VAIL, Colorado — Heath Calhoun is just weeks away from learning if he's made the U.S. Paralympic team — it's a long way away from stepping onto a snowboard for the first time with the Vail Veterans Program in 2004.

Calhoun, 30, walks with two prosthetic legs — he's an above-the-knee double amputee. He was still learning how to walk at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington when he strapped on that snowboard in Vail in 2004.

While snowboarding was fun, he wanted to feel like he had more freedom on the snow — because of his injury he had to hold his ski instructors' hands on the snowboard.

“A few months later I tried mono-skiing and I just absolutely loved it,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun grew up in Virginia and had been skiing a handful of times as a teenager with a group from his church. He enjoyed it, but it just wasn't something he was able to do regularly.

He tried snowboarding with the Vail Veterans Program because he had set his mind to it. Vail Veterans Program founder Cheryl Jensen remembers seeing Calhoun step off the plane in Eagle with his snowboard boots slung over his shoulder.

“I remember saying, ‘Wait a second, we've never taught above-the-knee double amputees to snowboard,” Jensen said. “He was determined.”

It wasn't until Calhoun tried the monoski — the equipment that he originally thought looked too restrictive — that he felt the wind on his face that made him feel alive, he said.

“I really enjoyed it — it was very freeing,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun mostly used a wheel chair to get around back then and said he always had to look for curb-cuts, ramps and elevators. He was sick of looking for special features to help him get around — he just wanted to get around the same way as everyone else.

When he got on the snow in his monoski, he could use the same chair lifts and ski the same runs as anyone on the mountain. He loved the way that made him feel.

He tried the monoski in another veterans program in Aspen before coming back to the Vail Veterans Program a year later. He had already progressed beyond needing a ski instructor holding onto him with straps from behind — he was doing it all on his own.

Now Calhoun is part of the competition team for Challenge Aspen, a group that provides recreational activities for people with disabilities. He moves to Aspen from Tennessee every Novemeber through April to train.

His family supports him a lot, he said, but it's tough to be away from them for so long.

“I'm really excited and proud of him,” said his wife, Tiffany.

Tiffany Calhoun loves seeing her husband do something that he loves. When he's skiing, he doesn't feel disabled, she said.

“It's really rewarding,” Tiffany Calhoun said.

The best part for Tiffany Calhoun is watching her husband and son ski together. The couple's son, Mason, is 7 years old and Heath Calhoun worried he wouldn't be able to do something this physically active with him. Heath Calhoun can't wait to ski with his daughters, Brystal, 5, and Bailee, 4, someday, too.

“There's nothing like him and my son Mason going through the trees and jumps together,” Tiffany Calhoun said.

It's rewarding for Jensen, too. Not only does it show her the success of the Vail Veterans Program, but it shows how the human spirit can get through anything, she said.

“To see somebody like Heath who has taken this as far as he has is just incredibly inspirational,” Jensen said.

That's why Jensen has already booked trips to Vancuver in March for herself and Heath Calhoun's physical therapists, doctor and a woman who was injured at the same time as Heath was in Iraq. They want to be on the sidelines cheering him on as he races down the mountain toward winning a medal or two.

The announcement on whether Heath Calhoun has made the U.S. Paralympic Team should come toward the end of the month, but Tiffany Calhoun isn't worried.

“I have every confidence that he'll make it,” Tiffany Calhoun said.

Community Editor Lauren Glendenning can be reached at 970-748-2983 or lglendenning@vaildaily.com.