[NFB-Idaho] Erin's What's Your Everest: Blindness and Hiking

[Donald Winiecki]

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On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 12:01 PM Erin A. Olsen via NFB-Idaho <
nfb-idaho at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> ⛰️  My Everest: Blindness -  First Hiking  Experiences
> Follow my Colorado adventure here:
> https://give.nobarriersusa.org/fundraiser/3356709
> Vision loss and blindness can be devastating for the person and their
> families, impacting literally every part of their life. Each person’s case
> is unique as is there response to it. 🚧  As with other challenges, it can
> be ignored or it can be taken on. I chose to take it on. Now that didn’t
> happen initially. I had to go through that initial adjustment phase, but
> then I enrolled in my “blind classes” from the Idaho Commission for the
> Blind and Visually Impaired (ICBVI) and got wicked-good blind skills from
> their talented and dedicated staff. 👍
>
> There were a LOT of things I needed to learn to do differently from 🍳
> cooking to using a ⌨️ computer non-visually. The one that meant the
> difference between being isolated at home and living the life I wanted was
> the ability to navigate independently. 🦯   I did not fight use of the
> white cane. I appreciated it because it told others I was blind, not just
> someone who fell over or ran into things. I DID have to learn how to use it
> though. It’s not just a matter of tapping left and right, it means I DON’T
> run into or fall over things any more.
>
> 👩🏻‍🦯 Orientation & mobility (O&M) was the scariest part of my training
> though, due in part to my own personality traits. During our lessons, I’d
> be told to leave the Commission and find my way to specific places in
> downtown Boise. Walking down a sidewalk, finding my way out of a parking
> lot, crossing streets, and finding a specific door in a row of storefronts
> is difficult. As a person who is a perfectionist, I did not like that I
> could not prepare for this or do it well the first (or even fourth) time.
> With my instructor Kevin Jernigan’s  support and persistence, I did learn
> to do it though.
>
> 🥾  Throughout my training, Kevin had shared stories of people who used
> various techniques  to accomplish different activities despite their
> blindness. One day, I asked him about how we could safely do things like
> hiking, especially by ourselves.  We talked about it a few times before I
> asked him if we could do some “off roading” rather than just our urban
> navigation. We decided to do a hike at Camelback Park. Working my way up a
> trail, over or around rocks and keeping my balance was challenging. At the
> top, I was rewarded with a warming spring sun, a slight breeze and that
> amazing sound of almost-silence you only get when in a wide open expanse.
> It was FABULOUS and I was hooked. I think it was before we got back to the
> car that I said I wanted to hike to Table Rock.
>
> Kevin said he thought I was the first student to ever ask to do that but A
> couple of weeks later, Kevin, myself and a fellow student now friend,
> Marci, successfully hiked to the top. We navigated the entire way
> non-visually. Kevin did give marci and I a hand-up onto a particularly high
> piece of rock, but that had nothing to do with vision, most people would
> have liked that help. Other than that, he was there for support, but we did
> it ourselves. 🏁 It took us some time, I think it was a little over 2 hours
> or so. Like Camelback, standing on top of the mesa and reveling in that
> accomplishment was amazing. 🌄
>
> Blindness absolutely impacts me everyday, in almost everything I do. It
> takes me much longer to
>
> Help support me and the What’s Your Everest event:
> https://give.nobarriersusa.org/fundraiser/3356709
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