THUNDER BAY – LIVING – Damien Gilbert shares, “A month ago I ran into my friend Jazzy (Jeff Carlson), he had commented on one of my Mt. McKay photos. For those of you that don’t know my friend, he has been in a wheelchair his whole life. I said to him, ‘You know… it would be amazing to bring you up there, we are going to do this!!.’
“There was a spark in his eye and I could tell he was stoked with the idea. He had never been to the top of a mountain before. One month later, I made a facebook post looking for like-minded friends to accomplish this adventure with me. To bring Jazzy to the top! We needed the right, like minded crew to achieve this goal, that nothing is impossible and before I knew it we had more than 12 friends coming together and supporting this adventure in less than 24 hours notice.
“We needed a few strong bodies to each take a handle on the stretcher, videographers, photographers, friends to carry supplies and the wheel chair for Jazzy to wheel around the top. We had media waiting at the bottom to hear the story before we took on this journey and that was a pretty admirable feeling to have the media record a passionate group coming together for someone else. Mt. McKay can be a difficult task to climb on it’s own, it is steep, jagged, and full of sliding shale, let alone carrying someone up this 1000ft above sea level climb. This dream team made it happen and in great time!”
