Group Provides Adventures for Disabled

Brad Coyle often spends his vacation kayaking with a paralyzed youth, rafting through rapids beside a blind paddler or cross-country skiing with someone developmentally disabled.

“It’s a priority, I thrive on it and look forward to each trip,” said Coyle, a trained volunteer with Environmental Travelling Companions, a nonprofit group that has provided outdoor adventures for people with special needs for 15 years.

Coyle said he has had a “whole barrel full” of unforgettable experiences with ETC, including a recent kayaking trip to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. One girl in the group, he said, had severe cerebral palsy and couldn’t cross the bay in a kayak so she was transported to the island on a ferry boat.

Once on the island, however, Coyle and two other guides took the girl out of her wheelchair and onto the choppy bay in a triple-seat kayak. He sat in the center holding her on his lap while the others paddled.

‘Feel Her Reaction’

“I could literally feel her reaction--the thrill and excitement she got out of it,” said Coyle. “She was giggling and laughing. It was incredible. That’s something you can never get enough of, the joy on people’s faces.”

During the upcoming winter ski trips, Coyle said, the volunteers and others who are able-bodied guide other participants or pull them along on special sleds. Everybody participates, no matter what the special need, he said.

“We always go as a group,” he said. “We never leave anybody behind.”

Coyle, who owns a solar installation business in San Francisco and works with alternative energy systems, said the adventures with ETC has made him examine his own life and priorities, steering him toward more people-oriented and outdoor education goals.

“In my day-to-day life I see things differently and value life more, and it comes from working with ETC,” Coyle said.

The young girl in the kayak, he said, was severely paralyzed, her body twisted and her hands useless, “but she was the quickest, brightest girl I’ve ever seen, and she had the same emotions as all of us.”

“And, that’s the payback, special times like that.”

Diane Poslosky, executive director of ETC, said the organization, based at San Francisco’s Ft. Mason Cultural Center, took about1,200 people with “special needs” on rafting, kayaking and ski trips during the past year. Most of the trips were arranged through agencies involved with the hearing impaired, blind or visually impaired, physically disabled or developmentally disabled.

“ETC is a real proponent of experiential education, learning by doing something,” Poslosky said. “When you see people doing something they might not otherwise do or think would not be possible, it’s real inspiring and that inspiration is contagious.

“I can do the same trip on the bay from Sausalito to Angel Island and back, and I’ve probably done 100, without getting bored. What happens is that people’s initial discovery and their surprise and wonder that they really can do something exciting and adventurous rubs off, and that makes it new every time.

“It’s that kind of spirit of enabling or helping to enable people to expand their own abilities and not so much focus on their disabilities, that’s what we’re all about.”

One blind kayaker, Neil Kuhlman, traveled across the bay to Angel Island in a double boat and then started off solo in a single-seater around the island with a guide in another kayak shouting directions.

A tense moment occurred when Kuhlman accidentally tipped over, but he freed himself, righted the boat and floated calmly until Poslosky and others reached him. Undeterred, he went back out and finished cruising along the island’s rugged west bank.

140 Trained Volunteers

Poslosky said Environmental Travelling Companions has a group of 140 dedicated volunteers that are trained in wilderness safety, first aid and how to interact and respond to the needs of the participants, many of whom become capable guides themselves.

ETC’s annual budget of $150,000 comes mostly from private foundation grants and helps support the full-time staff of three as well as subsidize trips. The group also holds a “benefit outing” to raise funds and occasionally receives individual donations.

“I think that everyone learns and grows a lot on these trips,” said Poslosky, who joined the organization 10 years ago while supervising an environmental education program for the Mt. Diablo School District in Contra Costa County. “We all have special needs, some people’s are just more subtle than others . . . and we all need help from each other.”

One volunteer, graphic designer Suzanne Hidekawa, spends her weekends on the kayaking trips. An outdoor enthusiast who had worked previously at a recreational center for the handicapped, she said the ETC provided a perfect blending of her two main interests.

“The trips are fun, and I learn a lot about people,” she said. “I especially like the overnights on Angel Island. It brings us close to the participants and breaks down barriers. After the weekend, we feel like old friends.”

One participant of two ETC trips, Gary MacPherson, was a member of the Alpine ski patrol, a commercial river guide and an expert white-water kayaker before he broke his back in an accident in 1983.

“My previous life was very active, so I wasn’t apprehensive at all,” MacPherson said of his adventures with ETC. “I love the organization. They’ve been around for years and they help people.”

A big plus for paraplegics like himself, said MacPherson, is the availability of adaptive equipment for back support while in a kayak that works without trapping the paddler in the event of a spill.

MacPherson won two gold medals and one silver during swimming competition in Houston last summer at the National Wheelchair Games. He is also making a trip to Winter Park, Colo., to assist with the U.S. Disabled Ski Team.

ETC, MacPherson said, has broken down barriers by providing good safety instruction and equipment for outings and by following up with “feeling” trips where the adventures are discussed.

Occasionally, said Poslosky, trips are also formed for stressed groups like troubled teens, cancer patients or people suffering with AIDS.

Of five AIDS patients who went kayaking on the bay last year, she said, four have since died.

“It’s really sad, but yet the trip was a wonderful experience to share with them. The perspective and view of the city was just glorious,” she said. “It’s a real gift, and it’s nice to be able to provide a bit more of a spark to their lives while you can.”

Adding excitement and wonder to people’s lives, she said, is part of what the program is all about.

“I don’t feel outdoor adventures are a panacea, but it really is good medicine for the soul. We want more people to have the opportunity to have such an experience.”