By Erin Jester
Kara Senn was at a rock gym in Tampa in 2024 when she overheard someone talking about the possibility of starting a meetup for climbers with disabilities in the area.
Senn’s ears perked up. An introvert, Senn said she isn’t usually the type to insert herself into a stranger’s conversation. But the training she received in the Doctor of Occupational Therapy program at the University of Florida’s College of Public Health and Health Professions told her to investigate.
“I just felt a pull, like I could do something here,” she said.
The stranger was Caleb Cowan, an avid rock climber who uses a prosthetic leg.
Cowan, a U.S. Army veteran, got hooked on rock climbing after attending an outdoor climbing clinic in Colorado for veterans with amputations in 2023. When he got home to Tampa, he was disappointed to discover there was nothing similar in the area.
After a few conversations, and with support from ParaCliffHangers, a nonprofit organization that aims to make climbing more accessible for people with disabilities, Cowan and Senn launched the first adaptive rock climbing meetup in Florida.
The ParaCliffHangers adaptive climbing meetup is also the only adaptive group for bouldering — lower-height climbing without ropes or harnesses — in the United States.
Senn is a 2023 graduate of UF’s O.T.D. program, and also received a Bachelor of Health Science – Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2020. She used her occupational therapy lens to determine potential adaptations and educate gym staff about unintentional barriers. She also advocated for lowering the admission cost for climbers with disabilities and making the events free for caregivers and spectators to help reduce financial barriers.
Gym staff who set bouldering routes by placing the textured grip holds on the climbing wall may favor the right side, for example, which makes it difficult or impossible for people with right-side impairments to climb that route.
“You don’t know what you don’t know, so they didn’t even realize a particular group was being excluded because of the way they were setting,” she said.
The owners of Central Rock Gym, where the meetups began, were receptive, and started setting routes with color-coded holds to indicate the adaptive route, which can be used by anyone.
That’s the point of universal design, Senn said, referencing the concept of designing products and spaces that can be used to the greatest extent possible by people of all abilities.
“You don’t have to have things that are necessarily ‘for’ people with disabilities or able-bodied people. You can design for all different needs and ability levels,” she said. “That’s the heart of occupational therapy.”
Not all of the participants have limb differences.
Senn said one of her favorite experiences was problem-solving with a climber with impaired vision. The solution was a phone call: His sighted partner on the ground gave clock-face directions the climber could hear in his earbuds.
“That was a little bit terrifying,” Senn said. “They’re definitely brave.”
The meetups now happen the last Sunday of each month at Vertical Ventures in St. Petersburg and include bouldering and rope climbing, with a community of about 15 regulars who share ideas, tips and support.
In the first year of running the clinics, Cowan and two other climbers from the group attended the Para Climbing National Championships, and all three of them later made the U.S. Para Climbing National Team.
Senn, who has been climbing since 2021, said getting to work with the adaptive climbing group reminded her of people’s creativity and resilience.
As an acute care occupational therapist, Senn works with people when they’re freshly injured or recovering from illness. The work can be emotionally heavy.
“Having the experience of seeing people farther along in their journeys reminds me there’s a lot of progress to be had, and there’s a lot of hope,” she said.
Cowan said he found Senn’s method of working with people with disabilities refreshing.
“It felt way more holistic,” he said. “It felt like she had more of a person-first approach, rather than approaching someone as a patient.”
Senn recently relocated to Boston, where she will continue working as an acute care occupational therapist at Tufts Medical Center. She hopes to find another adaptive group to climb with.
Being able to reintroduce people to activities they love and advocating for increased access to those activities for everyone is important to her.
“It brings me back to what is so special about OT and why I chose this career in the first place,” she said.