The Great Outdoors

By the time you read this, Jeff Pagels may already have climbed — by way of a specially adapted hand-propelled, three-wheeled mountain bike — Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

The ascent will add to a long list of other “epic” climbs Pagels has completed, including Mt. Rainier in Washington state, Mt. Galdhopiggen in Norway and Mt. Whitney in Southern California, but this will be his first climb not on snow.

“Heretofore people in wheelchairs have been carried up; they really didn’t go on their own. Most of this climb will be my effort,” he says. A seven-person team, including his two sons and his neurosurgeon, will accompany Pagels — who is paraplegic as the result of a tree falling on him — on the 49-mile hike to Kilimanjaro’s summit.

“It’s not a technical mountain,” he says. “People who don’t make it [to the summit] get altitude sickness. It’s kind of a crapshoot — you don’t know if you’re going to have altitude sickness until you get it.

“I have so much respect for the outdoors, [therefore] I’m giving myself a 60 percent chance,” Pagels continues. “[An ascent like this] has never been done before, so we’re going to give it a try. At any rate, getting down is more important than going up. I’m just going to enjoy the journey.”

Climbing — as well as cross-country skiing, sea kayaking, hunting, fishing and camping, plus Pagels’ day job administering recreation grants for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources — are the physical manifestations of his passion for the outdoors.

“I’ve always liked the outdoors but I didn’t realize the value of the outdoors — what strong medicine the outdoors can be — to me personally until I got injured,” he says. “I believe wholeheartedly that there is something magical, something cathartic about being outdoors.”

Pagels has made it his personal mission (what he calls his “mantle of responsibility”) to get people with disabilities “to go outside and play. I don’t expect everybody to climb a mountain in Africa, but I do it to show there are no limitations just because you’re disabled.”

Through presentations to various groups of people with disabilities, Pagels tries to teach people with disabilities how to play outside, including educating them about available wheelchair technology, the proper clothes to wear and how to use their friends for support. “Some people just don’t want to go out there and get their wheelchairs muddy. I want them to go out and play.”

For more information about Jeff Pagels and the Rainbow Expedition team, and to follow up on the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb, go to www.rainbowexpedition.com.

Don’t just take our word for it. Make plans to attend Jeff Pagels’ session at Medtrade, “Getting High in Africa,” Friday, Oct. 10, from 9:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.