Willing and Able

Gretchen Poe and Anne Johnson go way back--all the way back to second grade, in fact. Theirs has been a friendship forged in the outdoors, in camp-outs, horse-packing and backpacking trips and in a stint working together after college at a camp in Colorado.

So, after Johnson established the Outdoor Adventures program at Casa Colina, a Pomona-based nonprofit rehabilitation facility for people with physical disabilities, it was only natural that she eventually call her friend to ask for a hand.

Poe, of Fountain Valley, has since become a key volunteer in the program that draws its participants from throughout the region.

“About four years ago [Johnson] just asked me to go on one of the trips, and I said ‘sure,’ ” Poe says. That first outing was horse-packing in the Sierra near June Lake. “It was great,” she recalls. “It’s a great experience for the clients. Going in by horseback, they’re able to get into some really pretty country.”

Since then, Poe has been a regular on Casa Colina outings. She takes part in five or more trips a year, including sailing, backpacking, river rafting and skiing.

Johnson started the Outdoor Adventures program about a decade ago as a way of giving people with spinal or head injuries a chance to experience rugged outdoor activities, granting them “the right to risk and the right to access activities of personal choice,” she says. “The disability should not determine what the person does or does not do.”

Professional outfitters are hired to run the trips; Casa Colina staff and volunteers attend to the clients, focusing on safety and on “making sure everyone has a good time,” Poe says.

The group’s clients--some are physically quite mobile; others use wheelchairs--are not along simply as passengers but are expected to take part to the best of their abilities.

Jim Sachtschale of Garden Grove is a frequent participant in sailing trips offered by Casa Colina. The fact that clients participate in their adventures “is the whole point of the program,” he says. “They put you to the task of maximizing the abilities that you have.”

Many of the clients would otherwise have little chance to take part in such sports, Johnson says.

“I think that having access to these activities is really exciting, really empowering,” she says. “It’s really interesting to watch the process as people become more confident.”

Among recent outings was a two-day rafting trip down the Lower Kern this summer, an annual outing that includes a camp-out along the river as well as runs through rapids with names such as Oscar’s Nightmare, Pinball and Hari Kari.

Poe was along, as were other regulars, such as Scott Reid of Norco.

It was Reid’s third rafting trip, his favorite among the many program offerings he’s taken part in. Nine years ago, Reid was hit by a drunk driver and left in a coma for 4 1/2 months. Since then, his physical and mental recovery has been slow but steady. The programs offered by Casa Colina have been an important part of that recovery, his mother says.

“I like playing with the water . . . and being able to take control of the raft you’re in,” Reid says. “Everybody works together. You’re part of the group that makes it all work.”

Participants in the Casa Colina activities aren’t sheltered from the exciting but unpredictable elements of a wilderness adventure. The Lower Kern raft trip, for instance, included a new slice of adventure: The raft in which Reid was riding flipped and sent everyone into the water. All the passengers were quickly and safely scooped from the river by other rafts in the group, while Reid and a guide got back into the first raft.

“I helped him paddle” and collect fellow passengers from the other rafts, Reid says. “It was pretty exciting.”

Sachtschale was a sailing buff before multiple sclerosis began to take its toll. While working on a project more than 20 years ago on the East Coast, he and his wife would sail off Cape Cod; later, with friends in a rented sailboat, they island-hopped for 19 days in the Aegean Sea, a trip Sachtschale recalls with great fondness.

It was not long afterward that the physical setbacks of M.S. began to intensify. “At that time, I thought I would never get back to doing any sailing,” says Sachtschale, who uses a wheelchair.

A few years ago, he met Johnson and heard about the Casa Colina outdoor program and decided to try a two-day trip to Avalon on a 61-foot ketch.

“I didn’t think I could do it, but with Anne’s help, and with Gretchen, I did it. I did it on my hands and knees, but I did it,” he says. “Gosh, I enjoyed that.”

He has taken several more sailing trips since and has become close with other clients who, like him, return again and again.

“It becomes almost like a family,” he says. “You find that there’s another community of people that you become involved with.”

The program, he said, has allowed him to recapture a feeling he thought was lost forever.

“I can’t begin to express what this has meant to me,” he says. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repeat that [Greek] trip, but what Casa Colina has done is allow me to reexperience something that’s been near and dear to me.”

Poe’s favorite outing is an annual backpacking trip up San Jacinto, which she had to skip this year. “The backpacking trip two years ago was the most gratifying because we got everyone to the top,” Poe says. Other favorite activities include the horse-packing trips, “because that’s my favorite thing to do.”

When asked why she keeps coming back, Poe jokes: “Because [Johnson] keeps asking me.”

That may be part of it, but there’s also the community-like feeling on the trips and the sense of being part of a fulfilling program.

“The gratification of the program,” she says, “is being to give people this kind of experience. It seems like most people really gain something.”

Casa Colina trips often fill quickly. Upcoming excursions include a fall camp at Big Bear from Friday through Sunday (cost: $80 for adults, $50 for children) and a sailing trip to Catalina, Nov. 1-3 (cost: $175). Other events, with dates to be announced, include sea kayaking and adapted scuba diving. (909) 596-7733, Ext. 2216.