Organised by Snow Sports NZ and supported by the Halberg Foundation, the Snow Sports NZ Adaptive Festival has been running for over 15 years. Moving from its usual location at The Remarkables to Cardrona for 2025, Freedom Mobility helped provide accessible transport. Here’s what we got up to
The Snow Sports NZ Adaptive Festival is a real highlight of winter, providing three days of fun where adaptive skiers, snowboarders and snow lovers can get outside, socialise and challenge themselves on the mountain. For 2025, the festival moved from its previous base near Queenstown to Cardrona, nearer to Wanaka.
The move had its advantages, but it did mean losing access to a (non-accessible) shuttle bus service. So Scott Palmer, Competitive Pathways Manager at Snow Sports NZ, put his thinking cap on and came up with the very good idea to contact us. As a result, we provided an accessible wheelchair van for the duration of the event–a first for the festival. “We have names for all our vans,” says Margaret Hawkes, Director at Freedom Mobility. “The one we supplied is known as ‘Hipster’ and we did a few Facebook posts about it in the run up to the event. It was very useful, capable of carrying nine passengers, including two wheelchair passengers, up and down the mountain.”
Kevin, Margaret’s brother and a retired paramedic, volunteered as the driver and Margaret went along to check out the festival, bumping into a few of our customers along the way.
According to Scott, everything worked smoothly. “We’d pass passenger details on to Kevin and he sorted all the logistics from there,” he says. “He’d pick up participants from their accommodation, up the mountain or even the airport for one family. I know of at least two people who simply wouldn’t have been able to attend without the accessible transport.
We were also pleased to include an Australian visitor, who was celebrating her birthday, enabling her to take a full part in proceedings. So it really made a huge difference”. Kevin also ended up taking participants to events in the evening.
In recent years, more and more people have been trying adaptive snow sports for the first time, which is amazing to see. With such success comes a quandary, however. “It was incredible to have the van, and it made the event even more accessible,” says Scott. “But there’s a real shortage of accessible transport, and I suspect next year even more will be needed. And even if we get more vehicles, we’ll need more volunteers to drive them.”
Volunteers really are the backbone of the festival, across the board. This year’s relied on 70 of them, so the call really is out for more. If you’d like to play a part in this amazing event next year, in a beautiful part of the world, Snow Sports NZ would love to hear from you. You can visit their website at adaptivesnowsportsfestivalnz.com or email Scott directly at [email protected].
