Two Bits

Hey, it’s another beautiful day in Colorado. Going to be a little hot, I guess–around 100–but still, a great day to get out. How about hiking Deer Creek Canyon? If we hit the trail early, we can avoid the worst of the heat…

I met Steve Rarey, a rangy, friendly guy with an infectious grin, who is the founder and Director of Blind Outdoor Adventures (BOA), and Bruce Stoddard, an avid hiker at the trail head.

We started up the trail, Steve in the lead. Bruce used his cane and Steve’s vocal cues to navigate. The ascent was gradual at first, and fairly wide–the technical term Bruce and Steve used to describe it was a ‘2-butt trail’–but soon we started to climb. As the trail curved up into the hills, the hike became more challenging. The trail was narrower and more rocky, and sometimes there was a significant drop-off on one side. Steve’s cues were graphic: banana right, left shoreline. Occasionally Bruce stumbled. Occasionally I stumbled, too. Bruce fell a couple of times, but it didn’t stop him. The two guys joked constantly. They were clearly having a great time, in spite, or maybe because of, the sweat and dust.

Bruce is working on using hiking poles, so at one point, he gave his cane to Steve, who closed his eyes and hiked blind. Since Bruce isn’t really comfortable with poles yet, they were pretty evenly matched. I concentrated on trying to give some meaningful directions and keeping up.

Bruce plans on scaling a ‘14er’ this year. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, a 14er is a peak that is 14,000 feet above sea level. Some folks out here collect 14ers the way people in other areas of the country collect sightings of rare birds. Climbing to 14,000 feet is something that very few people do, even here in Colorado, the fittest state in the nation, but Bruce plans to be one of them. He’ll get there just like any other athlete – by training hard. The fact that he is blind might slow him down a bit, but not very much. On the last leg of the trail we passed a family with a couple of teenage kids. We beat them down. Bruce and Steve were doing fine. I was breathing hard.

Note: Blind Outdoor Adventures, <www. blindoutdoors.org>, based in Littleton, CO, is a recently established non-profit that provides opportunities for people who are visually impaired to hike and camp. After years of guiding blind skiers, Steve decided that he wanted to share more of what he loves about Colorado. Since its inception a few months ago, BOA has guided just under 200 miles of trail.