Up on Donner Summit, hidden among the trees and glistening alpine lakes, a pocket of magic exists. A group of very special humans are engaging in something extraordinary.
One of them is Steve Wampler. Born with severe cerebral palsy, he has spent his life in a wheelchair and is a trailblazer in every sense of the word.
In September of 2012, he summited El Capitan on the sole strength of his arms. As an environmental engineer, he personally designed the adaptive rig he used to pull himself up the 7,537-foot granite rock face. Over the course of the six-day climb, he did three- to four-thousand pull-ups a day, toting his own body weight as well as the weight of the adaptive climbing gear. That’s 20,000 pull-ups in six days.
“I wanted to show kids that whether they have a disability or not, anything is possible,” Wampler said.
Steve believes possibility is contagious. When children are surrounded by people who see their potential and are given the space to freely be outside, their understanding of what’s possible begins to shift.
In 2002, Wampler and his wife Elizabeth founded Camp Wamp, an outdoor summer camp for kids with physical disabilities. Fully immersed in nature, these 8- to 18-year-olds get to do all the camp things we know and love. They sleep under the stars, sing around the campfire, canoe, climb, fish, dance, and most importantly, learn that they are loved and that their aspirations are limitless. “The kids here can do whatever they put their minds to,” Wampler said.
The camp is a celebration of humanity, teaching kids that there is beauty to be found in their disability and that there’s an eternal sense of optimism that comes from learning to persevere, adapt, and shift perspectives.
At Camp Wamp, the exuberant amount of love is undeniable. With kindness at its core, a seamless flow exists between camp director, counselors, cooks, maintenance crew, Steve and Elizabeth, and the campers. Everyone exists with good intention.
Are things sometimes chaotic, unpredictable, and challenging? Of course. Surprise downpours, electricity outages, and troubleshooting are a part of the game. But all that just adds to the experience.
“It’s the hardest job you’ll ever love,” said camp director and master of controlled chaos, Max Park. “We’ve formed a family. We trust each other deeply and we’re all in it for the same thing.”
For a lot of the camp-goers, it’s their first fully immersive outdoor experience. “Every kid deserves nature, or at least the freedom to have it,” Park said. “But that’s not the reality.”
At Camp Wamp, they make it a reality. The kids get to sleep directly under the stars together. It may just look like a bunch of cots pushed together, but when the brisk mountain air flows and the giggles echo, it becomes something entirely different — a magical place called Cotlandia.
The campers spend hours on the beach, in the water, and on the trails. They eat meals together, roast s’mores, and perform skits. It’s adventurous in every way; the quintessential camp experience.
Eighty-five percent of the campers return each year. “I’ve watched these kids blossom and learn from Steve to be fiercely independent,” Park said, her eyes wet. “Year after year, you see the confidence we’ve instilled in them to continue to build.”
Growing up with cerebral palsy, Steve knew firsthand how fast the expenses pile up when raising a child with a disability. It was important to the Wamplers that there would be no fee for children to attend camp. “We ask for a small donation, but if they can’t afford it, not a worry in the world,” Steve said.
The Stephen J Wampler foundation is the nonprofit organization that funds the camps and a whole lot more. The couple recently started working on a large initiative, putting their resources into incorporating disability education in more than 70,000 schools nationwide, partnering with Harmony Academy at National University to get things rolling. The goal is to build and advance a modern conversation in disability. From a young age, children will learn how to interact with and become friends with kids with disabilities. More resources allow for more opportunities and less stigmatization.
The Wampler Story
Steve was born in 1968 and grew up in a time when having a physical disability was rarely accommodated, let alone received with grace. Limiting self-belief was the norm. But when he was nine, he attended a rugged, adventurous camp for physically disabled kids in Sierra County called Easterseals.
Through full immersion in nature, Wampler developed a sense of independence, adaptability, and wonder that has never left. The camp awakened in him a deep connection to the outdoors. It changed his life, and he knew early on that he needed to pass that along.
After earning a degree in environmental engineering from UC Davis, he enjoyed working in the field for a while, but couldn’t shake the intuitive pull: he felt he was meant to be giving kids the transformative experience he had.
So, he went back to Easterseals and took over. Along the way he met Elizabeth, and the universe couldn’t seem to keep them apart.
In a moment of stagnation in 2009, however, Steve felt a drive to do something big. “I was a bit reckless at that time,” he admitted, “and I thought, what can I do to really help our foundation and put us on the map in a much bigger way?”
That’s when he came up with the idea to climb El Cap. He trained rigorously for 18 months, spending five hours a day, six days a week in the gym, doing up to 3,000 pull-ups a day. “Training was all-consuming for a year,” he recalled.
A documentary on his pursuit was filmed, Wampler’s Ascent. It toured worldwide and won 53 various awards. It was the turning-point the nonprofit foundation needed.
In 2015, Steve and Elizabeth received a call from a stranger in Arizona. They had watched the film and expressed their love for what the Wamplers were doing. They told them, “We love your work. We would love to buy you a property of your own.”
Stunned and infinitely grateful, the Wamplers set out on a search for Camp Wamp’s new home. After months of searching all over the U.S., they found the Donner Summit location. It needed a whole lot of work, but they immediately knew it was perfect. It’s since blossomed into the life-changing outdoor location it is today.
One lovely afternoon up at Camp Wamp, Elizabeth and I chatted about the profound, unexplainable impact that nature can have on the human psyche. When you spend a certain amount of time outside, you start realizing how intertwined we all are. Nature has the power to transform and the ability to teach lessons no human could. Elizabeth noted how that impact seems to be amplified in children with disabilities.
Asked what he would say to someone facing a similar path as he had, Steve responded with a gleam in his eye: “Don’t let your disability stop you from having a big, fulfilling life. Dream big and don’t let anything get in your way.
