Geoff Babb pulled up in the passenger seat of his big blue van, past the thick Western red cedars and the towering Douglas firs. As a friend rolled his bright orange wheelchair down the van’s ramp, Mr. Babb turned to the man in a helmet and climbing harness who greeted him.
Before he was ready to follow the guide into the old-growth forest, Mr. Babb had a few questions: How high can I go? How often do you switch out the ropes? Will they hold in the rain?
Leo Fischer, the owner of a tree climbing outfitter at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon, patiently answered each one. Nerves were common for first-time climbers.
But Mr. Babb, 68, from Bend, Ore., was much more excited than nervous. Once an avid rock climber, he had a stroke 20 years ago that left him in a wheelchair, with limited use of his right hand. Another stroke in 2017 further worsened his speech and mobility.
Since becoming disabled, Mr. Babb has participated in activities like sit-skiing and horseback riding. In his wheelchair, which he designed to traverse uneven terrain, he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and along the Great Wall of China. But he hadn’t been able to ascend to the heights he had reached before his stroke.
That was about to change.
When Mr. Babb met Mr. Fischer at a conference earlier this year and learned that his company, Tree Climbing at Silver Falls, had an adaptive option for people with mobility disabilities, he jumped at the chance.
“I just wanted to get off the ground,” Mr. Babb said.
A Boom in Accessible Adventure
Americans with disabilities spent around $50 billion on travel in 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the Open Doors Organization, an accessible travel nonprofit. While there are no specific numbers for adventure trips, the opportunities available are expanding, said Eric Lipp, the Open Doors Organization’s executive director. “Adventure travel is enormous,” he said. “People want to do everything now.”
In 2004, a spinal cord injury from a car accident left Alvaro Silberstein paralyzed from the waist down. When, in 2016, he posted online about traversing 50 miles through Patagonia in a wheelchair, his story went viral. He received hundreds of messages from people asking how they could replicate his trip. Two years later, Mr. Silberstein created Wheel the World, a San Francisco-based company focused on accessible travel.
Now, people with physical disabilities who travel with Wheel the World’s partners can kayak in Florida, summit the Haleakala crater in Maui, and surf in California or Costa Rica. In 2023, almost 3,000 people booked accessible trips through Wheel the World. By 2025, that number tripled to more than 9,000.
“Access to nature, adventure, it gives you confidence for anything else,” Mr. Silberstein said.
In addition to Wheel the World, similar platforms like accessibleGO and Travegali have also launched. People with mobility limitations can go on off-roading in Mallorca, Spain, or mountain biking in Colorado; and blind travelers can white water raft through tropical rainforests in Costa Rica, accompanied by sighted guides.
Shane Burcaw, a content creator who was born with spinal muscular atrophy and uses a power wheelchair, has noticed the rise in such adventurous activities. Last year, he participated in adaptive tree climbing at Silver Falls. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving his wheelchair, so the crew hooked him and his 450-pound chair to ropes and battery-powered ascenders.
As he rose up the 400-year-old, 200-feet-tall Douglas fir tree, he broke into a sweat with fear, screamed with excitement and cried with joy, he said. “It was the thrill of the lifetime.”
Erin Taylor was diagnosed with A.L.S., the terminal, neurodegenerative disease, three years ago when she was 23 years old. She experienced similar exhilaration when paragliding for the first time in California last March through a nonprofit called Adaptive Impact.
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I am eager to hear what you would like to read in The Times about America’s large and diverse disability community. What is our coverage missing? Do you have a personal story to share?
She soared through the air on an adaptive trike, looking out at the Pacific Ocean, the wind whipping in her face, and said she briefly forgot all about her health struggles.
“I felt like a bird,” said Ms. Taylor, who since her diagnosis has lost the use of her hands and arms and now has difficulty speaking.
She loved it so much that she did it again in July. Then, she decided to go skydiving. Next, she wants to try riding in a hot-air balloon, white water rafting and sailing.
“It’s the focus on what I can do versus what I can’t do anymore that feels so satisfying,” she said in an email. Nothing reminds you that you’re alive, she added, more than jumping out of a plane.
“It Felt Very Freeing”
Mr. Fischer said that adapting outdoor experiences like tree climbing for people with disabilities isn’t difficult — it just takes a little innovation.
“Really, anybody can do it if they want to do it,” he said.
At Silver Falls State Park, as Mr. Babb prepared to climb the old-growth tree, instructors transferred him from his wheelchair to a chair harness, which was tied with thick knots to a motorized rope-climbing device. It was connected to a phone app that allowed Mr. Babb to control his own ascent into the canopy.
He began to smile as soon as his feet lifted off the ground.
“I’m up!” he exclaimed, gripping the harness tightly.
He rose to 110 feet off the ground; higher than he had been in decades.
From his new aerial view point, he gazed out over the top of the tree canopy, saw a nearby winding stream and noticed flowers he hadn’t seen from the ground. He closed his eyes, smelling the damp bark and enjoying a quiet that was occasionally punctured by scattered birdsong.
“Up that high, it felt very freeing,” he said once he’d been lowered back down to the group. “I haven’t felt that before,” he added.
Then he asked if he could do it again.
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