Disabled Master Outdoors Challenges

Crash helmet strapped in place, face taut with concentration, climbing student Sam Huizar made his way up the swaying Jacob’s ladder to the rope and pulley network rigged high in the air between two towering trees.

Carefully he balanced himself on a teetering, one-foot-square plastic platform strung from the ropes, ready to pull himself to the next tree.

On the ground, his fellow climbers yelled and cheered him forward.

The occasion: a rigorous rope-climbing course at Calamigos Ranch, one of dozens of outdoor classes taught by Woodland Hills-based Wilderness Institute (WI), a nonprofit recreational organization.

What made this course different from the usual fare offered to Southern California’s physically adventurous fitness addicts were the participants. Most of the cheers came from people in wheelchairs or on crutches. And Huizar, who has muscular dystrophy, was climbing with rubbery limbs, using his arms instead of his weak hands, which were unable to grasp the ropes.

On this particular weekend the ropes course, a staple WI activity, was being made available to physically disabled people by the Institute’s Special Services Division.

Day’s Final Challenge

The dramatic rope climb was the climax to a day filled with increasingly arduous, complex team and individual exercises, all culminating in this one final challenge.

The Institute, founded in 1984 by former National Park Ranger Bradley Childs, is one of several local groups that provide wilderness experiences to people without easy access to the outdoors--the physically, emotionally and developmentally disabled, seniors, shut-ins and inner-city school children.

Another group is the Sierra Club’s

Inner City Outings Committee, Angeles Chapter, which was created in 1983 by a small band of Sierra Club volunteers. This outreach program works with such community agencies as schools, churches, youth groups and rehabilitation centers to plan outdoor adventures, mostly in the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains.

Operates ‘Braille Trail’

In Franklin Canyon, a few minutes away from Beverly Hills’ opulent Golden Triangle is the 600-acre William O. Douglas Outdoor Classroom (WODOC), another volunteer nonprofit organization established in 1981 to provide environmental education to school children, their families and the community at large, including the physically disabled. Rather than transport participants to Southland wilderness areas, WODOC operates all activities on site, and features a Boy Scout-constructed “Braille Trail” for blind and handicapped.

As Childs points out, “It’s important for everyone to have the chance to experience the outdoors in many ways because it helps them to learn about nature and about their own abilities.

“What we teach is especially valuable for the physically challenged. Because so many of them live such protected lives, they’re afraid to take risks by trying physically demanding activities. We encourage them to take those risks . . . .”

The ropes course at Calamigos Ranch provides a good example of WI techniques at work, beginning with recreational director Tina Johann’s orientation talk.

‘Maximize Your Potential’

“This is your day to experience adventure that will challenge you physically and mentally,” she said to the attentive group. “We’ll work on team-building, strength and trust. Remember, we all have limitations--some are real and some are self-imposed. Today, you’ll discover the difference and learn to maximize your potential.”

The exercises evolved through staff brainstorming sessions, Childs said.

Through trial and error, amid heated discussions, the participants managed, with increasing levels of cooperation, to get through exercises that ranged from a simple get-acquainted name identification game to an elaborate scavenger hunt with hidden clues.

The final activity before lunch break was an obstacle course made maddeningly difficult with stringent rules: half the group was blindfolded, there was no talking allowed and participants had to communicate nonverbally to help each other safely through the course.

During lunch, group consensus was that the day was working, especially in terms of insight.

“I’d usually rather do things for myself, and it’s been quite an experience relying on someone else,” said Bruce Van Hoorn, a wheelchair athlete.

Paraplegic Rhonda Guller noted, “How we react to the game is how we react in real life. It’s clear to me that my issue is trust.”

Keeping his back turned to the ropes course yet to be conquered, Huizar said, “I’ve never spent much time outdoors and I was hesitant to come here today, but it’s fun. But I won’t look at the ropes until it’s time!”

Ordinarily, the Wilderness Institute charges $75 a person for an outing. This day, however, the climb was free because the institute had received a grant from a local cable TV station. Group leaders had volunteered time and Calamigos Ranch had donated its facility.

The Wilderness Institute has about 30 volunteers but, Childs said, they are always looking for more. The institute has an in-house training program, taught by people with “extensive equipment and first aid experience. We draw from the best techniques available, and we get experts to come in and teach.”

The Sierra Club program, according to Pepi Feinblatt, trains its volunteers in much the same way, except that it draws from other Sierra Club sections for training experts, equipment and most funding. “We’d like to have more money for transportation,” she said, “so we could help more groups--many of them don’t have transportation. But, on the whole, we’re pleased with our program.”

Becoming Better Known

Unlike the WI, which schedules classes, activities and trips nearly every day of the week, the Sierra Club program so far has kept to a calendar of day trips, with occasional overnight expeditions. Feinblatt says the program is becoming better known in Southern California; and community agencies, such as the Braille Institute, come to it with requests for various kinds of hikes. “It’s an exciting group to work with,” she said, “and worthwhile because we’re introducing people to a new environment and to the Sierra Club as well.”

The William O. Douglas program offers workshops, hikes and naturalist training to the Southland community. The program and facilities have been designed with the disabled in mind. The Braille Trail, for example, features 20 signs in Braille giving information about local flora and fauna.

According to founding president Sooky Goldman, the William O. Douglas program exists not just to provide a scenic area in which to observe nature, but as a place “for visitors to understand their relationship to the environment. That’s why we have trained docents available to relate the area’s history and to discuss Franklin Canyon’s ecology and geology.”

There is considerable contrast between the William O. Douglas program’s cement wheelchair path and the bumpy, rocky creek-side ground surrounding the trees used for the WI ropes course. The climbers, most admitting to a degree of tension, wheeled, walked or hopped over the rough ground and waited nervously for climbing instructions. Each put on a harness attached to ropes that were held by volunteers. In case of accident, they would be prevented from falling outright.

Still, no one wanted to slip; and, from the ground, the trees seemed to tower. One by one, with considerable joking and jockeying for position, the climbers took turns pulling themselves up the swaying ladder to the ropes. There, depending on ability and inclination, they sat on the tiny platform or swung hand over hand to the far end.

Some chose to go blindfolded, either for bravado or so they couldn’t see to the ground. Some went halfway forwards, the rest of the way backwards, or vice versa. The cheering section kept up a constant din as each person completed the course, launched into space and was lowered by the volunteers.

Then it was Huizar’s turn. He inched slowly along, painfully scraping his bare arms on the ropes.

Pushing his limits, as advised that morning, he continued as far as he could go, then took a deep breath, let go of the ropes and was lowered to the ground. He looked at his sore arms and smiled proudly at the sound of deafening cheers--it was a shared moment of triumph for all.