[NAGDU] Article about serious blind hiker

Thu Apr 14 20:15:38 UTC 2016

Hmmm,  I honestly have problems believing  stories like this, but if it is
accurate and true then more power tto him--smile when Usually it ends up
they got a lot more help than they admit or they haveususable vision and so
on.
 people start telling me how their dogs identify products at the tore I tart
loosing my  ability to believe, , but then again it could be the reporter.
And I'm glad he was at least honest about all the preparation time and
coordination with his hiking advisor, so many people who do things like that
like to present them as if they never got help at all. When I was a kid and
heard those stories I would feel like crap because I thought "my god I'd
never   be able to do those things". Then I met people who did seemingly
incredible things and one or two of them were actually honest with me about
how they did things and I realized you tackle challenges one step at a time
and using adaptive techniques rather than just starting out with no planning
and preparation and help and doing all this stuff.

In other words, people who accomplish things, blind or sighted, don't just
spring out of Zeus's head like the goddess Athena fully formed as it were,
there is work, preparation, and if you're blind adaptive techniques and so
on.

I'm afraid hiking like that wouldn't be for me, but taking long walks, sure.
And let's see, soon he'll write a book and all the sighted folks will say
how amazing it is...meanwhile the next person who applies for a job will be
turned down. Funny, blind people can do all sorts of stuff, but no one says
"hey, I heard a blind guy hikes the Appalachian trail so therefore a job at
our bank I'm sure will be no problem for a blind person like you"--lol

Anyway, sounds like I'm grousing, but I'm not,  just giving my honest
thoughts.

My word, that must be a special dog 10 to 15 miles a day to keep the dog in
shape--smile.
Furthest I waked myself at once was I think five miles, but then again I
never really kept track--smile. When I've been in more urban environements
or on bike paths maybe I walked more, have no idea.

Good wishes to all no matter where you walk and how far.

Dan the mman, Parker the nut

-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Caitlyn Furness
via NAGDU
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 3:43 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Caitlyn Furness
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Article about serious blind hiker

Tracey,

thanks so much for sending this article along!!

I found it interesting, though, that the guide dog schools turned him down
at first.  Bill Irwin was a seeing eye grad and hiked the AT years ago.

Cait

> On Apr 14, 2016, at 2:49 PM, Tracy Carcione via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
wrote:
> 
> This is an article from AFB Access World about a blind hiker and his 
> guide dog.
> 
> Tracy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Hiker and Tennille: Trevor Thomas on The Trail
> 
> 
> Deborah Kendrick
> 
> When Trevor Thomas lost his sight 10 years ago, he heard a lot about 
> all the things he could no longer do. Most of those "can'ts" involved 
> the activities he had loved best all his life.
> 
> Since boyhood, Thomas had immersed himself in what he calls extreme
sports.
> At age 3, he started skiing. Over time, his activity dance card 
> included hiking, mountain biking, racing Porsches, sky diving, and 
> more. Sometimes, he pursued the sports he loved in the company of 
> others, sometimes not. The constant was his love of risk-taking and 
> testing limits, particularly the limit of his own physical endurance.
> 
> Then, a rare autoimmune disease changed the game. Overnight, he was 
> significantly visually impaired. At the end of eight months, he was 
> totally blind.
> 
> He had finished law school with the dismaying albeit crystal clear 
> recognition that he had no desire to practice law. He had embarked on 
> that educational journey with a fascination for our legal system, but 
> finished his law school education with a certain disdain for corporate 
> practices and billable hours.
> 
> "I never took the bar exam," he explains. "And I never will."
> 
> He had lost his sight, lost interest in the career path that had taken 
> years of study to complete, and now had naysayers apprising him of his 
> new options, which ranged from limited to nonexistent. A blind guy, 
> ran the conventional wisdom, could forget about all those outdoor sports
activities.
> 
> 
> Telling the Story with Miles
> 
> 
> Some 20,000 miles later, those who believed Trevor Thomas was no 
> longer a hiker were obviously mistaken. Since losing his sight, he has 
> hiked more than 20,000 miles, including all 2,175 miles of the 
> Appalachian Trail and the 3,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. 
> Before losing his sight, he says he was barely a recreational hiker, 
> camping in the back country for a weekend here or there. Today, the 
> shorter spells are the ones he spends off the trail.
> 
> The first several thousand miles Trevor Thomas hiked with a sighted
partner.
> But his partner failed to show one day in Colorado, and the idea of 
> getting a guide dog began to take shape. If he intended to continue 
> rigorous long distance hiking and intended not to turn over the 
> control of when and where he could do that hiking, Trevor concluded 
> that a trained guide dog was the only reasonable solution. He needed 
> eyes to see what lay ahead on unpredictable trails, and his own eyes
weren't working.
> 
> His background in corporate sales gave him plenty of confidence and 
> conversation so, thinking it was a matter of signing up, he picked up 
> the phone and began calling guide dog training schools. Living in 
> North Carolina, it only made sense that he began with schools nearest 
> the east coast.
> 
> One after another, the schools rejected his plan. A guide dog, they 
> told him, could not handle the kind of stress and terrain he was 
> describing. His plan, they said, was dangerous and irresponsible. They 
> weren't in the business of training dogs for hikers.
> 
> Then he called Guide Dogs for the Blind. He explained again his love 
> of hiking and his desire to use a guide dog to help him navigate the
trails.
> The reaction, a novel one by now to his ears, was one of challenged 
> curiosity. They didn't know if it would work, but they were almost as 
> interested as Trevor to find out.
> 
> 
> A Match Made in Heaven
> 
> 
> In October 2012, Trevor Thomas returned home with his new hiking 
> partner, a black Labrador named Tennille. While in training at the 
> Guide Dogs for the Blind school in San Rafael, California, Trevor and 
> Tennille completed the same coursework typical students complete. He 
> learned to command Tennille through town and across streets, to make 
> turns without encountering obstacles, and to locate doorways and stairs.
> 
> They also hiked trails in the John Muir Wilderness, using the same 
> signature positive reinforcement techniques employed by the school to 
> teach Tennille to alert Trevor to landscape elements needed for his hiking
safety.
> Tennille's first significant hike with her new partner was 1,000 miles 
> of the Mountains to Sea Trail, hiking from Clingman's Dome in western 
> North Carolina to Jockey's Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks. It 
> took two and a half months and no one, not even Trevor Thomas, knew 
> for sure whether Tennille could return to guiding him through city work
after that adventure.
> 
> She did. On the trail, Tennille carries a backpack with about 3 pounds 
> of her doggie essentials: her bowl, her boots, her Ruffwear, and her 
> favorite elk antler chew toy. Trevor now carries between 38 and 42 
> pounds, including food for both himself and Tennille, a two-person 
> tent, stove, water purification system, and a few pieces of essential
technology.
> 
> 
> Trail Preparation
> 
> 
> Time spent in the back country ranges from one to seven months for 
> Trevor Thomas, and he estimates that he spends one hour of preparation 
> time for each mile on the trail.
> 
> To prepare, he sits down with his expedition coordinator who has 
> gathered every available guidebook and topographical map of the trail. 
> With excruciating detail, the trail is outlined in writing, noting 
> every possible touchable marker available. A cliff, a boulder field, a 
> road to cross, a stream, or river. That detailed course description is 
> then emailed to Trevor's iPhone and serves as his audio navigation on the
trail.
> 
> "If I know I have about 3 miles to go before a designated turn," he 
> explains, I know from time and my own cadence when we've gone about 
> 2.5 miles of that distance. I then begin to echolocate and follow 
> Tennille to identify the touch marker that tells us when to turn."
> 
> Tennille has alerted him to countless dangers, from cliffs to boulder 
> fields to rattlesnakes. "I'm the big picture guy," he summarizes, "and 
> she is the detail girl."
> 
> He does not carry GPS equipment. Besides the rapid burning of 
> batteries, he says that much of the terrain he hikes would not be 
> clearly marked by GPS software anyway. Instead, both he and Tennille 
> constantly send Google Earth pictures of where they are back to his 
> expedition coordinator, who can then confirm that they are where they
expected to be.
> 
> "I'm really not very tech savvy," Trevor says. He owns every Apple 
> product
> -- iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, and a MacBook--but says that he 
> doesn't use any of them with any significant level of sophistication.
> 
> The emailed trail instructions documents can be saved to his phone and 
> thus don't depend on a cellular signal. For emergencies, he carries a 
> satellite phone, which enables him to call anywhere at any time.
> 
> When not on the trail, Trevor says that Tennille absolutely requires 
> walking at least 10 to 15 miles daily. And he has taught her some 
> pretty amazing city tricks as well.
> 
> "In the grocery store," he boasts, "she can identify at least 25 
> different products." He says he can direct her to find pharmacy, deli, 
> coffee, wine, bread, and more, and she does each 
> flawlessly--encouraged, of course, with praise and a treat for each
success.
> 
> 
> Sponsorships
> 
> 
> Trevor Thomas says that his future will always include hiking. The 
> former corporate sales representative and law school graduate is now a 
> professional hiker and fulltime ambassador for a host of outdoor and 
> canine products. He and Tennille are sponsored by companies such as 
> Marmot, Big Agnes, Ruffwear, Cliff, Taste of the Wild, Ahnu, and 
> Camelbak, among others. They don't accept sponsorship from any product
they don't use or fully support.
> 
> To read more about Trevor Thomas and Tennille or follow their next 
> adventure, visit Trevor's website 
> <http://www.blindhikertrevorthomas.com/About-Trevor.html> .
> 
> Comment on this article
> <mailto:lhuffman at afb.net?subject=The%20Hiker%20and%20Tennille:%20Trevo
> r%20Th
> omas%20on%20The%20Trail> .
> 
> 
> 
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