Rising to the Occasion

Strapped into a climbing harness and secured by a rope, Joanne Ronquillo “scanned” the rock face with her fingers. She was making her sixth trip in 24 hours up the six-story-high rock in Joshua Tree National Monument--enthusiasm that earned her the nickname “Climbing Queen.”

Ronquillo, 19, is totally blind.

“Go to your left, Joanne,” her “angel,” or coach, Matthew Weiss, shouted from below. He is a veteran climber, although he is only 12. “Bring your right hand up. There’s a big edge right above your head. You’re doing great. There’s a nice crack. Step your left foot in the crack.”

Ronquillo found the crack. With the most difficult part of the climb below her, she practically scampered to the top.

A junior at Los Angeles’ John Marshall High School, Ronquillo was one of 31 blind or partially sighted teenagers who spent a weekend this month camping and rock climbing at Joshua Tree with the help of volunteers.

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Los Angeles’ Braille Institute organizes the trips twice a year for youngsters enrolled in its youth centers in Los Angeles, Orange County, Santa Barbara and San Diego. The volunteers are from the Southern California Mountaineers Assn., a nonprofit climbing club.

More youngsters sign up than can be accommodated.

“I want the challenge,” said Ronquillo, who has been blind from birth. “It’s like taking a test. I just want to prove to everybody that I can do it even if I don’t have sight.”

It is a test all of the youngsters passed, but not without a few anxious moments early on.

“There were a couple of times up there when I said to myself: ‘I got to go down,’ ” said Chris Anderson, 13, of Anaheim, whose vision has been seriously impaired by scar tissue on his retinas. Encouragement from his angel kept him going to the top.

Long Beach special education teacher Gerry Cox, 39, is a mountaineer association volunteer who leads the semiannual trips for the Braille Institute, which serves the blind and visually impaired with more than 200 education programs and services, including the use of “talking book” machines and classes in independent living skills.

On this trip, Cox had 25 volunteer climbers, including a magician, a surgical technician, teachers and a judge.

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Most of the climbing gear--shoes, helmets, harnesses--is donated by association members, Cox said, but he is trying to find sporting goods stores willing to chip in too.

Michael Larsen, a 6-foot, 205-pound 17-year-old, had a hard time finding a harness that fit. Most climbers, he said, are skinny.

A student at Los Angeles’ Westchester High School, Larsen suffers from ocular albinism, a birth defect that makes his eyes extremely sensitive to light.

“I’m totally blind during the day, but I can see better at night,” he said.

As Ronquillo made her way up the rock, Larsen waited his turn--determined to complete the climb he had been forced to abandon a day earlier.

“I got 20 feet from the top,” said Larsen, who was making his ninth climbing trip with the Braille Institute. “I couldn’t reach the next handhold. I had to go back today.”

And this time, he reached the summit.

Danielle Fernandez, 15, of Santa Barbara said that on her seven rock-climbing trips with the institute over the past three years, “I learned not to be scared.” Her biggest satisfaction, she said, comes from “just showing people we can do it too.”

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Matthew Weiss, who coached Ronquillo, has been climbing since he was in kindergarten. His parents also volunteered for the Braille Institute trip.

“It’s fun helping,” Matthew said. “Rock climbing is tough even if you can see. Sometimes we blindfold ourselves to see what it’s like.”

Matthew’s father, Jay, is a professional magician who has been climbing for about nine years and volunteering for the institute trips the past three years.

“It can be difficult for the kids,” he said, “but we encourage them to just take one step at a time.

“The kids are just so inspiring. They have faith. They get up there, and they just do it.”

Christy Scaife, 14, of Harbor City, did it despite her initial fear.

“It’s kind of scary when you first start,” said Christy, a ninth-grader at Narbonne High School. She lost her sight when she was 3 but regained some vision in her left eye four years later.

“The hardest part is finding handholds and figuring out where to put your foot,” she said. “But it’s cool. It gives you a feeling of being on top of the world.”

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Today’s centerpiece focuses on the Braille Institute, which serves people who are blind or visually impaired with programs ranging from the free use of “talking book” machines to classes in independent living skills. For information call (213) 663-1111.