AMAZING HUMAN HIGHLIGHT | Military to the Mountain participant Lee Kuxhaus
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup.”
Bruce Lee
This mentality was certainly exercised by Military to the Mountain (M2M) participant Lee Kuxhaus as she overcame adversity in this years program.
Lee, from Dallas, Texas served in the United States Air Force from 2000 to 2012 and joined the Adaptive Training Foundation for nine-weeks of training followed by a week on the slopes of Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows under the instruction of Achieve Tahoe.
Unfamiliar to the sport, Lee took to skiing immediately on day one.
“Stand skiing went a lot smoother than I thought it would, the prosthetic held up. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to weight and unweight correctly, but I surprised myself, and skiing was really fun.”
exclaimed Lee
The first day of skiing with Achieve Tahoe went great for Lee, but she had a mishap when she tweaked her knee the next day playing dodgeball with the M2M crew at Woodward Tahoe.
“When the leg you depend on suddenly becomes the one you can’t depend on, you’re in trouble,” said Lee.
Many people with a leg injury would find the sideline, but that wasn’t the case with Lee, “I came here to ski, and this little setback wasn’t going to keep me from skiing.”
With the help of the expert instructors at Achieve Tahoe on day two of skiing, Lee was fit for a sit-ski, and she never looked back.
“Sit-skiing was super hard at first, but super fun. It kept me on the mountain. It’s really nice to have the benefit of both stand and sit-skiing moving forward.”
said Lee
“At first she seemed pretty timid,” said Kilgore. “But then she dropped her guard, her smile came out and she absolutely shredded!”
Lee enjoyed the next two days of skiing at Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows, and she was grateful for the helpful advice from Ricci and her instructors at Achieve Tahoe.
“I sit-skied with Haakon and Jake from Achieve today (day three) and I was so much more comfortable,” said Lee.
On the last day of Military to the Mountain Lee doubled her runs from previous days and had a blast. She looks forward to hitting the slopes again soon!
