Have you heard of the Joëlette wheelchair? The Joëlette was born from a human adventure: to make nature sports and wide-open spaces accessible to all! Its creator, Joel Claudel, a French mountain guide, created the first model in 1987 for his nephew, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, to take him on outdoor adventures despite his disability. It was later improved for better ergonomics, weight, and comfort to make nature more accessible for disabled people worldwide. With this special-made wheelchair, tourism can be more inclusive for people with disabilities.
Wheel the World, an accessible travel platform that helps people with disabilities book trips and experiences designed to accommodate their specific needs donated the Joëlette wheelchair to EcoCamp. It is available for everybody to use, but all requests have to go through EcoCamp and Cascada Expediciones.
How does the Joëlette wheelchair work
The hiking chair «Joëlette» is an all-terrain, one-wheeled chair that enables mobility-challenged people to participate in hiking and running activities, even on the rockiest trails and roughest terrains. To support the passenger and the wheelchair, you need 2-5 people, depending on the difficulty of the route, the driver's experience, and the passenger's weight. The wheelchair is easy to pack and weighs only 26 kg/57 lbs.
It is equipped with straps and hardness to ensure the passenger can sit fixed and sit comfortably in the wheelchair without fear of falling out of it.
The wheelchair's shock absorber is set to 13 bars for passengers weighing up to 85 kg. The internal pressure of the shock absorber must be adjusted for lighter or heavier passengers.
For more specs and details, visit the Jöelette website
Exploring Torres del Paine National Park with the Joëlette wheelchair
Many trails in the National Park Torres del Paine are very rocky due to moraines, material left behind by a moving glacier. This material is usually soil and rock, which is very present when visiting the park and exploring its trails. Some parts of the trails are relatively clean, but most have rocks, big steps, and loose terrain. Also, most trails have downhills and uphills, and very few are completely flat. This is why a normal wheelchair would not work here, but a Joëlette wheelchair could be an option.
We tested the wheelchair on different trails, and we were very positive about how many of the trails we could actually visit. However, it does depend on the passenger, the number of drivers, and the physical state of the drivers because managing the wheelchair in this kind of terrain requires power and balance.
Also, the weather influences the conditions. Very strong wind and rain make the conditions harder and more risky, and some trails might not be recommended if the weather is too harsh.
As mentioned earlier, the chair needs at least two people to support it. In the cases where we used the wheelchair, we used at least 5-12 people, depending on the difficulty of the activity and terrain. We haven't always used all drivers at the same time, but since the terrain here is very rocky and has a lot of uphill and downhill, we prefer to have extra hands to support the more difficult parts, and to take turns between the drivers.
Activities we have done in the national park with the Jöelette Wheelchair
We have had a handful of guests visiting EcoCamp and doing activities with the help of the wheelchair. Before introducing these activities to our guests, we tested them ourselves to ensure they were feasible. Additionally, there were not many precedents for us to follow.
It all started back in 2016 when the Chilean Álvaro Silberstein became the first person to explore the national park Torres del Paine in a wheelchair. Álvaro had a car accident when he was 18 years old, leaving him quadriplegic and dependent on a wheelchair to move around. With his friend Camilo Navarro, he made an expedition called Wheel the World to raise crowdfunding money to purchase the Joelette wheelchair. This journey made him the first person with a disability to complete the W Trek, which covers more than 71 kilometers and is filled with challenging terrain.
EcoCamp helped crowdfund the purchase of Joelette, and a few weeks later, a paralyzed child - Nicolas Paez - became the first disabled child to hike to the Base of the Towers (22km) in that same Joelette wheelchair. His parents took him through the dramatic mountains of Patagonia with the help of his family and volunteers. You can see the short documentary “I Can Conquer All Mountains” about how they did it. This documentary was in 2018 awarded the Pure Award for Transformational Travel at the annual expo held in Morocco.
In January 2018, we trekked with Jake Hytken using the Joélette wheelchair. You can check our documentary “Patagonia, Wheelchair & I | A Story of Inclusive Tourism in Chile” about his visit here:
In 2022, Álvaro Silberstein returned to EcoCamp with a new goal: being the first person in a wheelchair to ascend Cerro Paine (1,000m/3,300ft), the mountain in front of the hotel. You can read about that adventure in our blog post: History was made! First ascent of Cerro Paine with a wheelchair user. Seven people helped as drivers to complete this amazing accomplishment.
In April 2024, we had the pleasure of hosting Tiffany Gambill, who, together with her family, did the Wildlife Safari program with the extension program Puma Encounter as an add-on activity. Tiffany has Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA) disease and depends on a wheelchair and the help of others. You can read about her and her experiences in our blog post: Get to know Tiffany, a wheelchair travel influencer.
Not all trails are suitable for wheelchairs, and sometimes, we also have to consider the risk of injuries and falls from the drivers. This is why we carefully evaluate each trail to ensure it is safe for passengers and drivers.
Who might not benefit from the Joëlette wheelchair
On very uneven terrain, the Joëlette company does not recommend the wheelchair for physically fragile people who could suffer fractures, pain, or musculoskeletal injuries due to major vibrations, such as those caused by passing steps, stones, and big rocks. Furthermore, we do not recommend exploring Torres del Paine National Park for people who need their spine and/or neck fixed at all times because even the roads are very uneven and damaged. That, and being transported in a wheelchair on uneven and rocky terrain, would be too big of a risk for the passenger.
The Joëlette can support a weight of 110 kilos. However, for safety reasons, the passenger's weight should not greatly exceed the back rider's (to be adjusted according to the team's capacities and the route's difficulty).
Interested in what we can do for you?
Please, send us an e-mail at reservations@cascada.travel, with as much information as possible about you, your disability, limitations, forces, previous experiences, and expectations. This way, we can easily evaluate and recommend the best options for your stay at EcoCamp Patagonia.
