For Army veteran Amanda Seward, it’s hard to top a day of snowboarding on the mountain — especially when there’s a sizeable crew involved.
“You start riding with your boys, and that's the best feeling in the whole wide world,” she gushed at Snowmass Ski Area on a sunny spring morning. “Because it's like, you guys are all racing at the same time, but you're just so happy to be with one another.”
“The boys,” in this case, includes three other women and one man; Seward uses it as a term of endearment.
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And she said this sense of camaraderie and freedom on the slopes has helped her navigate much darker moments in her life — like the feelings of isolation and frustration that she experienced when her leg was amputated in 2019. She spent time earlier this month as a participant in the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, which welcomed hundreds of participants from across the country for a week of adaptive skiing, snowboarding and other activities.
“Everyone sees the physical injury,” she said. “The worst is up here (in your head). Like, all of those battle scars that nobody sees, but you see, and so you're yelling at yourself all the time. So how do you get out of that? Get out here.”
Seward snowboards with a prosthetic leg that has hydraulic shock absorbers in the knee; it’s built for sports like this one that she loves so much.
She was injured about a decade into her military career, following deployments to Afghanistan and Kuwait with the Army National Guard. She had scored an ideal job as a stateside recruiter, and was only a month into the new gig when her car spun out on the way to drill practice in nasty winter weather.
Seward moved to the side of the road, got out and tried to fix an open trunk with her friend. She said that’s when they were struck by another soldier, who was also heading to drill practice on the icy roads.
“I was very angry at the world,” Seward said. “I was scared of the snow again. And I'm from Indiana, so we know how to drive in the snow, but I was terrified (of it).”
Seward says that she never thought of herself as a snowsports athlete before her injury, but it was just later that same year that she got out on the hill for the first time.
She didn’t quite feel ready yet, and wanted to just stay on the bunny slope, but her instructor pushed her to try some more ambitious runs.
Seward says it helped her get out of her own head — and these days, her eyes are set on the Paralympics.
“It’s something that I want to do, but also, it's a way to get my message out,” she said.
She wants to spread the word about the importance of mental health care, and about the value of creative art therapies, which have helped her recover from the accident.
Plus, she said, it’s an opportunity to build support systems for veterans who have lost their sense of community — especially those who have retired due to injury.
“For a lot of us, once we get out of the military, it kind of seems like all of a sudden we're all alone,” she said.
“It's like, all of our friends and our family — like our livelihood that we ate, slept, and breathed by — (are) still doing their thing and it's just like … what do we do? How do we find that?” Seward added.
Seward said one way she reconnects is through programs like the Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass.
“I'm out here, … and I'm finding people that truly love me and truly want to see me do good, … and I want the best for them too,” she said. “I want us all to succeed.”
Most of the participants went home on Sunday, but Seward stuck around this week for the Challenge Aspen Military Opportunities program, which offers adaptive sports experiences for veterans year-round.