Braille Mountain Initiative Tyson Rettie BY MARTA MANZONI PHOTOS RYAN CREARY
Before becoming blind within two years, Tyson Rettie was a Canadian Mountain Guide, helicopter rescuer and avalanche professional. His life has changed in many ways, except one: Tyson Rettie has never stopped practicing ski mountaineering in unspoiled nature and climbing mountains.
Soon he had the desire to share these experiences, making them possible for other people with his same disability: in May 2020, the Braille Mountain Initiative was born, a non-profit organization with the aim of inspiring blind and visually impaired people and make them participate in backcountry adventures in the mountains. The Braille Mountain Initiative is the first project in the world of this type: the goal is to regularly offer ski mountaineering programs for blind people. Would you tell us your story? Before
becoming blind two years ago due to a rare disease called Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, I was working here in Canada as a Mountain Guide, helicopter rescuer, and avalanche professional. At the end of November 2018, I started to lose sight in my right eye and in two weeks I could no longer see anything. Eight months later, in the summer of 2019, the same thing happened to my left eye and at that point I became blind. Right now I can’t recognize people's faces, read or drive. I can hardly move around a room and vaguely recognize the blurred outlines of objects inside it. I stopped working as a Mountain Guide and helicopter rescuer but I never stopped skiing with friends.
How and when was the Initiative born? When I became blind, I imme-
diately started looking for a way to use my skills as a mountain expert for people with disabilities, and I did some research. There were only a few opportunities for beginners to take lessons, always staying close to the hotels, never going into unspoiled nature. I soon realized that there were no ski mountaineering programs for blind people who had a good level and wanted to embark on new challenges and adventures in the mountains. I realized it would be great to share these experiences with other blind and visually impaired athletes and skiers: so in May 2020 I founded the Braille Mountain Initiative, a non-profit organization that aims to inspire people to experience the backcountry and concretely create opportunities to do that. How is the project going? What are the activities you propose? The project
grew rapidly and I immediately found several partners and supporters who believed in it. We immediately ran out of places available for the first multi-day trip that we proposed and at the moment there is a waiting list for the next events we have organized. In the spring of 2021 we will take four blind skiers and their guides to Canada in
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a remote cabin in the mountains for a week of ski mountaineering. I am sure this experience will change every participant's life. The prerequisite for applying for this adventure was to be an experienced skier with a good level of fitness. No previous backcountry experience needed: since there were no programs like this it was unlikely that blind skiers would have had the opportunity to develop a previous experience. During these programs there will also be sighted guides for safety reasons, in a skiing environment for each blind person it is important to have a sighted skier following. We believe that the best thing is that this person is someone important in the blind person's "skier life", like a friend with whom they practiced this sport in the past and want to continue doing it. In addition, for safety reasons there will always be some Mountain Guides who will work with us, some as volunteers, others paid. Why do you think ski mountaineering is a unique opportunity for blind people? The choice to spend a week
in a remote cabin is not accidental: it allows easy access to the open alpine terrain, and in this way participants will have the opportunity to ski as if they did not have a visual disability. On powder, with no people or obsta-
