Striving to remove barriers that prevent us from building Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities!
Syren Nagakyrie, who has multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses and is neurodivergent, writes for Tripadvisor that the national parks have not always been open to disabled visitors, and that access is improving slowly because of years of advocacy by People with Disabilities. Drawing on years as a visitor and advocate, Nagakyrie picks five parks that stand out. Before any trip, Nagakyrie suggests the NPS app for offline maps, park information and audio guides, and the Access Pass, a free lifetime pass for United States citizens and permanent residents with a permanent disability that covers entry to most federal recreation lands.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in North Carolina and Tennessee, focuses on mobility: its visitor centers are wheelchair accessible, the Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail is paved, as is the route to the John Oliver Cabin, and four GRIT Freedom Chairs, off road manual wheelchairs, can be borrowed for free. At Redwood National and State Parks in California, signs at trailheads give length, surface and grade, Braille brochures can be printed ahead, and the Revelation Trail has a packed gravel surface, guide ropes for Blind visitors and a platform around a large redwood that visitors can touch. Beach wheelchairs and a motorized track chair open the beaches.
At Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan, the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center has tactile exhibits, listening devices and a UbiDuo for real time text conversation, Loon Lake has a wheelchair accessible canoe and kayak launch, and track chairs with a volunteer guide can be reserved for two trails. Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky offers tactile exhibits, videos with captions and audio description, an accessible cave tour that reaches the cave by elevator with no stairs, and American Sign Language interpreters booked two weeks ahead.
Access planned into a park lets disabled visitors take part in all of it. Yellowstone National Park, across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, runs one of the most extensive accessibility programs in the system: trails, campgrounds, lodging, backcountry sites, fishing docks and picnic areas built to ADA standards, manual wheelchairs to rent, American Sign Language interpreters for every ranger program with three weeks of notice, paved paths to Old Faithful, and a space for a wheelchair user on the Lake Queen cruise boat.
We should use the access information parks now publish when we plan outings, and ask for what is missing. We should press our local parks for paved and level trails, tactile exhibits, Braille materials and interpreters. Parks that disabled visitors can reach and enjoy fully would move us toward Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities for People with Disabilities.
The parks belong to People with Disabilities too.
Read the Full Article: 5 national parks that put accessibility first.
By: Syren Nagakyrie
Questions for Reflection
- Which parks and trails near us publish their accessibility information, and which do not?
- Do our local parks lend beach or all terrain wheelchairs?
- Are tactile exhibits, Braille materials and audio description part of our parks and museums?
- How far ahead must a Deaf visitor book an interpreter in our parks, and why?
- Who in our community could we invite on an outing to a park with access built in?
