Living in Squaw Valley and the surrounding Tahoe/Truckee area is living a bit of an extreme or exotic lifestyle compared to many around the world.  We enjoy the outdoors and the playground it offers us to recreate and exercise on a daily basis.  The majority of the community is athletic and participate in a variety of outdoor sports which are common here but may be viewed as dangerous or extreme to others and the limits are always being pushed… bigger, better, higher, faster.  I guess what I am trying to say is the average local has a skewed sense of extreme.  On a big powder day in Sqauw Valley you will see hundreds of people jumping off cliffs of all sizes and bombing down the mountains, it’s part of the ski day.  So it takes a community like this to produce the people who push to the next level, beyond what is commonplace in their everyday life, the truly extreme.  And this brings me to The Push: A South Pole Adventure.

8 men are setting out on an adventure to the South Pole.   “On January 17, 2012, for the first time in history, two adaptive athletes will push the limits and themselves to the most inhospitable place on the planet – the South Pole. The chosen date marks the 100-year anniversary when Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition reached the earth’s most remote spot.” (from The Push website)

The group of men on the trip include the two adaptive skiers, a team member for each of them and then four crew members to document the trip.  Of these 8 men, 6 of them are Tahoe/Truckee locals and of those 6, 4 are friends of ours, 3 of which live in Squaw Valley.  So here is this first ever trip with adaptive skiers pushing themselves both physically and emotionally to the South Pole, and the team is comprised of our locals and friends.  What an incredible community we live in.

If you would like to support The Push, they are collecting donations in $10 increments on their website.