Living Life Out Loud
by Thomas Courtney
There is No Chair
On Sunday, paraplegic Jeremy McGhee will wake up at the base of Bloody Couloir, near Mammoth Mountain, and make his way to the top of the 11,800-foot peak without the use of his legs. Then he'll ski down in a sit-ski chair. He feels totally prepared and completely terrified...
Paraplegic Skier Jeremy McGhee Ascending/Skiing Bloody Couloir on SundaY
Watch and be inspired. Paraplegic skier Jeremy McGhee plans to ascend and ski Bloody Couloir in the Mammoth, CA backcountry on Sunday. Think booting up a couloir is tough? See how Jeremy does it. Here at Earlyups we are super inspired and will be rooting big time for Jeremy on Sunday!
Paraplegic Aims to Ski Major Backcountry Couloir
Jeremy McGhee doesn’t stop trying to move forward. In 2001, a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. He still skis, kayaks, bikes. This year, in order to get to the beach quickly without having to drive his car, he invented what he calls the Surf Checker — a motorized scooter customized to hold the front of his wheelchair. And when his friends returned from a backcountry session down Bloody Couloir in the eastern Sierra, he decided he wanted to do that, too. Backcountry. Couloir. Earn your turns.
“I don’t want to be the first sitskier to do anything,” McGhee writes. “I just want to do this with my friends, eat a pb&j sandwhich at the top, and I don’t want them to feel like they need to get me there. I don’t want to be left behind any longer.
Under His Own Power
Jeremy McGhee wants to be the first sitskier to ascend and descend a major backcountry peal under his own power. Sure, some sitskiers access the backcountry via cat, heli and snowmobile, but McGhee wants to get there on his own...