Standing at 19,340 feet, Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa and the tallest freestanding mountain in the world. It is also a “walkable” mountain, rather than a technical climb, which is one reason former Paralympian Chris Waddell decided to become the first paraplegic to reach its summit solely on his own power. On September 24th, he will begin his seven-day attempt with his team of seasoned mountain climbers.

Why Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro?
“I really went into this blind,” says the 40-year-old former ski racer for Middlebury College, whose racing career took an abrupt turn when he broke his back while skiing at age 20. “I knew a little about the mountain because a former college roommate climbed it for his honeymoon.”

After retiring from 11 years of Paralympic competition following the Athens Games in 2004, Waddell wanted to do something different from Alpine ski and wheelchair racing that was not necessarily competitive but still required him to train. He took up off-road handcycling and found his new passion. Waddell says the idea to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro came to him “out of the blue” in a manner Ann Landers refers to as “soul bubbling through to the surface.”

Scouting Mt. Kilimanjaro
During a scouting trip in 2008, where Waddell made it to 16,500 feet, he realized that he was facing the most difficult thing he’s ever done. Besides the obvious danger of fatigue, he will encounter five different climate zones—savannah, mountain rain forest, heather, alpine desert, and glacial plateau—face decreasing oxygen levels (just 48 percent at the peak), and travel a rough, soft sand and rock, rutted trail that necessitated a redesign of his hand cycle. 

The Bomba Handcycle
With a grant from the Easton Foundation, Waddell’s friend David Tenney, who designed his original handcycle and is also part of the climbing team, built a second one-of-a-kind bike known as the Bomba, incorporating the changes Waddell found necessary: a narrower, shorter wheel base, traditional bike gearing, and significantly lighter weight—48 pounds rather than 83. The new design provides better traction and enables Waddell to maneuver over foot-tall obstacles and climb in and out of the deep trenches built into the trail every few yards to prevent erosion from rain. The changes also enable Waddell to go twice as fast, 1 mph to 2 mph, which will significantly cut his time.

Serving the People Of Africa
During his scouting trip, Waddell fell in love with Africa’s beauty and its people who opened his eyes to other ways of living.

“Living in Park City, Utah, there’s not a lot of diversity,” Waddell says, admitting his home isn’t even representative of other parts of the United States. “It’s easy to forget that being around fit active people is not necessarily the way it is in other places. During our scouting trip, people who lived in shanties lined the road and my first thought was that we have to help these people. But then I realized everyone is so happy, maybe we don’t know what we’re talking about.”

What Waddell did realize was that handcycles, not just wheelchairs which are challenging to use on rocky, rutted roads, could significantly improve mobility for disabled people in developing countries. Following his climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro his team will distribute donated handcycles and wheelchairs to the neighboring people.

Training for the Climb
To prepare for his climb, Waddell trains six days a week Crested Butte, Colo., altitude 8.924 feet. When he’s not busy with fundraising and planning the feature-length documentary film that will be made of his trip, he handcycles up to six hours a day. Waddell hopes the film, which will carry the same name as his climbing expedition, One Revolution, will change the way people view people with disabilities and demonstrate that ultimately we’re all not that much different from each other. The film will also be Waddell’s way of thanking the disabled athletes, specifically amputee skier Diana Goldman and paraplegic Jim Masterson, who inspired him following his accident.

“Tragedy joins us all,” Waddell says. “Black and white, rich, and poor, it’s going to find us, whether it’s an accident, disease, bankruptcy, or something else. What happens to us isn’t that interesting; it’s what we do with it that’s interesting. The commonality we all share is that we’re all trying to find a way to live. It’s about having a dream and then following it.”

For More Information, visit http://www.one-revolution.com.

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