Park program welcomes people with disabilities

Holly Kays
| Word from the Smokies

Born in Blount County, Carly Pearson grew up considering the outdoors a way of life. When she wasn’t exploring the stunningly diverse landscape of nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park, she was giving it her all on the soccer field. As an adult, she became a wilderness firefighter for the National Park Service.

Then in 2002, she suffered a spinal cord injury while working in Oregon. Pearson has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since.

“One of the hardest parts of that injury for me was that after I had kids, I couldn’t share my joy of the outdoors with them in the same way I did growing up,” said Pearson, who is now the ADA coordinator for Knox County, Tenn., and a volunteer at Catalyst Sports, a nonprofit dedicated to providing recreational opportunities for people with physical disabilities. “For almost 20 years, I didn’t go to the park very often because I was frustrated that I couldn’t get past the lookout.”

Now, a partnership between the park, Catalyst and Knox County is making the Smokies more accessible than ever before. Whether it’s participating in a menu of free ranger programs or taking a stroll in one of the park’s new, reservable, off-road wheelchairs, people with disabilities can keep exploring long after the pavement ends.

Park Ranger Katie Corrigan leads the effort, which began exploring options for accessible backcountry adventures after meeting a pair of veterans in the Cosby area of the park in 2019. They wanted to know what options were available to them in the Smokies, given their physical limitations. Shortly after Corrigan’s father suffered a stroke, the conversation struck a personal chord.

Corrigan began researching the possibilities. The first step, she learned, was to measure the trails for key parameters such as width, slope and obstacles, so people with disabilities could make informed decisions about where to go. Smokies staff spent more than 150 hours over two months conducting site visits to the park’s trails.

In 2023, the park received a grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation, which enabled it to purchase two GRIT Freedom Chairs, which can cross streams and navigate rocks and roots, and to partner with Catalyst Sports and Knox County to offer three adaptive hikes and one bike tour. The adventures attracted a total of 220 people, including 44 people using adaptive technologies.

“I never thought my career with the Park Service would go this way, but I feel truly honored to be a part of this program,” Corrigan said, adding that she has “never had such a rewarding experience.”

Last year’s success paved the way for more funding and expanded offerings in 2024. This summer, with support from Friends of the Smokies and the Kampgrounds of America Foundation, the park offered a hike and boat ride on Hazel Creek, a kayaking experience on Fontana Lake, and an overnight backcountry experience on Abrams Creek. Two hikes and two bike rides are planned for the fall, with each activity offered twice on the scheduled day.

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Since her injury, Pearson has found many ways to get back into the swing of things, competing nationally in paracycling, paratriathlon, and paraclimbing events, winning multiple championships. In 2019, she completed nearly 70 miles of the Camino de Santiago in Spain using an off-road wheelchair. Now, she enjoys using her 22 years of wheelchair experience to ensure that participants in the adaptive program feel comfortable and confident on the trail.

“I’m just so happy that I can help other people because someone helped me early on with my recreational and athletic endeavors and showed me that life wasn’t over,” she said. “I just had to find a way to adapt and work around some of the barriers. And for me, the satisfaction is that I can help other people get out there and participate.”

For many participants, the experience was transformative. Pearson recalls one woman, an avid hiker before her stroke, crying “tears of joy” for most of a walking program, so excited was she to be back in the woods. Another woman, a mother of twins, beamed as her children ran circles around her as they walked along a river together. The experience was a “dream come true” that she had thought impossible.

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“As parents of a young adult with disabilities,” one family wrote, “this gives us hope that things are finally changing for the better.”

Ranger-led tours fill up quickly, but wheelchair users can explore the park at any time by reserving one of the four GRIT Freedom Chairs the park now has, thanks to the support of the same organizations that funded the programming. The chairs are available Mondays and Tuesdays at the Sugarlands Visitor Center on a first-come, first-served basis, and can be reserved online Wednesdays through Sundays. Users must register at least three business days in advance and can do so up to 30 days in advance. After registration, a staff member will contact you to verify that the chairs meet your needs and abilities. A volunteer will then be assigned to meet you at the selected trailhead, checking to make sure you are comfortable with the equipment before boarding. Wheelchair users can bring their own trail companion or hike with the volunteer.

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Currently, the chairs can be used on the Gatlinburg Trail, the first 2.4 miles of the Little River Trail, the back trail to Cataract Falls, Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail, Bradley Fork Trail, Oconaluftee River Trail, Deep Creek Trail to Indian Creek Falls, Middle Prong Trail, John Oliver Trail, Elijah Oliver Trail, and the areas around the Sugarlands, Oconaluftee and Cades Cove visitor centers. The Park Service is working to expand that list.

“We want the public to understand that Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a place for everyone, including those with mobility challenges,” Corrigan said. “We strive to be an inclusive outdoor community where everyone can enjoy the outdoors with their friends and family.”

The Smokies are at the forefront of these efforts, but they are not alone. State parks in both Tennessee and North Carolina offer a variety of accessible amenities, including accessible hiking and kayaking programs in several North Carolina parks and reservable off-road wheelchairs in 22 Tennessee state parks. Catalyst recently applied for a grant from the National Forest Community Recreation Fund, which would fund an adaptive recreation event in the Pisgah National Forest, as well as data collection and inventory of trail accessibility. Several other national parks also offer off-road wheelchairs, but not ranger programs like those in the Smokies.

“We’ve opened a door that won’t close behind us,” Pearson said. “At least that’s my hope.”

To register for upcoming custom programs or to reserve a walking seat, visit catalysatorsports.org/great-smoky-mountain-adaptive-hike-bikeTo volunteer for the program, please send an email using the form at nps.gov/grsm/contacts.htmFor information about the accessibility of the trail, visit nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/trail-access-information.htm.

Holly Kays is the senior writer for the 29,000-member Smokies Life, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the scientific, historical, and interpretive activities of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by providing educational products and services such as this column. For more information, visit SmokiesLife.org or contact the author via [email protected].