When Erik Weihenmayer was on his way down Mount Everest, after becoming the first blind person to climb the world’s highest peak, his team leader said something that nudged him to do something even more outrageous — paddle the wild rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
That story is just one of many adventures on rivers and on mountains jam-packed into Weihenmayer’s latest book, “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon.” ( he helped found to inspire people to break through their own barriers.)
Weihenmayer, who lives in Golden, took a brief break from skiing and ice climbing to talk about the book and breaking through his own fears to pilot a solo boat in the canyon.
How does a man who is a self-proclaimed “mountain guy,” who “knew absolutely nothing about rivers,” as you say in the book, start dreaming about kayaking the Grand Canyon, anyway?
There were two things that were happening. One is that, when I’m coming down from Everest, and the team leader said, “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you do.” Even though you’re completely wasted at the time, even though you did this big thing, itap not over. I think a lot of people might fall into that trap — “Wow, I did something cool,” and then that thing gets further and further in the past. It was a good challenge for me. Where do you move, how do you go forward in your life?
Itap not just about doing scarier and riskier things, because that can put you on a trajectory, well a trajectory that can get you killed. How do you use those successes as a platform, a springboard to more and more successes in your life? For me, No Barriers is an organization, but the organization really supports the movement, which for me is the really exciting part. People with quote-unquote challenges, and figuring out how to be stronger together. … So I guess in a long-winded way, kayaking, thatap me trying to live what No Barriers means.
I’ve led all of these expeditions around the world since then — with soldiers and with disabled people and … it was a way for me to go through the process, to see if those things I really believed stood up in my own psyche.
Do they?
They do. They’re a lot messier and a lot more complicated than (whatap) in a book, though. There are a lot of loose ends. There’s a lot more fear and itap bloodier.
One of the things that gets in the way of growth and change is the trauma you experience. A lot of the No Barriers community is these soldiers who have come back from these different conflicts and the trauma has gotten into their brains, this PTSD — they’re stalled out and in this dark place. And by no means do I want to (compare being in a war zone to kayaking), but kayaking blind, getting slammed face-first into rocks, pulling my skirt and swimming in Class IV rapids, it definitely showed me that if you’re in that process, you’re in that journey, itap easy to get sidelined. Itap easy to get stuck from the paralysis and fear. So it was a fascinating process for me to just get a taste for of what itap like to have that in your lives.
The other reason I picked up kayaking is because when you’re up on mountains and itap cold, you start dreaming about other things.
You wanted to be warm?
Yeah, you want to be warm! Mountains are slow and methodical. You’re sort of trying to bring situations under control. Kayaking, you’re not on your own time, and that could be not the timing you want in your brain.
It was a great learning experience because, because of that, itap not all about controlling the river. People tell me, “Oh you’ve conquered another mountain.” And I think, you’ve clearly not been in the mountains. You sneak to the top while the mountain blinks or takes a nap or something. You sneak to the top and plant your flag or whatever and then get out of there, because humans aren’t meant to be at 29,000 feet.
But rivers are so different, they’re so powerful … Kayaking was about letting go, and just trying to control making a fast move, getting into position, but then just riding the energy of the river.
I don’t want to give too much away to readers, but learning to become a whitewater kayaker seemed stressful and scary. You talk about being so nervous before you head into rapids that you’re about to throw up. What kept you going?
I think it was because I was committed to this process. I wanted to see it through. I know that just sounds arbitrary, but for me, I was committed to going through this process. I knew the thing that was going to sabotage me was my brain. So a lot of the process was trying to figure out, how do you discipline your mind, how do you not get stalled out by these things that happen to you, these fear responses.
My friend Rob Raker would say, “You just have to get back in the boat.” And you sometimes just physically can’t get back in the boat. …Sometimes there’s no way to move forward, sometimes the way to move forward is back. Thatap why I had to go back to the (National) Whitewater Center. After I swam that rapid in the whitewater center … I had to learn to whitewater kayak all over again — I’d lost my roll, I’d lost my confidence. You have to go back and start over and rebuild the patterns in your brain.
Is kayaking way scarier than being in the Death Zone on Everest?
Yes, 100 percent. It was way scarier. I’m kind of slow, methodical, I’m cautious. Kayaking is so fast, there’s so many things happening and you have to respond to all of that. …Your brain is actually an impediment to the process.
The great foil of that was my buddy Lonnie Bedwell, who is all instinct! He’s the perfect kayaker, because he’s all instinct.
Every time you write about a No Barriers summit in the book, there’s a story where someone comes up to you and says, “I want to try this,” and it seems a little outrageous. You always seem to brainstorm a solution in the book, but I’m wondering if there were times when the team couldn’t figure out how to get it done.
One of the things we haven’t figured out (is how to help people after they get back home). We go on these amazing experiences, and people would go away with this high, they’d be out with this great team and have this amazing time. In that heroic journey, when you go home again, sometimes thatap when you go off the cliff.
A lot of organizations fall short in that, so we’ve tried to do that at No Barriers with a pledge, so when they finish, they make a pledge. That could last a year or more. And we’ve hired a social worker who is part of our team and who follows up with them, does support calls, connecting them to the right people, trying to be their rope team as they go forward.
At No Barriers, I think we haven’t done as much with folks in chairs. And I think folks in chairs get left out of a lot of adventures. So we’re trying to rally and do more there.
There are so many moments in the book in which you act as a counselor for someone who is having a difficult time on an expedition, and then Rob and Harlan are your counselors as you’re learning to kayak — Harlan seems like a river whisperer.
He’s a river yoda! All these folks, nobody’s immune from this No Barriers stuff. Harlan had this crazy experience as a kid with his dad’s death, and Rob is on top of the world and is just this amazing world-class athlete and gets his butt kicked with stage-four prostate cancer. I think everyone’s counseling everyone in a way. We’re like a like a little Oprah network.
Some readers might be surprised to find this extended section in the book about adopting your son right in the middle of all of these adventures. The adoption process seems like it was a big adventure in its own right.
Thatap the crazy thing! You think kayaking and smashing into rocks and stuff is the big adventure in the book, but that turns out to be the shallowest part, because that was the adventure. Bringing Arjun home ended up being the biggest adventure that could happen.
Whatap your next adventure?
Well, I want to keep growing No Barriers, obviously. We’re doing really well, but this idea of No Barriers, I think a lot of people need it. I think the country needs it right now. We’re so consumed by fear. Itap like we’re drowning in fear. And that makes sense: people are afraid, they’re afraid of terrorism, they’re afraid of Russia, they’re afraid of China, afraid of immigrants. That fear — eventually that fear will destroy us, it’ll bring us down. We’ve got to get back to just doing what we do: to break barriers, to innovate, to get hurt and shattered and then rebuild. So I think itap a great message for our community — but also for every human being.
Erik Weihenmayer will be at the Tattered Cover, at 2526 East Colfax Ave., to talk about “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon” on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. Copies of the book will be available to those who attend at that time; the book will be available to the general public on Feb. 7.
