighted or able bodied to participate in this sport.”

Follow Rettie’s efforts at facebook.com/braillemountaininiative.

_RYAN STUART