My Dog Is My...Sidecar

Growing up, Anna Soens was the reason her family had a dog. After Tyson, a sweet but eternally hungry (trash- and cabinet-raiding) lab mix, passed away at almost 15, she knew her life was too unpredictable and wayward to add a new furry companion. After college, Anna was living and working full-time off the grid in some of the most remote corners of Nevada. Working as a wildlife biology field tech meant getting paid to literally camp, hike, and investigate mountain lion kills. “Home” was a tent, pickup truck, or work trailer. Working two weeks on, one week off, Anna spent almost all of her free time trad climbing throughout California, Utah, and Nevada. Thoughts about what her future looked like or what she might do with it felt overwhelming, so instead, she relished in a rootless existence and all the exploration, opportunity, and ability that came with it.

When Anna broke her back, paraplegia was secondary in her mind. As she desperately pleaded with her legs to twitch or flicker, she was consumed with the need for them to carry her back to the places she loved most: the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains, up the fissures of Moab’s sandstone walls, and across the talus fields and through the gnarled arms of Nevada’s endless seas of sage. The stillness of her feet was merely the quiet, tangible evidence of the lost freedom and ransacked identity that she was mourning – her ability to find escape and peace in these favorite places was lost in an instant. Anna was devastated and terrified. Hating the straight lines of the corners of the hospital room and the constant barrage of lights and beeps at all hours of the day and night, she longed to wake up in her tent again and brush this nightmare away with the sleep from her eyes. From her laptop, Anna escaped the hospital room by devouring photos, trip reports, and climbing route beta – with the new hunger of a caged dog.


Slowly, Anna stumbled upon the world of adaptive sports through the non-profit organization, Oregon Adaptive Sports (OAS). Finding herself in awe of athletes who were climbing, skiing, and mountain biking in a style she’d never seen before gave her hope for the future for the first time since her fall. They were getting after it – and Anna was pumped. OAS was instrumental in helping Anna become independent and active outdoors again, while connecting her with the Bend, OR, community – which she now calls home. She became fixated by the three-wheeled adaptive mountain bikes that easily crawled over rock and trail. If her legs couldn’t get her back into the wilds, Anna knew her arms and this bike would. In 2017, with the help of grants, she was able to fund her own Reactive Adaptations handcycle and regain some of her lost freedom and autonomy. She’s taken it (and Bernie!) to a mountain bike festival in Targhee, a technical riding camp in Moab, a women’s crush-fest in Sun Valley, and has used it to access climbing at Smith Rock. It’s allowed her to race against other handcyclists, hike with able-bodied friends, and run Bernie for miles through the Boise foothills and Central Oregon singletrack.
