There is an art installation in downtown Boise, tucked away off Main Street. It’s behind two sets of automatic doors leading to the bus terminal, looming above stairs that descend and disappear below the city.

A white tiled background has three words etched onto its surface, each letter formed and textured with tiny white objects — an airplane, a boat, tiny cars and trucks. Like an inverted I Spy, the objects form three simple yet significant words.

I don’t know the artist or what they had in mind, but I’ve always been struck with how it captures an ineffable element of our human nature: our ability to keep going.

At some point in life, every one of us has or will experience something that changes everything. Something that rocks you to your core, changes who you are. Someone close to you will die. Something will turn the way you live your life upside down. You will lose something, someone, some part of yourself.

In the aftermath of such an experience, there are days, weeks, months, even years, where it seems that you are suspended in time while everything and everyone around you continues on; moving, working, living. And there you are, dangling between a moment that has already passed and a world that is continuing on.

The earth keeps spinning, despite what happened to you.

Keep moving, people.

Those three words are at the crux of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). Established in 1994, CAF creates opportunities for people with physical challenges to pursue active lifestyles.

Simply put, CAF keeps people moving.

The organization has raised more than $123 million to fund more than 30,000 grants over the past 27 years. Though it is a nationwide organization, the Idaho chapter is especially active. And they work with some pretty badass people in Boise, too.

Like Josh Sweeney.

Sweeney is an active dude, to say the least. He’s married and has two young kids, ages 3 and 5. He’s a retired Marine Corps Sergeant and a three-time world champion and gold medalist in sled hockey. This winter he got into Nordic skiing and biathlon. Right now, he’s training for another triathlon and multiple U.S. Para Cycling National Championship events this summer. In September, he’s going to attempt the Smoke ‘n Fire 400. Oh, and he is about to start school at Boise State.

“Yeah, I’ve got a lot going on,” he laughed. “But my main goal is to do all that and have a lot of fun and get super fit, so hopefully next season I can jump into skiing and compete against the top two guys – and hopefully beat that number two guy.”

He’s just a little competitive, too.

In October 2009, Sweeney was in Afghanistan on his second deployment as a Marine Corps Infantry Scout Sniper when he stepped on an improvised explosive device (aka an IED).

“I turned around and felt an explosion, and I remember thinking, ‘oh so this is what it feels like to be blown up,’” Sweeney recalled in a CAF video.

Sweeney sustained serious injuries to his legs and arms. Both of his legs were amputated above the knee. When he returned to the US to rehab in San Antonio, Texas, he was introduced to sled hockey. He had played stand up hockey growing up and loved it, but wasn’t quite sure about sled hockey. He agreed to attend a match, just to see, and by the time he left he was ready to get back on the ice.

Sled hockey became a big part of Sweeney’s recovery and his life. He eventually worked his way to the U.S. National Sled Hockey Team and went to the 2014 Paralympics. Sweeney made the game-winning goal for Team USA to defeat Russia and bring home a gold medal.

“Hockey is my favorite thing to do. It’s my favorite sport to play anytime, any day. I truly feel like a little kid when I’m in an ice rink ripping around, shooting pucks and just screwing around and bumping into my buddies,” said Sweeney. “That will always be my favorite sport.”

Sweeney and his family moved to Boise from Portland, Oregon, in December 2020. Their move was, in part, to be closer to family. But Boise’s lovely weather and strong community of adaptive athletes was a huge draw for Sweeney.

“I feel like it’s such an active city. There are so many opportunities for me to go swimming or skiing or dirt bike riding,” said Sweeney. “It’s made it so I am able to do a lot more than I could in Portland or some of those other places.”

Shortly after moving to Boise, CAF-Idaho invited Sweeney to a Nordic ski clinic in Sun Valley. He had always been interested in trying the sport, since it shares similarities with sled hockey and was something Sweeney hadn’t tried yet.

“I fell in love with it. I love being outside and I love exploring the outdoors, but being in a wheelchair it was always difficult, obviously,” said Sweeney. “So being able to get on skis and go out and cruise around – it’s kind of added that element back into my life.”

CAF-Idaho hosts year-round clinics focused on all kinds of sports, like skiing, hockey, curling, sailing, cycling, and paddle boarding, to name a few. (CAF-Idaho has the only wheelchair accessible paddle board in the world!) All clinics are free for athletes to attend. Nordic skiing is a newer addition to CAF’s roster of clinics, and it’s growing quickly with the help of Wilson Dippo.

Dippo is a Utah native and has skied his entire life. He participated in and coached stand up skiing for years and was the head coach and program director for the Bogus Basin Nordic Team (BBNT) before joining CAF.

“I was just kind of always looking for ways to make (BBNT) bigger than just how fast kids can get around a race course, both for their sake and for my sake,” said Dippo.

In 2019, CAF launched its Idaho chapter. At the same time, Dippo was doing preliminary research on how to bring adaptive athletes into the program at Bogus Basin. He reached out to Eileen Carey, director of U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing (USPN) to talk to her about the potential for adaptive Nordic skiing in Boise and how to create a program. Excited at the possibility, Carey and another development coach came to Boise and held a successful two-day adaptive Nordic ski clinic at Bogus Basin. Little did they know that would be the first of many.

At the end of 2020, Dippo was hired to be the winter sports development coach through a unique partnership between CAF and USPN. And despite the circumstances of last year, CAF was able to hold a handful of ski camps at Bogus Basin, Tamarack Resort, Sun Valley, and Magic Mountain near Twin Falls.

“We’re basically trying to build something so that everyone who wants to try cross-country skiing has the ability to and they know those opportunities exist,” said Dippo. “It’s open to everybody. We’ve got kids who are 6 years old and some folks who are in their 60s who are trying it for the first time ever.”

In Sun Valley, Sweeney was one of the first timers.

“I have always wanted to try cross-country skiing. It’s kind of one of those sports that I thought would be easy to just jump into because I am already used to sitting in a sled and using my hands to propel myself from playing hockey,” said Sweeney. “At first I was like this is awesome, this is so much fun. Then it was like ok, I might do it competitively because it’s pretty cool. I can shoot from my military experience and I wanted to try biathlon, which is shooting and skiing. I had a thought that was like, maybe I was kind of made to do this.”

After training at Bogus Basin for a few months, Sweeney was invited to a training camp in Utah with Team USA. He went just to see what it was like and ended up doing really well.

“After that I was like, well shoot now I want to do this for real. There were other countries there so it was kinda cool to see where I stacked up – which was basically second to last – but leaving there I was fired up,” said Sweeney. “I really wanted to get this going and see my potential and what I could do.”

In late March, Sweeney went to West Yellowstone to compete in biathlon nationals. He took home first and second place in his races.

“Now I’m really motivated to see where I can get before next season, especially with the 2022 Paralympics coming up. It would be really cool to qualify for those and to be taken,” said Sweeney. “Just going (to the Paralympics) is really cool. It’s more about going and representing your country the best you can, so I’m just really excited to do that again.”

Sweeney’s summer sports (which are pretty hardcore, might I add) are part for fun, part competitive, and part training for Nordic skiing next season.

“Triathlon is something that I really love doing and now that I am heavy into skiing, I am kind of looking for something else to do because obviously I can’t just focus on skiing year-round. I have to do other activities,” said Sweeney. “I feel like swimming really complements skiing because you are using a lot of the same muscles, and hand cycling and running or using my race chair is just another way to stay super fit and strong.”

While some of CAF’s athletes are there to compete, some are out skiing or cycling just to be out and about and active.

That’s the case for Jordan Valentine.

Valentine is a Boise Valley native and a hardcore outdoors-woman. She’s been skiing since she was two years old and has completed numerous long-distance backpacking trips. Valentine has about 2,400 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail under her belt. She plans to complete the last 140ish miles sometime in 2022, though that stretch will be a little different than her first 2,400 miles.

In October 2019, Jordan and her dad, Jim Valentine, were on a helicopter ride in the Owyhees. Flying over the mountains and desert canyons, looking for herds of wild horses was an activity the pair had done many times together. It was a normal day, then something went wrong with the engine and they were too low to the ground to recover. The helicopter crashed.

Her dad died on impact. Jordan was alive but sustained a plethora of injuries. She spent the next 16 hours at the wreck site before she was finally rescued the next morning. In addition to being hypothermic, she broke her sternum, a small part of her pelvis, seven ribs, and her nose. She had a burst fracture at her L3 and L4 vertebrae which lead to an incomplete spinal cord injury. Her right ankle was shattered and the MCL in her left knee was torn.

She also had a hemopneumothorax, which is when fluid and blood fill the lung. Three weeks after the accident, that would rupture again due to a broken rib shard.

After surgery, Jordan spent the next two months at Elks Rehabilitation Hospital learning to walk again. Slowly but surely, she progressed. Once she was able to stand up, she started walking with parallel bars, then moved to walking with a walker, and then progressed to using forearm crutches.

“That was a long, long experience that I really had to learn patience for. There was definitely progress week to week, and even sometimes day to day. But it was just a mental grind to have enough motivation to keep going,” Valentine said in an interview with CAF. “My goals of success one day would be to walk 20 feet, versus back when I was walking like 25 miles a day.”

Thankfully, she was able to go home before the pandemic locked everything down. Since then, she has continued walking and has made it up to 4 miles. Last summer, she took her first post-injury backpacking trip with a friend. They hiked to Hell Roaring Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains. CAF helped her get a GRIT Freedom Chair, which is an all-terrain wheelchair with a pull system that can be ridden on and off-road, that she took along for the trip. Though several large boulders and river crossing required her to use her forearm crutches as well, she made it to the lake – a huge accomplishment on its own.

Valentine spent much of last year focused on her recovery. Sometimes she would walk with her friend Ross, who was also in an accident that injured his spine in 2019. On one of their outings, he told her about an upcoming ski camp CAF was having at Tamarack Resort near McCall. As someone who has skied pretty much their whole life, she decided to give it a try.

“From a mechanical perspective, I have a pretty good sense of balance so I picked (Nordic skiing) up quickly. But it is really hard, it takes a lot of upper body strength,” said Valentine. “When you are alpine skiing or snowboarding, you can just point your tip down and let ‘er rip. I had done (stand-up) Nordic a few times before, but this is way harder than that too because you know, with Nordic you get to use your arms and your legs. This is just all upper body.”

Dippo, who coached both Valentine and Sweeney this winter, noted the level of difficulty the sport brings is unique.

“Cross-country skiing has the reputation of being one of the hardest sports there is… for able-bodied and definitely for adaptive skiing,” he said.

Despite the physical challenge, Valentine kept at it through the winter. After the camp in McCall, she started going up to Bogus Basin once or twice a week to practice.

“My initial opinion was yes this is a fun way to get outside and have some more freedom. But also new challenges now are like, ok this is cool but now I need help being pushed up a hill, which feels really frustrating sometimes,” she said. “This is just how it is with everything now, though. You have to humble yourself and be like yes, I need help. At least right now. It has been a big learning curve for me.”

Valentine isn’t planning on skiing competitively, but she is planning to keep at it. For her, it’s more about the experience and destination. She hopes to travel to different mountains to ski in the future. But this summer, she’s going to be cruising the Greenbelt on a handcycle and backpacking to Hell Roaring Lake again – this time sans the GRIT chair.

(Jordan wrote an amazing story about her dad and the accident. Please take a moment to read her firsthand experience.)

Valentine and Sweeney are just two examples of the cool people involved in CAF-Idaho. Just this past weekend, three kids got their first GRIT chairs and took them for a spin in the foothills. Other athletes will be out rock climbing, mountain biking, swimming, hiking, and paddling with CAF-Idaho this summer.

And, if you want to see some serious athleticism, you can catch four U.S. Para Cycling National Championship events here in Boise over the weekend of the Twilight Criterium (July 10-11, 2021).

In short, if a person with physical challenges finds an activity they want to do, CAF will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

You can learn more and get involved with CAF at www.challengedathletes.org/caf-idaho​

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

-Marissa

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