Hiking guide offers a new way to find accessible trails

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Jenny Schmitz on the Skyline trail at Mount Rainier National Park. (Ted Bashor)

Washington Trails Association

WTA’s Hiking Guide has a new filter — one that helps users determine whether or not a trail is wheelchair-friendly.

We’ve been working on this tool for a while, relying on insight and expertise from a cohort of hikers who use wheelchairs, including Jenny Schmitz of Wheelchair Wandering.

What makes a wheelchair-friendly hike? Our conversations highlighted that there’s much more to identifying hikes as wheelchair-friendly than simply presenting a list of trails. It’s more about empowering the user to make their own choice by highlighting details about surface type, grade and cross-slope (the slant of the trail bed).

WTA’s new accessibility filter highlights what trails might be good for a wheelchair user. More information about each trail is provided in the hiking guide entries.

Jenny summed it up succinctly. “The first question to answer is: can you even get a wheelchair on it? Then, depending on who you are and what kind of wheelchair you use, you need all this other information to tell if a trail might be open to you.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/life/hiking-guide-offers-a-new-way-to-find-accessible-trails/

[Native]

1. Impressive

[Hoyt]

2. Excellent. And it's not just paved trails, although the one in OP is stunning.

[ret5hd]

3. On a closely related note:

(watch for a while…the message is “kindness”, not anger. AND it is mentioned that the state he is posting from has purchased multiple adaptive-bicycles so handicapped hikers can enjoy the trails)