Staunton State Park

[ProCaliberTraveler]

These images come from Staunton State Park in Colorado. This little state park about 30 miles southwest of Denver was my reason for visiting Colorado for the first time in my life.

This park has what's called the Track Chair Program, which allows disabled people to use a chair with treads on it so they can use the hiking trails. The chair looks like a cross between a regular wheelchair and a military tank. It has two large batteries under the seat and the rider can be strapped in for safety. The chair does not have suspension so if it hits a rock or root in the trail, the rider certainly feels it. In the vertical image below, notice the tracks the chairs create on the trail.

I have a wheelchair-bound friend in San Francisco who signed up to participate, and invited me to join him on this trek. It was a wonderful 3.5-mile hike with about 250 feet of elevation gain and plenty of wildflowers. My favorite images from the hike, besides the ones of my buddy being in the great outdoors, are of the peaks and clouds that day.

 

[AlanLichty]

A very cool opportunity to experience. Sounds like a fun trek in a beautiful place. Love the scenery in this set.

 

[JimFox]

Very cool Michael. That's great that the park has that option. You described the wheel chair well, but if your friend doesn't mind, add a photo of him in it.

It's funny, as an ex-Engineer I had spent a life time creating machines in the food manufacturing sector. There has been more then once where I have looked at a wheel chair and thought how poorly designed and inefficient they are. Just in my head I always wondered why they simply haven't combined parts from a bike with a wheel chair. Not to the degree of those recumbent bicycles I think they are called, but using the same basic frame as the current cheap wheel chairs, but with slightly smaller wheels to allow for gearing and hand pedals to power the wheels. I would have guessed there is something like that already as I have had that thought for many years, but I have never seen one like what I was thinking.

 

[Beth]

great shots and cool deal on the track chair. one of the state agencies has a gator on tracks that's used to access places a regular gator gets stuck. like the beach and the parking lots at the fair after it rains.