Anyone who has hiked up a mountain knows that if your eyes are always fixed on the summit, you can't focus on the path that gets you there, right at your feet. And every path has its obstacles.

Erik Weihenmayer's most daunting challenge used to be that he couldn't see the path at all. He was diagnosed at age four with juvenile retinoschisis and progressively lost his vision. So he trained himself to see differently. "I learned that the beauty of climbing was discovering the clues in the rock face, the nubs, edges, knobs, and pockets I could hang on to." 

Weihenmayer went on to make history in 2001 as the first blind man to summit Mt. Everest, a journey he documented in his memoir Touch the Top of the World. 

His new book, No Barriers: A Blind Man's Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017), picks up where that story left off. He helps launch a get-outdoors organization called No Barriers for those with special challenges; organizes a series of mountain- and ice-climbing expeditions for blind children in Tibet and veterans suffering from PTSD; and sets a personal goal of becoming the first blind man to kayak 277 miles down the Colorado River. The loss of his brother Mark to alcoholism and the challenges he faces while adopting a troubled young boy from Tibet are some of the most poignant stories in the book. In all aspects of his life, Weihenmayer returns to a philosophy for overcoming seemingly unsurpassable odds: Be here now.

This article appeared in the May/June 2017 edition with the headline "Beyond Great Expectations."