On Outdoor Activity

Ask anyone in Wyoming and they’ll tell you that our summer weather and access to the outdoors makes enduring the brutal winters worth it. This is the time of year when every hiker, camper, climber, mountain biker, paddle boarder, and wilderness enthusiast rejoice, loading up on sunscreen and bugspray, and reveling in the natural world. As a born-and-raised Wyomingite, I was reared to respect the landscape and marvel at the starry sky, to step into the mountains and breathe in that alpine air, to soak up the scents of sagebrush and pine. I grew up with gratitude for such phenomenal admittance to the national parks and public lands, a gratitude that grows each year.

Now let’s rewind ten years… In the midst of my most severe MS hospitalization, I lost that connection. Without the function of my limbs, it seemed that the wilderness was no longer a place where I belonged. I couldn’t walk across my hospital room without assistance, let alone contemplate hiking on a rubbled trail. Plus, after weeks confined to my medical quarters at the UC Anschutz Medical Campus breathing circulated air and glimpsing the silhouetted mountains far in the distance, the outdoors seemed utterly unattainable, simply a remnant memory from a former life.

While at Anschutz, I made the difficult decision to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. My medical provider had an amazing legal team that would work with me to tackle the complex intricacies of the application process, eradicating the overwhelmingly daunting nature of government system navigation. The challenge for me came in the reconciliation of identity: how could I possibly accept the newly disabled status of my body when my soul still yearned for independence? Humility kicked in the next time I needed to relieve myself and had to call a nurse to my room for bathroom attending. Forget about unassisted alpine adventures, I couldn’t even manage basic personal hygiene without assistance. 

The following month, I was finally back in my own home and adjusting to a new medical treatment plan that kept my MS in check. My parents would pick me up each morning for a visit to that day’s therapy session, whether it be occupational, physical, or psychological. I was bitter. There is no way to phrase this fact nicely, to sugarcoat it in optimism. Unable to brush my long hair, I had my honeyed locks shorn off. Unable to tie my own shoes, I took to donning elastic-laced tennies. Unable to accept my circumstances, I resisted wholehearted participation in the healing process. I felt like a prisoner, trapped in my apartment - worse yet, trapped in my own body. The only place where I found solace was on the walking path by the Laramie River.

Fortunately, with time came healing, then stability, then strengthening - a patient recovery that was continually bolstered by fresh air and underscored by the babbling cadence of running water. Once I was well enough to amble along unpaved surfaces, I would ask my mom to drive the fifteen minutes or so east of town to the Medicine Bow National Forest for a trail walk. My ambition, much like my ambulatory ability, returned in increments. The more I stumbled along on the wooded trails, the more I wanted to be able to walk them with ease. Rather than the forced improvement facilitated in indoor therapy environments, the outdoors allowed for natural recuperation and self-internalized improvement. Sure, I still headed home after each outing for a multi-hour nap, but this ingress to the land was giving me something that I had long thought lost. It was giving me back my life.

Recognizing a need to balance the widespread holistic health benefits of the outdoors with a range of access barriers, the National Parks Service offers an ‘Access Pass’ version of the Interagency Pass known as ‘America the Beautiful’ for US residents with permanent disability. Shortly after submitting my application for the access pass (a process far easier than applying for SSDI), I was granted it, receiving lifetime entry to more than 2,000 federally protected areas including national parks, national monuments, Forest Service and BLM land, areas of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and more. Lifetime access! What a gift. 

Seeing as MS is a lifelong condition, I plan to utilize this service for the rest of my time on this wildly beautiful planet. And I have already made good use of it, boosting my physical and mental health with every outdoor excursion. I have hiked with my family at the Happy Jack Recreation Area, camped in the Snowy Range Mountains, and sat on the bank of the Popo Agie River, marvelling at its mysterious underground retreat and reemerging rise one mile down the way. I have trekked to the edge of Sacred Rim in the Wind River Mountains outside of Pinedale, and, on the opposite side of the majestic range, fished in the Wind River Canyon. I have noticed my soul bloom in the wonder of my home state’s natural landscapes, felt my muscles thicken, and even sensed the neurons in my brain rewiring. I have found myself, remade myself, again and again, in the wild Wyoming wilderness.

There was a time when I foresaw a future without outdoor recreation. It turns out, outdoor recreation is a large contributor to the full future that I now hold. So, with that, I’m going to slather on some SPF and head out to the mountains. I hope you do the same.