Paralysis can’t stop climber’s reach
The resilience to continue living on his own terms is inspiring
Josh Hancock broke his back when he fell while ice climbing in Snoqualmie, Wash., on Dec. 4, 2014. That was no small bump in the 35-year-old’s ambitious, outdoorsy life. He became paraplegic, requiring him to use a wheelchair and rendering his three-storey Seattle townhouse inaccessible. Hancock refused to let his injury stop him.
In the span of a year, he went from being dependent on medical bedside care to setting off on a yearlong, 48,000-kilometre solo road trip in a modified van to learn the adaptive version of his favourite sports and find a new place to live. He landed in Bend, Ore., 180 km southeast of Portland.
Not surprisingly, Hancock has big plans for this summer. He intends to use an inflatable raft to row 130 km of the Deschutes River, join friends on another raft trip on the Salmon River and surf the Oregon Coast.
That’s leaving out all the mountain biking and road cycling Hancock plans to enjoy along some of his favourite Central Oregon routes.
People often tell Hancock his resilience to continue living on his own outdoorsy terms is inspiring.
“Our joke in the adaptive community is that we call inspiration ‘the i-word,’ “said Hancock, referring to it as if it were a dirty word. “I ski, for example, because I like skiing — I don’t do it for others’ benefit.”
Hancock learned how to sit ski through Bend-based Oregon Adaptive Sports on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor, where he is now a fixture on winter mornings.
He is one of about 500 individuals this year who will receive some form of adaptive sports instruction from Oregon Adaptive Sports, said director Pat Addabbo.
Hancock is also one of several people with a physical disability who has moved to Bend in the past 18 months after making contact with the non-profit.
“Just (Josh’s) presence, pursuing everything that everyone else is pursuing, keeps people aware that there are people who visit here and who live here, who may not use the same types of equipment ... but they get all the same (benefits) of being outside and share the desire to be in all the same places.” Hancock doesn’t want to sound glib about the people who gasp with admiration when they spot him making turns in a sit ski or tidying his RAM ProMaster van, which he accesses by pulling himself up a ramp with the help of a fixed rope and the upper body strength he’s since regained.
“We’re showing the positive outcomes, the resilience of human beings, to be adaptive,” he said.
“We show that you can get through this crap. You can still have fun — that’s the chord we strike with people.”
“This crap” is one way to describe the long journey, literal and personal, Hancock has travelled since he fell four stories while ice climbing.
Hancock stayed in a Seattle hospital for five weeks.
His parents supported him for another eight weeks as he relearned routines: how to get around in a wheelchair, make meals, shower, dress and drive his car, which was fitted with a hand-controlled brake and accelerator.
He had to move out of his Seattle townhouse. Purchasing it was a personal milestone for Hancock, but it had become the “least accessible building on the planet,” he said.
“I’m pretty forgetful, and I would sprint up and down those stairs, three at a time,” Hancock said. “I was fit, and I loved to move my body. Then the house just turned into this impossible thing. I did crawl up the stairs, once, just to say goodbye to the place before some renters moved in.”
When Hancock achieved full independence, he drove his car on a solo road trip to visit a friend in Idaho in March 2015 — four months after the fall. He compared the trip to sailing a boat across an ocean.
“There was nowhere for me to stop. The whole world felt like this place I couldn’t go except for my friend’s place 1,000 miles away,” Hancock said. “When you’re climbing really steep snow — let’s say a 2,000-foot snow slope — you have this huge sense of commitment and exposure. There is nowhere to rest, and going down is much harder than going up. We use an expression ‘Up is down,’ and I had the same kind of feeling. Like, ‘I’m out there,’ in doing something so ordinary.”
Addabbo doesn’t shy from the word inspiration when talking about Hancock’s yearlong journey in his van, adding that doing so is an ambitious, scary thing for anyone to do, able-bodied or otherwise.
“I think it took an incredible amount of resilience for Josh to sustain his climbing injury and to so quickly seek out the opportunities that he wanted,” Addabbo said. “I do find the trip he took inspirational. I think a lot of people think, ‘Ah, how cool would it be to live in a van and ski all winter long.’ But things get in the way. It’s not always things like disabilities but jobs, budgets and bills. It’s a risk to leave everything behind for six months or a year and go on that kind of journey. To do that ... shows a tremendous amount of resilience. It takes a lot of guts.”