Accessibility is not a single yes-or-no label. Two wheelchair users can look at the same hill, hotel room or rocky trail and make completely different decisions. My aim is to explain what I actually encountered and what it took for me to manage it.
Start with who is making the judgement
I use a manual wheelchair full-time. I have good upper-body strength, I am a confident wheelchair user, and I am usually prepared to put in a fair amount of effort if I think there is something worthwhile at the end. I also have a stubborn tendency to try first and make the decision from there.
That is useful context. If I write that something was manageable, it does not mean it will be manageable for every wheelchair user.
What I look at
- Surface: bitumen, concrete, hard-packed dirt, gravel, sand, rocks, boardwalks, steps or anything else that changes how the chair moves.
- Gradient: not just whether there is a hill, but whether I could control myself going down and realistically get myself back up.
- Effort: something can be technically possible and still require a lot of work.
- Distance: especially when a detour, closure or inaccessible shortcut makes the real route much longer.
- Transport: whether I could actually board and use the shuttle, train, boat or bus rather than simply whether it was advertised as accessible.
- Parking and toilets: what I personally found and used.
- Accommodation: particularly the bathroom, which is very often the limiting factor for me.
- Conditions: crowds, weather, snowmelt, flooding and temporary closures can completely change an experience.
Assistance counts
If I got somewhere because Bre pushed me, a friend helped lift me, somebody carried me up stairs or a group of people helped me through a difficult section, I will tell you. I am not interested in making an experience sound more accessible than it was just because I eventually reached the destination.
There is an enormous difference between “I could get there independently” and “I got there because three mates were willing to help me”. Both can still be great travel experiences. They are just useful pieces of information for different people.
Bryce Canyon is a good example
At Bryce Canyon I started making my way down into the canyon. I fell on the way down and Bre and some other people helped me get back up. We continued until I reached a section where the slope became too steep and the risk of picking up too much speed was simply too high. If I lost control there, the consequences could have been serious, so I turned around.
What makes the story very “me” is that I had spent the entire descent thinking about the risk of falling and having a big accident. I had barely thought about the amount of work required to push myself all the way back to the top. Bre’s help on the return climb was absolutely needed.
That does not make Bryce Canyon “accessible” or “inaccessible” in a universal sense. It tells you exactly what happened to me, where my limit was and how much assistance I needed. That is the kind of information I want this site to provide.
Effort matters as much as access
One of the most useful distinctions I can make is whether something was easy, manageable with effort, difficult but worthwhile, or only possible because I had help. A smooth 3 km route and a rocky 3 km route are not the same experience in a manual wheelchair.
Photos and videos let you judge for yourself
I would rather show a rocky section of trail than simply call it “rough”. I would rather show myself slowing down and working through it than give it an arbitrary accessibility score. The more you can see, the less you have to rely on my interpretation.
My experience is a snapshot, not a guarantee
I identify when I visited because conditions and infrastructure change. Use my experience as one piece of your research, check current official information before travelling, and make decisions based on your own abilities, equipment and appetite for effort and risk.