LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Spectacular snow totals — 26 inches in just the past 24 hours at Lee Canyon — are a big reason to get up to the mountains outside of Las Vegas.
Sunny skies are in the forecast after Wednesday’s snows dipped to lower elevations.
“Feel Good Fridays” events through March at Lee Canyon will raise money for the Reno-based High Fives Foundation, an organization that helps athletes with life-altering injuries. It’s an opportunity to get a lift ticket for $25, with $5 going directly to the foundation.
The event has generated more than $80,000 for the foundation’s adaptive athlete programs like skiing and mountain biking.
High Fives Foundation athletes include Bishop Gorman graduate and former NCAA athlete Shelby Estocado who sustained a T-6 spinal cord injury three years ago while snowboarding at Lee Canyon. Today, Estocado is training for the Paralympics.
Roy Tuscany, CEO and founder of High Fives, is a former competitive skier whose T12 vertebrae burst in a skiing accident. Tuscany was told he’d never walk again, but today, he walks and skis.
On Friday, March 31, Tuscany and a team of High Fives adaptive athletes, many military veterans, will hit the slopes as part of the Military to the Mountains program. Each year, 22 veterans and first responders are selected for the program by the Adaptive Training Foundation and the City of Reno. Since 2015, the program has helped 165 veterans.
