Imagine hurtling down a mountain at 60 or 70 miles per hour, surrounded by wet and often icy snow, trying to squeeze through plastic gates. Now imagine doing all of that without being able to see anything in your peripheral vision.

Welcome to what Mark Bathum takes on every time he skis.

The adaptive skier and Island native recently competed in the 2010 Paralympic Games held March 12-21 in Whistler and Vancouver, B.C. Bathum has retinitis pigmentos, a degenerative eye disease which essentially has caused Bathum to have tunnel vision.

Bathum, along with his guide, Slater Storey, of Sun Valley, Idaho, finished second in the downhill for a silver medal and was fourth in the super G. He didn’t finish in the super combined race because he straddled a gate during the first run of the slalom for a last-place finish. He was disqualified in the giant slalom race.

“We finished fourth in the super G, which is disappointing,” said Bathum, who lives in the Seattle area. “We were only a second and a half out of first; we skied it conservatively because we thought, with the snow conditions and the way the course was set, that there would be a couple of turns where we could get into trouble, so we skied those conservatively and we didn’t need to, and that cost us a podium. It’s always disappointing when it’s because of a tactical decision instead of an executional error.”

But Bathum said the silver medal in the downhill helped to temper any dissatisfaction the two had of the event overall.

“We’d be really disappointed if we didn’t come away with the silver, so we’re thrilled we got a medal. That made everything worthwhile,” he said. “We definitely had the potential to get one or two more, so we’re disappointed we didn’t get another medal […]. We were thrilled to have participated and to have gotten a medal. No regrets, no remorse that we didn’t win more.”

The skier started his career locally when he was 9 or 10 years old, a later start than many, he said. By the time he was in high school, Bathum was splitting time between Wenatchee and Mercer Island, taking part in a program at Wenatchee Valley Junior College which allowed students to train at Mission Ridge Ski Area while staying in school. After graduating from MIHS he spent the next year focused on skiing before heading to college.

“I took one year and sort of dedicated it to skiing, but by then without my knowing it my eye disease had started taking back my ability to ski the race course so the last year was not as productive as the previous years,” he explained. “I trained well because you have the course memorized, but I wouldn’t race well, I’d ski off the course or miss gates.”

For essentially the next decade Bathum took a break. He went to college, lived in Europe and Los Angeles for several years, which understandably “didn’t really lend itself to skiing”. After moving back to Seattle he picked it up again, quickly rediscovering his passion, despite the fact he could not longer see as much as he once did.

“Quite honestly, when I was diagnosed with my eye disease in ‘86 I thought someday I’d probably do the Paralympics, so four or five or six years ago I started to think about it and more or less said if I don’t do the 2010 Games I’ll be too old to be competitive at the next series, so I attended my first adaptive race (in March 2008) and have been pursuing it with a passion since then,” he said.

In the visually impaired portion of adaptive skiing, of which Bathum is the only U.S. male to compete in Whistler, participants must follow a guide.

“Basically by rule, I have to follow him and the key thing that we do is that we use these two-way radios to speak to each other the whole way down,” said Bathum. “I try to keep him about a half gate in front of me and that way I subconsciously imitate his form and follow his line. If he gets too far ahead that starts to break down, I don’t follow his line and I have to look at the gate, look at the terrain, look at his line and him so I start looking at four or five things, which I’m not able to do. I try to communicate distance between every turn so we keep consistent spacing, it doesn’t work perfectly, but that’s the goal. He communicates to me all the things I don’t really see anymore, that might be a change in rhythm in the race course or any tricky gates, terrain changes, a roll, going from a flat to a steep, any of those things if I don’t know they’re coming can cause me to get off line, get off balance, scrub speed or even fall.”

Bathum said the major challenge is simply the amount of information that the duo must process, all while speeding down the course. He said in solo races, skiers focus on the gates and form, making sure they are being as effective as they can to earn top times. With a guide, Bathum said, racers add a whole other level of details they must pay attention to.

“The minute you start skiing with a guide you add a whole lot more stuff,” he said. “I’m hearing all kinds of communication from him, so you’re processing that at the same time I’m trying to give him distance. Adding all of that additional communication on top of what you would normally think about causes it to be a lot to process.”

Bathum said without a doubt the Paralympics were an amazing experience.

“It was absolutely fantastic, ski racing, even for abled bodied racers, skiing is not a popular sport in the U.S. so there are very few spectators and very few fans and then we’re a much smaller subset of that even, so we’re racing for the sense of accomplishment, for the joy of competing and the joy of commaderie with your fellow teammates and competitors,” said Bathum. “Then to go to an event where there actually are people watching and appreciating and yelling and cheering, it brings an energy and excitement we’re not accustomed to. They just had so many more people up there working tirelessly to make sure we had a great experience and we really did. The other thing that is fun, I’m sure this is the only time that those of us who do what we do in adaptive skiing feel like an elite athlete just because everything is taken care of for us. I’m sure its what a professional athlete experiences at every game, but for us, a week and a half was great.”

Bathum said he hopes to compete in the World Championships next winter in Italy, and depending on how things are going, possibly try for the Paralympics in Russia in 2014.

For more information about Bathum and adaptive skiing visit his Web site.