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Dedication

To my father, Ed, who embodied No Barriers before it had a name

—Erik

This is a true story,
though some names have been changed.

FOREWORD

By Bob Woodruff, ABC News

Chances are that at some point in our lives, we will all be tested. The possibilities are endless, and they read like a long list of what-ifs. Which is why the interesting part of any story is not necessarily the exact nature of the obstacles we meet, but in how we choose to respond.

It was an honor to be asked to write the foreword for No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon because this story and its author embody what it means to meet adversity and not let “the bad thing” define us. In short, to quote my wife, you make a choice to get “bitter or better.”

My own challenging moment came in January 29, 2006, when I was covering the Iraq war outside of Baghdad for ABC News. While standing halfway out of a tank with my cameraman, a 125-mm roadside bomb exploded, leaving me with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and vastly changing the direction of my life.

The blast shattered my skull, embedding rocks and other debris in my body and shattering my shoulder bone. But none of the other injuries mattered. They would heal. It was the TBI, the signature wound of these wars, that would prove to be my greatest obstacle. I would spend the next few years struggling to put my cognitive abilities back together, returning to my job as a journalist, and working harder than I ever had in my life.

Immediately following the blast, my cameraman, Doug Vogt, and I were flown from Iraq to Germany, then on to National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda where I spent thirty-six days in a coma. When I finally woke up and began to understand the enormity of what I had lost, it was my family and friends who surrounded me, along with the other military families, all on the same journey, experiencing firsthand the devastation and legacy of war up close and at home.

I am a journalist, and although I had understood the probability that I could be killed, I had spent very little time thinking about severe injury. My injury catapulted me into a world I had never seriously considered or contemplated. And from that tragedy, many positive things have resulted. I have been proud to use my story to help others traveling along the same road.

There is nothing courageous about my story. Hundreds of thousands of our troops who have volunteered to go to Iraq and Afghanistan when their country asked have returned home with both physical and invisible injuries. Unlike me, working for a news organization that cared for me and my family with unlimited rehabilitation and resources, many of our military families may not have access to the same level of resources all the way through. Not all of them have friends and family at home like I did to root for me and pick me up on the days when I felt low.

Erik Weihenmayer is simply one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. When Erik was in ninth grade, he lost his ability to see. For many of us, navigating without vision would have restricted our world in a million different ways, but he came to a place where he decided to take “pain into purpose, darkness into light.”

I first heard about Erik through my brother, Woody, who travels with an elite pack of mountain climbers and extreme adventurers. In 2013, Erik invited me to speak at his No Barriers annual event in Telluride, Colorado. I joined an amazing roster of speakers and guests, including some injured veterans, and it was clear when Erik spoke that he had a gift.

Erik spoke then, as he writes in this book, about the decision he made that nothing would stop him from achieving his goals. He was determined that his lack of vision not be viewed as a disability, but rather as a different ability. And that is where Erik’s story becomes both interesting and inspiring.

Erik was the first blind climber to reach the top of Mount Everest. But Erik didn’t stop there. He kept setting goals for himself, moving ever forward, because in his words, he “would rather be punched and knocked flat than to be doomed to a life of quiet acquiescence.”

The mark of true heroes is that they would never use that word to describe themselves. And Erik is no different. His many accomplishments have made him famous, but none of that matters to him. “You hang your pictures up on the walls,” he wrote, echoing the words of his Everest expedition leader. “You set up your trophies, and it becomes a museum, even worse, a mausoleum.”

Erik doesn’t climb mountains or break records merely to receive medals and praise. Instead, he operates from a need to prove to himself what he can accomplish and to use his story to help others.

In 2005, Erik cofounded the nonprofit organization No Barriers USA. His goal was to help those who have suffered from mental and physical injuries understand that although there exist plenty of barriers in our lives, there is also a map, a way to navigate these barriers and even obliterate them.

No Barriers USA has grown to include an annual summit, a four-day event that showcases cutting-edge adaptive technologies and provides interactive clinics in an outdoor setting. The summit also offers No Barriers University, featuring inspiring speakers telling life-changing stories. No Barriers Warriors improves the lives of veterans with disabilities through curriculum-based experiences in challenging environments. And No Barriers Youth challenges young people to contribute their absolute best to the world through transformative experiences, classroom tools, and real-world inspiration.

All of the No Barriers USA programs open up new paths, new gates where those who feel defined by life changes can feel no boundaries to accomplishment, and a supportive community of people with shared experiences, visions, and dreams.

One of the incredible attributes of humanity is resilience. We hear a great deal about that term these days, and when you read this book you understand what a critical component it is for life, not just to survive, but also to thrive, as Erik has done.

And while most anyone who has gone through trauma or put his or her family through a traumatic experience would take it all back in a second, part of moving forward is looking for the positive aspects that are borne out of tragedy or the unexpected.

It’s meeting and getting to know people like Erik that has taught me the true definition of sacrifice through their actions, examples, and humility.

When you finally close the pages of this book, I guarantee you will feel a little lighter. You will also understand that anything is achievable if you set your mind to it.

No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon made me think about myself in new ways. And not only is it a great story and a riveting read, but it will challenge you to look at your own life and your gifts in new ways.

Erik’s incredible story and his commitment to be a beacon for others demonstrate how one person can make a difference in the lives of others. For him, there are many more mountains to climb, side by side with those of us who have become not just his admirers, but also his friends.

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

The man looked my friend straight in the eyes and said

“You’ve been through a lot.”

My friend started sobbing

Who has not been “through a lot”?

It is when we recognize it in each other that we know love.

We unite in our endurance

As our minds embrace, our histories mingle

We lean in to share the experience

We lean in to touch one another

And we know we are alike.

—PATRICK FOSS

THE NO BARRIERS PLEDGE

I pledge to view my life as a relentless quest to become my very best self,

To always view the barriers in my life as opportunities to learn,

To find ways to build teams, serve those in need, and do good in the world,

To push the boundaries of what is possible,

And prove that what’s within me is stronger than what’s in my way.

PROLOGUE

I wasn’t always completely blind. Even though I couldn’t see well from birth, I could still play basketball, ride my bike, and jump off rocks in the woods behind my house. Then, when I was three years old, I was diagnosed with a rare disease called juvenile retinoschisis.

The odds were about the same as winning the lottery. The disease causes hemorrhaging in the eyes and makes the retinas split away over time. I went totally blind just one week before I started my freshman year of high school.

On my first day of high school, I was led into the building by my teacher’s aide—not the ideal way to begin freshman year in a sighted school. She guided me from class to class and even to the bathroom. At lunchtime, she led me into the cafeteria, where I sat at a table alone, thinking about everything I had lost. I had been afraid of going blind and seeing only darkness, but I was even more afraid of what I’d miss out on. Now I could hear the other kids around me, their laughter and wisecracks, their horsing around. A food fight broke out, and from all the yelling and screaming I could hear, it sounded like everyone in the room except me was in the thick of it.

The darkness was the easy part. The hard part was realizing I would never be in the food fight. I’d been swept aside, shoved into a dark place, and left alone there. Blindness descended upon me with such force that I thought it would swallow me.

I’ve heard people say we shouldn’t be motivated by fear. Even Yoda said it in my favorite movie series, Star Wars: “Fear is the path to the dark side.”

But that day in the cafeteria was my first bitter taste of fear. It caught in my throat like bile. It writhed in my gut, intertwining itself through every action, every decision. No matter how I fought it, fear was ever present. It was a tug-of-war, the fear of pushing forward through darkness against barriers I couldn’t see, tugging against the fear of sitting quietly and safely in a dark place.

Earlier that summer, right before the last of my eyesight was gone, I was watching TV. I could barely see out of my right eye. To see what was happening, I had to put my face almost against the screen, so close I could feel static electricity crackling on the tip of my nose.

I was watching my favorite show, That’s Incredible! That night, they were featuring the story of a young Canadian named Terry Fox. He was nineteen years old when he was diagnosed with cancer. They found a tumor in his right leg, and his leg had to be amputated six inches above his knee. While in the hospital recovering, Terry watched children even younger than he was die from their own illnesses.

What Terry chose to do next was the most surprising thing I’d ever seen. After enduring eighteen months of chemotherapy and witnessing so much death and tragedy around him, he should have been reduced. As he surely must have been thinking about his own mortality, he was supposed to retreat, curl into a ball, and protect the precious little he had left. And who would have blamed him if that was what he did? Instead, Terry did the exact opposite. He made the astonishing decision to run, and not just for a day, or a week, but from one end of Canada to the other. It was a new marathon every day, for thousands of miles.

I pressed my face against the television, watching Terry hobble mile after mile in what was called his Marathon of Hope. This was before the days of high-tech prosthetics. His clunky, old-fashioned prosthetic leg gave him a herky-jerky gait, as he did an awkward double step, and then a hop on his good left leg as his prosthetic right foot went back and then swung forward again, almost like he was skipping. The look on his face was one of exhaustion mixed with determination. In his eyes, I sensed something I could only describe as a light that seemed the source of his intensity and power.

On day 143—after running an average of twenty-six miles a day for over four months and a total of 3,339 miles through six provinces with crowds cheering him on—Terry was forced to stop. Cancer had invaded his lungs, causing him to cough and gasp for air as he ran. Terry cried as he told the crowd of reporters that he wouldn’t be able to finish, but through his tears, he said, “I’ll fight. I promise I won’t give up.”

Terry Fox died seven months after he stopped running. It wasn’t fair. He’d only gotten twenty-two years on Earth. But in that short window, he had made a decision to run, and that decision had elevated an entire nation. Instead of shrinking away, Terry had gotten bigger. He had lived more than he had died. Donations to his Marathon of Hope fund poured in and reached $24 million, equal to a dollar for every Canadian citizen.

I knew that my blindness was coming. It was a hard fact, and nothing I did would prevent it. As Terry’s story concluded, I knelt with tears pouring down my face. I yearned for that kind of courage, and I dared to hope Terry’s light existed in me.

I eventually climbed out of my dark emotional place, with the help of my father, Ed, and the rest of my family. I joined the wrestling team, going from a 0-15 record my first year to becoming team captain my senior year and representing my home state of Connecticut in the National Junior Freestyle Wrestling Championships in Iowa. At sixteen, I also discovered rock climbing at a summer camp. I learned to scan and feel for holds on the rock face, using my hands and feet as my eyes. Through trial and error—by thrashing, groping, and bloodying my knuckles and fingers on the rock—I learned that the beauty of climbing was discovering the clues in the rock face, the nubs, edges, knobs, and pockets I could hang on to and remain on the vertical wall.

When I successfully made it up a difficult climb, I was overwhelmed by the wonderful sensation of being in the mountains: the wind at my back, the brilliant textures in the rock, the intermittent patterns of coolness and heat under my touch. My senses awakened. Every sound, smell, and touch was so vivid, so brilliant, it was almost painful. One hundred feet above the trees with the sun in my face and the wind and elements all around me, I felt an intoxicating freedom and the possibility that the adventure in my life was just beginning.

During high school, tragedy struck a second time. Two years after I lost my vision, I lost my mom in a car accident. I was only a sophomore in high school, and my mom, who’d spent years protecting me, driving me to and from eye doctor appointments, and giving me the inner strength I needed to confront blindness, was gone. How can I explain that pain? If I had gone blind a thousand times, it would not compare to what I felt in losing my mother.

After her death, my father wanted to take my two brothers and me on a trip that would bring us all closer together. In school, I had listened to an audio book about the Spanish conquistadors and the lost city of the Incas, and I suggested Peru. Dad agreed, and we set off for the Inca Trail. The trip, which included a hike to nearly fourteen thousand feet, started a tradition of annual family treks to remote parts of the world and fueled my love of the mountaineering life.

I went on to graduate from high school and then from Boston College, where I got a degree in English and communications. I ended up teaching middle-school English and coaching wrestling at Phoenix Country Day School in Arizona. That’s where I met and fell in love with Ellie Reeve. When she learned about my passion for mountains and adventure, she supported me wholeheartedly, and I continued climbing, and my confidence in climbing led to other adventures—skydiving and paragliding, skiing, and ice climbing.

But it was the challenge of big mountain summits that most intrigued me. Between 1995 and 2000, urged on by the Phoenix climbing community, I trained hard, developed strong teams, and started climbing serious peaks.

In fact, Ellie and I got married at thirteen thousand feet on the Shira Plateau of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa. Ellie didn’t have a wedding dress, so we wrapped her up in Tanzanian fabric we’d been using as a tablecloth!

These expeditions all prepared me for an even greater challenge: Mount Everest. Standing 29,029 feet, it is the tallest mountain in the world. At the time, one hundred and seventy people had died while attempting to climb it. And on May 25, 2001, after climbing through snowstorms and lightning storms, I stood on the summit. No blind man had ever stood there before.

For months my teammates and I had traveled together as one, our lives inseparable. I’d pushed past my known physical limits, learning much about what my body could endure and what my mind could achieve. Climbing experts had doubted us and questioned my abilities. But nineteen of us from our team had made it to the summit. We were the most from a single team to reach the top of the world in a single day.

Needless to say, I was surprised when, before we had even made it back down to base camp, our expedition leader, Pasquale—“PV”—grabbed me by the shoulder and stopped me. I felt him stare into my face for a long time.

“Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do,” he pronounced, and patted me on the back.

Those words sank into my brain and rattled around. I was taken aback. I had just done something that many critics thought was impossible. They’d said I’d be a liability, that I’d subject myself to horrendous risk, that I’d slow my team down, that I’d draw the whole mountain into a rescue. They’d said a blind person didn’t belong on the mountain. The secret was that, at times, I had been one of them, doubting, wondering, and second-guessing myself. I was almost as bad as the naysayers themselves. The difference, however, was that I had managed to shove out some of that clutter, to train hard and move forward step by step, regardless of what my brain was telling me. And so I’d found myself at the summit with my team, standing on an island in the sky the size of a two-car garage.

It sounded like PV was trying to diminish my achievement before I could even fully feel it. What I could feel were the cuts all over my hands that had been oozing for the past two months. Above eighteen thousand feet, in the “Death Zone,” as they call this part of the mountain, there isn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere for injuries to heal. My hands were so puffy that I could barely get them into my gloves.

Muscles suffer from lack of oxygen at this height, too. My legs felt like rubber bands that had been stretched too many times. Plus, my face was fried from the sun that, on the surface of the glacier, topped over one hundred degrees. My lips and tongue were blistered and swollen from the ferocious sun reflecting off the snow that had burned my open mouth. My cheeks and ears were also raw from the wind and temperatures that fell to thirty degrees below zero.

So I pushed PV’s words aside—for a while. I went home, spent the next six months in a constant blur of celebrations, media coverage, and speaking tours. But I realized that before I had climbed Mount Everest, people had constantly asked, “What’s next?” But now, after Everest, not many people asked me that. It was almost as if everyone believed that nothing bigger could be done.

It was at times like these that PV’s words came back to me. I knew he was right. There were bigger things to accomplish in my life—on and off mountains.

1

In 2002, I successfully completed my quest to climb the Seven Summits—the highest mountains on each of the seven continents of the world. It is a feat that has been achieved by only a few hundred mountaineers in history—none of them blind.

Of course I did this because of my love of mountaineering and to prove to myself that I could. But I also hoped that I might inspire others to push through any barriers in their way in order pursue their dreams.

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