Jeremy Hardin, Director of Route Setting for Sportrock in Virginia, was a little shocked to have a note waiting on his desk one morning from Captain DJ Skelton, military advisor for the Secretary of Defense. While this was not completely out of place – the gym resides in Sterling, Virginia which is a suburb of Washington DC, and not far from the Pentagon – this note certainly made his mind spin with conspiracy theories and possible connections to the shady side of the climbing industry.

When Jeremy worked up the nerve to call Skelton, he discovered the Captain was from The Wounded Warrior Project, and that they were looking to go climbing.

“The Wounded Warrior Project is an organization dedicated to assisting the men and women of the United States armed forces who have been severely injured during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Global War on Terrorism.”

The group has helped these “disabled veterans” participate in a variety of sporting events, including outrigger canoeing, golfing, water-skiing, cycling, skiing and for the first time, rock climbing.

Capt. Skelton was asking Jeremy to step up and serve his country by setting routes specially made for the wounded veterans.

Routesetter.com got in touch with Jeremy to find out what it was like to set routes for the soldiers.

What kind of information did the project coordinators give you about the soldiers that would be climbing?

Not a lot. I met with Capt. Skelton one time to discuss what type of injuries these soldiers were going to have and I was hoping he would have ideas on how to set for each, but this was the first time anything like it had been tried so I was kind of in the dark.

In the beginning I was told that this was not going to be a “fun and exciting” day for the amputees and it was going to be more like training or a physical therapy session. So with this in mind, I had this awful picture of soldiers breaking down, struggling with their injuries, and cursing the routes for not being able to get up them.

What were the different disabilities that you as a route setter had to set for?

Skelton told me that there’d be a lot of different cases, two soldiers with above the elbow amputation, two soldiers below the elbow amp, a few with below the knee amputations, two soldiers with above the knee amp, two double leg amputees and two blind soldiers.

Did you do any research or seek out advice?

Yeah, I had Skelton bring examples of some of the artificial limbs the soldiers would have, and he brought me this artificial hand. It was crazy, basically three titanium hooks. Picture your index and middle finger hooked over and hinged together so that the only movement they can do is making the peace sign thinner and then wider. The other hook was an oddly place “thumb”.

We tried looking for specialized climbing gear for them but nothing was really out there. Skelton had decided to design a foot that we could mold a shoe around or maybe just sole with some sticky rubber. But as for advise on how to set for the soldiers, nothin.

While you were setting, how were you able to visualize what it would be like for a person with one leg or blind to make the moves you were setting?

Visualize? Nahh, I wanted to really feel connected to the injured soldiers and their individual amputations. So, as I set for each injury I self-amputated the particular limb. Basically whoever the route was for and their particular amputation I just didn’t allow my self to use it. I did the whole blindfolded climbing and then one legged climbing. For the routes that I set for the soldiers with the artificial hands, I’d climb using the artificial hand. That hand is awesome! If you think you got good crimpin skills you got nothing compared to it.

Most of the routes went pretty well just doing this, but when it came to the double leg amputees, that’s when it got hard. They have no knee joint so their range of motion is very limited. Next time you’re climbing, limit yourself to about 6 inches of a step-up and see how different it’d be. It was so hard to create upward movement for these guys, but after some brain racking I came up with the idea to put’em on a dihedral. This way their not having a knee joint wouldn’t affect them as much, and the upward movement came easier.

How did the day go? How did the climbers respond to your routes?

When the soldiers start coming in, most of’em are in wheelchairs and I’m like “these guys are going to be climbing?” We check’em all in and then I see some of the guys getting ready, they’re screwing legs on, duct taping shoes to nonexistent feet, using crutches and hobbling over to the walls, I mean these guys and gal are seriously hardcore, they are all about climbing!

We start them out on some little 20 footers and they crush em! They don’t care who the routes are for they just want to climb, The blind guys are hoping on the amputee routes, the double leg amputee is hoppin on the blind guy routes, it’s awesome. We take the guys out to the main area [40ft walls] and again these soldiers are just walkin routes.

As Army PFC, Marissa Strock, is climbing, her leg actually falls off! “LEEEEGGGGG” Timmy O’Neil yells, and she just comes down puts it back on and starts climbing again. The other double leg amputee is Jake Keesler, and he was having some trouble getting in a position where his toes would stay on the wall, so the guy unscrews his legs and turns them around so he’s climbing on his heels. We got legs fallin off and the bionic man over here climbin with his heels. But all that really matters is that these guys are having fun and they’re not letting their injuries limit them.

We had prepared for this huge “overcoming adversity” story and the soldiers having to struggle with their amputations. Complete Bullshit. These guys didn’t care about their amputations and they sure didn’t blame’em for not getting to the top of some of the walls. The day couldn’t have gone any better, they might as well have not had any injuries, and it was like climbing with anyone else at the gym.

What advice would you give somebody that was setting for paraclimbers?

These soldiers don’t need any special treatment or routes set for their handicap. They just wanted to climb and have that chance to see that their injury doesn’t have to be limiting. Set how you set everyday. You’re almost disrespecting them if you don’t.

Jeremy also add’s “The Wounded Warrior Project is just one of the first steps in showing amputees and the public that even though they might have an injury it doesn’t have to decrease their quality of life and opportunity to try new things. We’re hoping to get the point across that any amputee could walk into any climbing facility and climb.”

You can view a slide show of the event here.

International Paraclimbing

The IFSC is also working on putting together a paraclimbing program. You can check out a slide show of the 2006 International Paraclimbing Comp in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

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