Higher Learning

Kneeling at the bottom of the 2,608-foot Piestewa Peak in Arizona, Darol Kubacz felt a sudden wave of intimidation. About to embark on one of his first solo hikes, the doubts started plaguing him. Could he make it to the top? Would he get stuck? Before he could psyche himself out, he just started moving.

While it’s always tough to try something new, it’s even harder when you’re pioneering a sport and testing out newly custom-built equipment that no one’s sure will actually work.

Kubacz, a paraplegic who’s been wheelchair-bound since he suffered a spinal cord injury during a military training accident in 1993, completed his hike in a three-wheel off-road bicycle specially designed with low gears and a low center of gravity to roll over steep terrain. A true trailblazer in adaptive hiking that day in 2002, he put his newly built wheels to the test on a steep pile of loose rock banked along an 80-foot drop off to the right. At this point in trail he almost turned around. But Kubascz, a former downhill off-road bike racer and ski jumper, both sports he took up after his injury, summoned his inner adrenaline-junkie long enough to drag past this sketchy point. The next thing he knew, he was cresting the peak and staring out across the skyline of Phoenix.  

“I felt free,” Kubacz says. “Free to experience the trail and free to wander through this area that had been forbidden to me before. It was the ultimate fuel and motivator.”

Eager to help others with disabilities experience the same outdoor freedom he felt, Kubacz founded Freedom for Life (fflfoundation.org), an Arizona-based organization that provides hiking and road cycling adaptive equipment and offers scheduled and non-scheduled hiking events for people with disabilities.
 

Off Roading
After conquering plenty of desert and mountain terrain in Arizona, Kubacz decided to take adaptive hiking to even higher ground with a climbing attempt on Mount Kilimanjaro in August 2006. While preparing for Kili, Kubacz trained at 24 Hour Fitness in Phoenix to get his upper body ready to wheel and pull up 19,340 feet. Unfortunately, he only made it 16,000 feet, but not due to a lack of preparation or training. At high altitude he developed pulmonary edema. Half his lungs filled with fluid and if he pushed any farther he’d have risked his life. He descended he says with “a lot of strength and positive energy still to burn.”

After Kili all he wanted to do for months was sleep and eat. He didn’t even want to look at his off-road bike. But as time passed, the nag to get out racing and climbing again slow emerged. Back in the gym, he met with club manager Tomas Martinez, who set him up with a training program, focusing on posterior muscle exercises to counterbalance all the muscles around Kubacz’s rotator cuff that he’d been constantly overworking during climbs.

“I showed him a lot of exercises to leverage his body so he wouldn’t have to get out of his wheelchair and could be more autonomous in the gym,” says Martinez, who has trained several clients with varying health issues and disabilities. Martinez taught Kubacz several medicine ball exercises and helped him figure out how to use weight machines on his own.

“I would never guess a trainer would be able to come up with something so creative for me,” Kubacz says. “I felt my posture change, I felt stronger and more balanced, and I had a lot less pain and inflammation.”

After Martinez improved his training plan, Kubacz felt strong enough again to consider another go on Kili. In August that’s just where he’s headed. As with last time, he will not be pushed, pulled, carried, or physically assisted in any way as he advances up the mountain.

“Sometimes I wonder who’s more handicapped, him or me,” Martinez says. “He doesn’t have the mental handicaps a lot of us have and he inspires me to think of all the things I don’t do because my mind tells me I can’t.”

This time on the mountain Kubacz plans to make the climb more aerobic instead of anaerobic, ascending more gradually in order to up his odds of the summit. His team of four consists of a documentarian; an emergency medicine doc; a mountain rescue expert and ex Army ranger; and an experienced expedition leader, Kevin Cherilla, who first challenged Kubacz to try climbing and has also led the first and only blind person to the summit of Mount Everest.

While Kubacz hopes to summit, he knows there will be a lot of unknowns at the highest elevations. “We’re going to face challenges, and there’s no guarantee what the outcome will be,” he says. “We’ll have to adapt.” By all previous accounts, adapting is what Kubacz does best.
 
Read a blog of the Kilimanjaro climb in August at fflfoundation.org. Check out 12millionlives.com to see more inspiring member stories.