about brad
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I have been a climber as far back as I can remember. As a kid, I always wanted to climb bigger the trees and steeper boulders. My Dad even made me little ice axes to climb snow hills during the long winters growing up in Mackenzie BC. It was in my early teen years get a proper rope and gear, and recruited a few partners from school. I was hooked, I couldn’t get enough climbing. The more time outside the more I respected the wilder of places. Strong and changing weather, gravity and good old fear.. pretty addicting stuff for my adventure seeking personality. I have to solve the problem in fount of me: get from the bottom to the top. Simple goal but the Devil hides in the many details.
In 1994 I was my first year of computer science at UNBC and working on a new, exposed multi-pitch route on Popes Peak. That October, right before midterm exams, I was in a car accident with my brother in the car. I simply fell alseep long distance driving back from a furneal to write said exams. I know what gravity feels like when it becomes deadly. Doug still wrote his exams that morning..
The following two months were spent staring at the ceiling of Vancouver Hospital, and another six months in rehab at GF Strong. My mountains were now sitting up, feeding myself grapes, moving colored pegs on a board — mundane tasks. It took a long time to be able to push a manual wheelchair and I never regained any hand function at all. Living as a Rehab was about teaching myself tricks to compensate for my lack of function. With much trepidation I went back into computer science at Langara College: although, academia could never satisfy my need for being outdoors. It wasn’t long before I started to question if it was possible to get back to the rock.
Some talk turned into a small rappel, and then grew into a much larger project. It took us ten years to climb the Stawamus Chief, but we did it! Great costs were paid for us to get to the summit in 2005. We were there for about ten minutes before getting into a helicopter because the light was going and rain was threatening. Would you invest ten years to earn ten minutes on a summit? Developing custom gear for quadriplegics has been a long and expensive process, but we did something unprecedented for my level of disability. I wonder when it will be repeated and if that person will be faster than our 14hours? I hope so, and offer all the gear and know how to whomever is willing to train for it. An open challenge and an honest offer to my fellow quads out there.
Currently, I’m a geek for hire and am chipping away at what basically is a life support system that will let me climb higher — El Capitain in Yosemite California. This blog will hold all the data and devices that we test along the way.
See more in tathaastumag.com
