Jocelyn Vargas loved the cicadas.
After a muddy hike along Winton Woods' Kingfisher Trail, she opened her palm to show off her collection of a half dozen insects.
Jocelyn, 10, has a visual impairment and Prader Willi Syndrome. But on Thursday, she was out with five other Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired students enjoying a sensory experience planned just for them.
Luke5Adventures has been providing people with disabilities hiking experiences with the help of special all-terrain one-wheeled chairs. They take people on hikes that may not typically be wheelchair accessible.
The 1.1-mile Kingfisher Trail, a dirt loop that travels over a few hills, across a bridge and, at some points, spans only a foot or two across, met the criteria. During Thursday's event, a partnership with CABVI and Great Parks of Hamilton County, the week's rainfall added mud to the mix.
“It's just enough for them to be able to get the sights and the smells and, you know, put their hands in the water and touch the water in the creek or touch leaves on the trees,” said Kim Whitton, public engagement coordinator of Great Parks. “It's a nice trail for them to experience kind of everything, but it's not too much for them.”
How Luke5Adventures got started
Kevin Schwieger, a pastor at Grace Chapel in Mason, started the organization as a way to have a friend, Debi Rosen, join him on an adventure.
Rosen had been in a car accident 20 years before and was in a wheelchair. After talking with her, Schwieger scoured the internet and came across the “Joëlette,” an all-terrain one-wheeled chair, which he dubbed a “Rosie” after Rosen.
All the rider’s weight rests upon the single wheel, allowing those pushing and pulling to guide and balance the chair rather than bear any weight. While wheelchairs rock back and forth when traversing rocky or rooty terrain, the “Rosie” does not.
After raising nearly $6,000 to buy the chair, Schwieger took Rosen on a hiking trip in Caesar Creek State Park.
“She just was over the moon excited about that because she had resigned herself to the fact that she would never ever be able to do anything like that ever again,” Schwieger said.
Before long, Schwieger was fielding calls from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, the Cincinnati Parks Foundation, Joni and Friends and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. It was obvious there was a need, Schwieger said.
So, about a year and a half ago, he created Luke5Adventures.
A walk along Kingfisher Trail
While Thursday was Jocelyn's first Luke5Adventures experience, her mother Karla Smith has been involved with the organization for months. Her 6-year-old daughter Josie, who has a vision impairment and cerebral palsy, has attended three or four hikes in the past year.
Luke MacBrair, 19, a recent Sycamore High School graduate, loves the outdoors and being around people, his father Cliff said, but he doesn't get to spend much time in the woods, since his wheelchair can't navigate the terrain.
Alex, Mac and Olivia Pardini, who share albinism, a condition that causes low vision, were most excited about the animals they might encounter on the trail, including squirrels and caterpillars.
"I think it's really cool that they provide experiences that are specialized for them," mother Jessica Pardini said. "Instead of going on a regular hike, they're guided and they help them pick out things to notice."
All six participants are CABVI students, an organization whose mission is to help those who are blind and visually impaired gain independence.
“I think this falls into that because it's, you know, having a supportive environment to have people either try new things or do things that are going to build their confidence and their travel skills and just kind of enjoy life,” said Kristen Imbus, CABVI youth services vision specialist.
In addition to group hikes organized alongside community partners, Luke5Adventures also plans individual hikes within a two-hour radius of Cincinnati and custom expeditions to hard-to-reach places such as the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Both the group and individual hikes are free, and Luke5Adventures only charges enough to cover costs for the custom expeditions. Schwieger said he doesn’t want anyone’s financial situation to stop them, and so the organization finds ways to offset costs by fundraising or applying for grants.
Every hike, a story
Every hike has a story behind it, Schwieger said.
There’s David Sparby, who made it to the top of a Red River Gorge cliffside in Kentucky. A former athlete, Sparby has almost no body control due to an accident on his family farm at age 15.
And Schwieger shared a story about a 30-year-old pursuing a master’s degree, who said he’d never been able to fully enjoy the outdoors until his Luke5Adventures excursion.
In 2020, Luke5Adventures embarked on 120 hikes in 20 parks across five states. 2021 is already on pace to double those numbers.
But Schwieger is looking bigger, to “not just add, but multiply opportunity,” through the creation of local chapters.
The first one will serve the Greater Dayton area, and Luke5Adventures is in talks with people from Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana and Cleveland about local chapters in their communities. In five years, Schwieger hopes to have a local chapter in each state.
Until then, Luke5Adventures will continue facilitating hundreds of hikes, and hundreds of stories, featuring moments like the smile on Jocelyn's face as she called out to her sister to check out her cicada collection.
"Something like this is just a win-win," said her mother Smith. "If there wasn't anything like this we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be exploring, we wouldn't be in the woods. They would never have this opportunity."
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