Free All-Terrain Chairs Are Making the Great Outdoors Even Better
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May 2023
Ben Oxley was 35 years old when he connected with nature for the first time. Born with cerebral palsy, he'd spent his whole life in a wheelchair, unable to access hiking trails or rugged parks without the help of some very dedicated friends and serious equipment. However, that changed recently when Oxley visited Red Top Mountain State Park in Acworth, Geaorgia, about an hour from his home. He wanted to try one of the park's cool new offerings: an all-terrain chair (ATC).
"It had been six or seven years since I last visited a park," says Oxley, who grew up in Georgia and has never left the southeast US. "I've been down because I don't have a caretaker right now, and I just didn't know what to do. But when I got in that chair for the first time and got myself comfortable, it opened up a whole new world for me. All my struggles just went away. I really got to experience nature for the first time independently. I've been in nature before, but I was more in control of my environment and where I wanted to go."
There are many types of all-terrain mobility devices, ranging in price from a couple grand up to $20,000. The brand that Oxley rented for free at Red Top Mountain is known as an Action Trackchair, a battery-powered wheelchair with tank-like treads. He described it as a "mini bulldozer" that can go over rocks, roots, across streams, logs, and even over downed trees. That day exploring Red Top Mountain was life-changing for Oxley. "I was out there about four hours," he says. "I was able to feel the breeze by the water. With a regular power chair your wheels get stuck in the mud, but this time I was able to get down by the river, get next to the water, and have my buddy stand next to me and take cool pictures of me."
These free-to-use ATCs are the result of a new partnership, called All Terrain Georgia, between the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Aimee Copeland Foundation, a nonprofit that creates more recreational opportunities and outdoor accessibility for people with disabilities. Last November, the foundation unveiled a fleet of 12 new Trackchairs (at $12,500 a piece) to be shared among certain Georgia State Parks.
"Having these chairs available is a game changer for so many people like me, who love nature but can't access the beauty of the outdoors without specialized equipment," says Aimee Copeland Mercier, who created the Aimee Copeland Foundation in 2017. Copeland Mercier is a licensed clinical social worker with a background in eco-psychology. "The idea for the foundation actually came to me 10 years ago while I was in the hospital recuperating. My research in the field of eco-psychology taught me that nature is inherently connected to the human psyche. We're part of nature, and being immersed in that home consistently reminds me what is truly important and brings so much peace and renewal."
After a 2012 zip-lining accident left Copeland Mercier with necrotizing fasciitis (a flesh-eating bacterial infection), she lost both her hands, her right foot, and her entire left leg. Just 24 years old at the time, she struggled to adapt to life in a wheelchair. "After my injury, I realized if I wanted to get out there again it was going to take technology to bridge the gap between wilderness and accessibility," says Copeland Mercier. "I didn't want boardwalks and sidewalks; I wanted to do back country. So I tried out all the technology that exists and ended up buying an all-terrain chair personally because they're so badass!"
After deciding on the Action Trackchair, Copeland Mercier and her foundation designed a registration process and protocol that would protect not only participants using the chairs but also the soil and ecology in these parks. Reserving an ATC is free (though some parks do charge for parking) and includes an online training course on how to responsibly and safely use the adaptive equipment. Copeland Mercier says the certification course takes about an hour, and the foundation and parks require 72 hours notice to move adaptive equipment to parks where it has been reserved.
There are numerous organizations scattered across the country like the Aimee Copeland Foundation that loan ATCs to parks, preserves, and counties. Whereas All Terrain Georgia requires training and a buddy system, some don't require either. There's no national ATC loaner organization, and so far most state parks have preferred working with outside partners to provide or maintain the technology.
The first such chair-loaner initiative in the US was the Staunton State Park Track-Chair Program near Denver. Launched in 2017, the program now has five chairs, and according to Friends of Staunton State Park, the nonprofit overseers of the park's mobility technology, more than 1,000 visitors with disabilities have hiked and fished at the park since the program's inception. In recent years, other organizations have popped up to serve state parks in Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin, and now Georgia. And more are on the way. If you're interested in a program in your area, check your state or local park service's website. There's likely an accessibility section with more information about what's available, where you can go, and how to get involved.
In 2019, Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore became the first national park to begin a partnership to provide access to all-terrain mobility devices. Jeremy Buzzell, manager of the National Park Service's Park Accessibility for Visitors and Employees Program, explains why national parks, like state parks, have preferred working with outside groups instead of acquiring the technology themselves. "These organizations understand how to maintain the equipment and they understand how to train people with disabilities to use it safely and effectively," he says. "So our role in the partnership is in providing places that we know people with disabilities can safely operate the equipment that is being provided by some other party."
While state parks may have had a head start, the National Park Service is catching up. The Aimee Copeland Foundation is currently working out contracts with the Park Service to bring ATCs to two national parks in Georgia: Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and Cumberland Island National Seashore. "They work like a wonder on the beach--I love taking my chair to the ocean," says Copeland Mercier, who's excited about expanding her program to include national parks. "We have 12 more chairs on the way, to be spread throughout parks in rural and coastal Georgia. Hopefully, by summertime we'll have 24 in all."
Copeland Mercier's dream is to have enough adaptive equipment, and a specialty van to transport it, to service every park in the state. The response to All Terrain Georgia has been so positive that she's been in talks with organizations in neighboring states about using her program as a model. Back in February, she presented a webinar open to the entire Park Service on the basics of all-terrain mobility devices and best practices for using them in parks.
This expanded park access for people with disabilities has meant parks across the country having to rethink what "accessibility" means. "We've been focused on park accessibility since the late 1960s," says Buzzell. "What that accessibility always looked like was modifying the environment to make it more accessible. The shift that we've started to see in recent years is a difference between accessible recreation, modifying the environment, and adaptive recreation, using a device that overcomes any environmental barriers."
Buzzell says this had boiled down in practice to providing better information on park and trail conditions to people with disabilities so they can make their own decisions. "It's more about understanding the variety of technology that might be coming to the parks and what it can do," says Buzzell. "We're hearing about all kinds of devices that are appearing on the market and how we need not only to prepare ourselves to accept those devices but also how to prepare people with disabilities to use them in these spaces in a way that balances access and resource preservation." And more technology is coming, from recumbent compact ATVs, known as Outriders, to combination mountain-bike-wheelchairs, and even beach-friendly chairs that float on water.
For now, people like Oxley are plenty impressed by what they can do in an ATC. "Just because you have a disability, it don't mean nothing anymore," says the Georgia native. Oxley is heading out this weekend to use a Trackchair at Hard Labor Creek State Park. He hopes to fish, which he hasn't done since he was 6. "I noticed a fishing pole holder on some of the chairs," says Oxley. "Now that I can get to the water, my buddy was like, 'Let's take a break and do some fishing.' So we plan on bringing some fishing poles!"
