White Salmon native hikes Grand Canyon in wheelchair
White Salmon native hikes Grand Canyon in wheelchair

Growing up in White Salmon, Geoff Babb had always been a huge lover of nature and spending time outside. Between his work as a fire ecologist and his love for outdoor activities like skiing and backpacking, his active lifestyle had always been really important to him. Then, in November 2005, he had a stroke that changed everything. It could’ve killed him, and it almost did. It left him in a wheelchair, with only limited use of one of his hands. However, Babb wasn’t ready to give up the outdoors and all of the things he loved, despite the limitations of his chair.

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AdvenChair’s Grandest Achievement Yet: Bright Angel Trail in Grand Canyon National Park
AdvenChair’s Grandest Achievement Yet: Bright Angel Trail in Grand Canyon National Park

In 1869, when John Wesley Powell led the first crew of explorers down the Colorado River into what is now known as the Grand Canyon, he had no idea what kind of destructive forces lay ahead. In fact, shortly after beginning the journey, one of their wooden boats overturned in a rock-filled cataract and almost instantly split apart into kindling, destroying a full third of the group’s provisions. It only got worse from there.

Similarly, when Geoff Babb took a team of adventurers down the Bright Angel Trail in 2016, attempting to reach the Colorado River in a modified human-powered wheelchair, he was not prepared for the destructive forces lay ahead either.

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Smith Rock Records the First Wheelchair Ascent to the Burma Road Summit
Smith Rock Records the First Wheelchair Ascent to the Burma Road Summit

“Boldly going where no chair has gone before” is the mantra for AdvenChair, the all-terrain wheelchair designed to allow everyone to visit wild places not necessarily on graded trails. Geoff Babb, the local inventor of the AdvenChair, and his team use Smith Rock State Park as a proving ground for that premise, each time pushing the envelope to make the chair more resilient to hiking trail challenges. This time the goal was the Burma Road summit, with a total elevation gain of 1156 feet. They did the roughly 6-mile round trip in just over 3 hours, over gravelly steep hillsides, around boulders, and at times, very narrow trails.

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