Paradox Sports athlete Tommy Carol celebrated his 45th birthday on January 18th. Tommy is a left above the knee amputee who has really pushed himself past his disability. Tommy lost his leg as the result of a motorcycle accident 20 years ago. Since then Tommy has gone to biomechanical engineering school and has become a prosthetist. Tommy is a rock climber, ice climber, cyclist, and a skier. Currently Tommy is working on building a new prosthetic foot and is a ski instructor at Ignite Adaptive Sports.
I had an opportunity to ski with Tommy earlier this year and we made plans to ski regardless on his birthday. We planned to ski at Winter Park unfortunately due to heavy snow fall and a missing snowboarder Berthoud Pass was closed. We decided to go to Copper Mountain after hearing reports of 17 inches of new snow. We passed through Eisenhower tunnel we decided to call our buddy Vijay to see what he was doing that day. Vijay is a paraplegic who is another Paradox Sports athlete. Talking to him on the phone I got really excited. He was skiing at Breckenridge and was reporting 26 inches of new snow. YEAH YEAH! We changed our plans immediately. We met Vijay at the bottom of Peak 8 and heading up into glorious powder. 
They were opening Imperial as we started up the lift. This was the first time I was going to ski with Vijay and I was immediately impressed with his ability to ski some of the hardest lines on the mountain in a sit ski. Rock Star!
We had an awesome time together. Tommy commented throughout the day about how much he appreciated being a part of Paradox Sports. He said that it had opened many opportunities for him. He said that he liked being a part of the “tribe” the most. The camaraderie within Paradox is unparalleled. Here is Tommy’s facebook update following our ski day: “Today was bye far the b.day i skied in 26in of new snow at Breckinridfe. N.Boul on one leg god am i wiped with a smiel and joy photos will post in a few days.”
My opinion was that it was awesome to hang out with a couple of my friends and enjoy some awesome skiing. I can not wait to do it again!
