Bill Bogdan has taken his children zip lining before. And though he is an adventure guy who loves to go rock climbing whenever he can, he has always had to watch his kids navigate the lines from ground level.
That is not by choice. Bogdan, 51, of Mokena, has used a wheelchair most of his life, having been diagnosed with neuroblastoma of the spine at age 8. While he has been able to find creative solutions to participate in other adventures, zip lining remained off limits to him until last week.
As part of a universal design and accessibility training week for staff at The Forge: Lemont Quarries — an outdoor aerial adventure park that features rock climbing, ropes courses and zip lining — Bogdan was invited to be one of the first to use some of the facility’s new adaptive equipment. In a seated harness, he was assisted to the top of the 90-foot-tall East Tower last Thursday morning, transferred to the line and zipped 900 feet over a quarry lake.
First, he gave a thumbs-up to onlookers. Then, he just threw his hands up to enjoy the ride.
“This is the very first time in my life, as a person with a disability, that I zip lined,” he said. “Totally awesome experience. It was just something. It is a pretty exhilarating experience.”
Just as exhilarating was the idea Bogdan could now do something like this with his family instead of watching from the sidelines. Bogdan got into rock climbing roughly four years ago after retiring from sled hockey, and he immediately fell in love, in large part because it offered him the one thing few other sports did at the time.
“Rock climbing was the first sport I got into that I was able to do with my kids,” he said, noting that and an accessible kayak launch attracted him to The Forge. “It’s great to be able to do family activities together. A lot of times the disability sports were always separate. I did my thing; the kids did their thing.”
The addition of the lift for the zip lines is one of several upgrades, including to the climbing walls and ropes courses, The Forge has made to its Eight Towers Adventure feature less than year after opening, in an effort to make the park accessible to all. Owner Jeremie Bacon said that was part of the plan from the start, but opening last summer in the middle of a pandemic slowed the manufacture and delivery of some of the specialized equipment The Forge needed.
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That meant a slight delay for Bogdan, who was eager for another active opportunity so close to home but had his doubts about whether the Lemont business could deliver.
“I read when they were designing the park they were going to make it accessible for people with all abilities, and I said, ‘I want to make sure that we’re on the same page here, that people with disabilities are going to be able to participate just like anybody else,'” he said. “And Jeremie assured me that, 100%, that’s our ultimate goal is to make this park fully accessible to people with all abilities.”
Bacon said he is happy they are now able to deliver on that promise. A lot of work went into the engineering to make sure the park is both accessible and adaptable over time. That means everything from major paths being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act to equipment that can assist people with physical disabilities to knowing the best times and places in the park for people with sensory considerations.
“Outdoor recreation should be accessible to anyone of any age and any ability,” Bacon said. “That is a core tenet of how we operate. We want this place to be inclusive, we want it to be exciting, we want it to be fun for anybody.”
In addition to the equipment, the last week in April was all about training staff in operation of the new equipment as well as recognizing people’s needs and knowing how to address them.
That is where Thornton-based Experiential Systems Incorporated, which specializes in accessible courses, came in.
Melanie Wills, ESI’s director of operations and development, said the training is as much about changing the way people think as it is about the technical aspects.
“It’s all about an open and welcoming mindset more than anything,” she said. “That’s a really big part of our training. We just talk about universal mindset and how we approach people — what people need and how we can provide more accessible facilities and courses.
“This industry continues to move in this direction toward accessibility, which is really great. It’s often easier than people would think. There’s a lot of simple adjustments, things that courses have already that make their courses accessible.”
Employees need to be welcoming when they recognize someone in a group uses a wheelchair and invite their participation, Wills said. They can learn how to use verbal cues to guide someone with a visual impairment through a ropes course. And they need to understand sensory, emotional or cognitive disabilities, as well as how they can adapt to those.
“Often, disabilities are hidden,” Wills said. “Folks can come in and use a regular harness. A couple little tweaks here and there, and they can get on up and climb.
“I love doing this stuff. I love teaching and training emerging leaders in this industry to adjust how they might view humans who are different than them. That’s huge. We hope they walk away with a little bit of a changed mindset and learn how to be more intentionally inviting to the community.”
Bacon said that is particularly important as many of the employees at The Forge are college-aged and have opportunities to influence the future of the adventure business. He is hoping these lessons spark some ideas in them and The Forge continues to evolve for the better. He also hopes this becomes a trend around the country.
“It’s eye-opening and worldview changing to see this outdoor recreation industry can and should support these kinds of activities,” he said. “It’s really expensive to put this stuff in, but I personally think going into business is about doing well by doing good. Generally speaking, people who run outdoor parks tend to have this innate desire to be of service and help others. This is a great way to do that.
“I encourage others to make some kind of investment in it. You don’t have to spend $1 million. You can spend $100,000. You can spend $200,000 and come up with really cool, unique ways to open up the experience to more people. You’re never going to make the money back because the audience isn’t probably big enough, but the impact it can have on those people, it’s life-changing to see their faces and the excitement and the joy. You can’t pay for that.”
Bacon knows on a personal level what that can mean to families. Shortly after Bogdan’s turn on the zip line, Bacon got to watch his daughter, who is partially paralyzed on one side, zip line from that particular platform for the first time. It was a big moment for both of them.
“As a father, to be able to see my daughter go out here and experience this particular part of the tower the way I can, it’s really exciting, really neat,” Bacon said.
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.