[NAGDU] Article about serious blind hiker

Fri Apr 15 12:35:35 UTC 2016

Yeah Cait, I remember Bill Irwin, too, so I was surprised this guy was
turned down.  Who knows? <shrug>
But I thought it was cool.  I'd like to go hiking, though not anywhere near
as far as this guy.  I don't have anyone detail-oriented enough to do the
kind of prep he does, though.
Tracy

-----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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