Blind Climber Gets Clarity Atop Kilimanjaro

Dec. 26, 2007 — -- Bill Barkeley was eager to enter an ultra-exclusive club: people who've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

But his journey differed vastly from others' because Barkeley is nearly blind because of an inherited condition that causes progressive hearing and vision loss.

Yet, he refused to allow his Usher's Syndrome to limit his ability to ascend to the mountain's top.

"It was about the visual experience because I figured if I was going blind that the best thing I could do was to create memories of things that I would never forget," Barkeley said. "I knew that after I went blind, no one ever could take that away from me."

Barkeley enlisted the aid of adventurer Jeff Evans to accomplish his goal.

"The first time of hanging out with him and being in the mountains with him I realized that he really wanted to do something and not just for himself. He wanted to do something big and make a statement," Evans said.

Though Evans had helped visually impaired climbers before, the combination of Barkeley's diminished vision and hearing presented a unique problem.

"We had audible commands to work with and now all of a sudden that's taken out of the equation, something that I've relied on heavily. So there was a whole different set of problems that we had to deal with and tackle," Evans said.

The climbers used technology to help them communicate.

"There's so much great assistive technology that's out there now with hearing aids and a wireless system that allows people to communicate," Barkeley said. "[I] basically said 'OK, now I'll increase my chances of being able to hear, understand where we're going and increase the odds of getting up to the top.'"

The duo, which dealt with challenging conditions during its 19,340-foot voyage to the top, rarely separated. Barkeley said he was enthused about achieving his goal and recognized its difficulty.

"It took everything to get there," he said.