All-Terrain Wheelchairs Arrive in Parks
As park managers focus on accessibility, burly all-terrain chairs are allowing users to get off the grid in our most beautiful places
By Emily Pennington (Outside magazine)
The following is an excerpt from a wonderful article published by Outside magazine on December 8, 2022. You can read the full article HERE.
Bill McKee was an avid outdoorsman: in 10 years of vacations to Colorado, he and his sons fished backcountry streams, hiked for miles, and summited several fourteeners, until a motorcycle accident in 2002 put him in a wheelchair. Afterward he felt unable to do many of the things he loves most. Trying the Action Trackchair, a beefy, battery-powered wheelchair with tank-like treads, last year changed that.
“Being on a trail in Colorado was a blast from the past,” the 64-year-old McKee, of Garland, Texas, said. Developed in 2008, the Trackchair, which can handle rugged terrain that would stall a traditional chair, “brought me full circle to the adventurer and explorer that lives inside me,” McKee said.
Aimee Copeland of the Aimee Copeland Foundation.
While a volunteer-led program launched in 2016 at Staunton State Park, near Denver, is considered the granddaddy of adventure-wheelchair loaner programs, others are now blooming. On November 4, a collaboration between the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Aimee Copeland Foundation debuted a fleet of 12 all-terrain wheelchairs for use, free of charge, at 11 state parks and historic sites across Georgia. This past spring, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources launched a pilot program to provide track chairs at five state parks. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which received its first track chair, donated by Kali’s Cure, in 2017, now has 15 loaners spread over each of 11 state parks and recreation areas. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks offers track chairs at eight state parks, while South Dakota has one chair and Oklahoma has two at state parks; and Wisconsin has the chairs at stations in 12 counties through the nonprofit Access Ability Wisconsin. Two years ago Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan was the first national park to offer a track chair. It now has three.
An all-terrain wheelchair in at Sleeping Bear Dunes. Photo: Friends of Sleeping Bear Dune
We at Social Forestry Foundation are committed to providing both motorized all-terrain wheelchairs like you see above, but also non-motorized options as well. Our goal is to secure funding to provide at least 5 parks with chairs that will provide a new level of freedom in the great outdoors, for those with mobility limitations.
If you’d like to help us make this a reality, please consider making a tax deductible donation today, HERE.
