EDITORIAL: Track chairs will give more people access to park features

Jun. 5—Exploring the outdoors is a big boost for many minds and bodies.

Thanks to a new pilot program in Minnesota state parks, more people will have better access to the benefits of nature.

Track chairs, which are electric-powered and built for off-road, will be available to visitors with mobility restrictions in five state parks. The chairs work in places that regular wheelchairs don't.

The pilot project means the chairs are immediately available in Camden, Crow Wing and Myre-Big Island parks. In mid June, Lake Bemidji State Park will have a chair, and Maplewood State Park is to have one beginning in late summer or early fall.

Use of the chairs is free and reservations can be made by calling the specific park to be visited. Adaptive beach chairs are also available at McCarthy Beach State Park.

The Department of Natural Resources, which runs the parks, has heard from members of the public asking for better access to park amenities. The DNR partnered with the Minnesota Council on Disability for the project.

The track chairs were unveiled last week at Myre-Big Island in Albert Lea. Attending was Brittanie Wilson of the Minnesota Council on Disability, who has been disabled all her life, and she'd tried out a chair earlier this year, the Albert Lea Tribune reported. "Wheelchairs give so much freedom of movement," she said. "But one thing that a lot of typical wheelchairs don't offer for you is the ability to off-road and explore nature in an uninhibited and free way."

Opening up opportunities is an important role of the state parks where a selection of programming and a variety of habitats have succeeded in attracting more people. Helping visitors who otherwise wouldn't be able to get to a waterfall or to an overlook via a trail is a worthwhile endeavor.

The sooner the chairs are available in every park, the more opportunity for visitors who've had less access to all of the facets of the great outdoors.