Blind Skier Tests Himself So That Others Might See : Trailblazer: Greg Evangelatos of Sherman Oaks hopes that his derring-do will create a public awareness toward others who have lost their sight but not their drive.

Greg Evangelatos is at the top of Mammoth Mountain, about to take his first ride on a run called the Cornice. Reaching up to the sky like a frozen tidal wave, the Cornice is the hill of choice for thrill-seeking skiers. The faint-hearted are warned to stay on their chairlifts. Evangelatos stands on the precipice and thinks back to the first time he ever saw the Cornice. He was in his early teens, a novice skier. The bunny run was merely intimidating, but the Cornice was worse, the great unknown. He remembers telling his family that there was no way he could ever ski it. But that was then. Kids grow up.

Evangelatos pushes off from the lip of the Cornice and makes it to the bottom, conquering both the mountain and teen-age angst in one glorious swoop. He heads for the lodge: It’s Miller Time.

This might sound like just another coming-of-age story, but it has a special twist. In between the time he first saw the Cornice and first skied it, Evangelatos lost his sight.

What he didn’t have the courage to do when he could see he managed to accomplish in total darkness. To him, his journey down the Cornice is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and living a go-for-broke lifestyle.

“Some people, they just live their lives in a dark corner,” says Evangelatos, now 28. “But you can’t fear the unknown. You have to have challenges.”

Blinded in a fireworks accident 10 years ago, Evangelatos lost his sight but found meaning and purpose in his life. “I want to prove to myself and to others that the blind can do everything they want, that we can lead just as exciting a life as anybody,” he says.

Most people would find Evangelatos’ life too exciting. He water skis, sky dives from 12,000 feet and speed skates on Venice Beach. Everything he does is done at breakneck speed, especially skiing.

There’s not a blind skier--or a lot of sighted ones--who can keep up with him. A few weeks ago, he won two gold medals, including the overall title, at the World Disabled Championships in Winter Park, Colo.

Blind skiers follow closely behind guides, who shout directions over their shoulders like “hard left” or “big right.” Evangelatos and his guide, Robey Lizama of Gardnerville, Nev., often reach speeds of 50 m.p.h., which doesn’t leave much margin for error.

At the worlds, Lizama slowed too quickly at the finish line and Evangelatos ran up on his skis, got tangled and went tumbling, breaking his left collarbone. The next day, arm taped to his side, he won a bronze medal in the giant slalom.

“Not bad for a one-armed skier,” Evangelatos says, adding with irony, “for once, I felt like I was skiing with a disability.”

Evangelatos is talking in the living room of his parents’ Sherman Oaks home.

Outside by the swimming pool, Ricky, a golden Amazon parrot, is tormenting the family dog, an old pit bull named Samson, by chirping his name and doing a pretty good barking imitation. Samson comes inside. Evangelatos gets up and closes a sliding door to muffle the sound of the parrot.

“I think she likes doing that to him,” he says with a laugh before heading to the kitchen. A moment later, he returns with a cup of coffee and sits down. “When I blew myself up, that old dog lay next to me and wouldn’t leave until the firemen came to take me away.”

Evangelatos has no trouble talking about the accident that changed his life a decade ago. Like the occasional foolhardy 18-year-old, he was trying to make the world’s biggest firecracker by dismantling bottle rockets and mixing the powder in a porcelain bowl. But the powder suddenly exploded, taking his sight and mangling his left hand.

The next few months were physical and emotional torture. “I didn’t want to live any more,” Evangelatos says. “I felt so ugly. I felt I’d be an outcast in society the rest of my life. I pictured myself on an L.A. corner with a tin cup. I didn’t want to go on.”

In the hospital, his sister, Patricia, read him an article about a blind skier named Mike May, who was a world champion.

A couple of years later, Evangelatos was attending the Braille Institute in L.A. when his judo instructor mentioned a ski program run by the local chapter of National Handicapped Sports.

Evangelatos began skiing, disregarding the caution of his youth. Within a year, he had won the overall championship at the U.S. Assn. of Blind Athletes competition.

“I got bored with regular slopes,” he says. “The advanced runs were the challenge that gave me excitement, and racing became the challenge in my life.”

Before the accident, Evangelatos was coasting along “without any plans or direction.”

He played football at Birmingham High--he was a 5-foot-8, 170-pound starter at running back and defensive end--but didn’t distinguish himself athletically. College was a possibility, “but I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”

His disability suddenly gave him a cause. “I know when I accomplish something,” he says, “I open doors for blind people.”

Volunteering at the Foundation for the Junior Blind’s summer camp program, “I try to be a role model,” he says.

“I want to help children realize their recreational capabilities and understand that they can make their dreams come true.”

Evangelatos’ father, a lawyer, helped him set up Demo Video Inc., a nonprofit production company that specializes in educational videos. If he can get corporate sponsors, he hopes to distribute the videos to schools to increase society’s awareness of the capabilities of the blind.

“It’s important to educate children so they don’t think blind people are foreign creatures who belong in an institution,” Evangelatos says.

Every day, Evangelatos proves that being blind doesn’t have to be a prison sentence. He trains in Colorado during the ski season and attends L.A. City College in the off-season, majoring in radio and TV. Although he usually lives with his parents, he’s moving into a Venice Beach apartment this summer so he can train on roller blades.

“Greg is very independent,” says Lizama, his guide for the past three years. “On the slopes he’s really aggressive and likes to go for it. He’s the same way in his living skills. We lived together last winter. He was never timid walking around the room and he always figured out how to get to the local lodges and the Jacuzzi.

“One time at a restaurant, he got mad at me over something we were discussing and just took off. He wasn’t afraid to go alone.”

But that didn’t surprise Lizama. “Greg,” he says, “is definitely not scared of the unknown.”