On Saturday 16th August 2008, Darol Kubacz achieved his dream of becoming the first paraplegic to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro purely under his own power. Reaching 18,400ft, Darol completed the grueling climb in 10 days and sat higher than any other paraplegic has climbed without help.
The new course is the toughest in the history of the event, with an overall climb of over 16,000ft, organisers are keen to ensure participants have prepared adequately for the world's toughest wheelchair and handcycle race. A list of qualifying events is due to be released by the start of November, with upcoming events in both the USA and Europe counting towards qualification.
Free2Wheel is an excellent website dedicated to providing travel guides and reviews of wheelchair access in India for people planning trips to the region.
Hilary Lister, the female sailor attempting to conduct the first solo circumnavigation of the UK by a quadriplegic, has been forced to cancel the challenge after 53 days at sea. Plagued by horrendous weather, problems with her boat's keel and water damage to her specialist control equipment, Hilary is determined to complete the challenge and has vowed to return next year.
Challenge Alaska, organisers of the famed Sadler's Alaska Challenge are getting set to make an announcement about the 2009 extra special 25th Anniversary race known for being the world's hardest wheelchair and handcycle race.
Darol Kubacz is back on Kilimanjaro with his Freedom For Life team having launched another attempt to become the first paraplegic to make it to the summit of Africa's highest mountain. 2 years ago, during his first summit bid, Darol was forced to turn back with 'just' 3,000ft to go when he developed pulmanory edema (altitude sickness) and came close to death, he's spent these last two years training and preparing for another attempt and started out from the base on 7th August.
So you want to get out on the rock face and maybe even try climbing El Capitan, rock climbing for paraplegics and quadriplegics with good upper body strength isn't impossible but you will need some slightly modified equipment to make thing go smoothly.
Tour operators in Africa though are among the first in the world to realize that disabled travelers are a relatively untouched pool of customers and revenue, and that catering to this market can be big business in an otherwise saturated tourism market. Far from simply modifying their original set-up to be accessible, many safari operators have re-built from the ground up to cater specifically to disabled travelers.
Unless you live in some kind of mystical nirvana that allows you to ski perfect powder, camp on lush green pastures and dive in tropical waters all year round, you're going to have to take a flight somewhere at some stage to get to your chosen adventure destination. One of the things we get emails about most often is how does flying on an airline work when you're in a wheelchair, so it's obvious that a lot of people have a lot of questions.
You may of noticed the little Flickr RSS feed in the sidebar, well this displays random photo's from our group on Flickr and we want you to join us in showing how you push the limits in a wheelchair.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
0 Comments