Introducing Sam Merrill

Hi folks, let me introduce myself!

My name is Sam Merrill, and starting this summer and fall I'll be posting some trail and route descriptions on MTF from the perspective of a hand trike user.

As a bit of background on me, I was an avid wilderness explorer for decades before my legs decided they had other plans.

Fore River Preserve, Portland

Here are a few examples of my explorations from "way back when..." (I’m now 55):

• My family was US AID during my high school years and we traveled a lot in general, which continued through my 20s. This good luck allowed me to rock climb, scuba dive, explore waterfalls, and get lost tracking down wildlife in many countries; my favorites were the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, east of Agra (India), and the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns (Australia).
• In 1989 I was a research biologist with the USFWS on a wildlife refuge in Eastern Oregon, so I was in the wild basically all the time, banding flycatchers etc., and spent my off-days mountain biking the high altitude Steens Mountain Range (some interesting rattlesnake encounters come to mind right away!) Later that year, I spent a week biking down the Colorado Divide – unforgettable.
• Through the 1990s, I did my Ph.D. on wolves in Minnesota, helicopter net-gunning the critters and putting GPS radio collars on them to learn new things about their biorhythms, dispersal, and sociality. It was back-country work as part of a research team I led for the National Guard and MN DNR. In all kinds of remote habitat, we studied everything with a spine and lots of things without. 

So I have been fortunate to have wilderness adventure be a big part of my life and work. But since 1998 I have also had Multiple Sclerosis. In 2009 I transitioned to Secondary Progressive MS and started losing leg function; hikes or even stairs became difficult. In 2013 I installed hand controls in my car and in 2017 I began intermittent wheelchair use. I use it more now in 2024, and wilderness hikes are a thing of the past - so handcycling has become the primary way I can get into the woods and get exercise. In winter I supplement this with monoskiing.

Fore River Preserve, Portland

One thing I’d like to share about handcycling off-road woods is how compared to all the miles I have hiked, being closer to the ground handcycling is rich and complex for the senses. For example, on just one ride last month (on land trust trails in Cape Elizabeth) I saw the following up close that I likely would have missed had I been hiking:

• A snake
• A salamander
• Fox scat
• Shelf fungi (under a log – I had the angle)
• A freshly excavated groundhog burrow
• A toad
• What remained of a swallow after a Sharpie assault I had just seen because I could peek through under a solid row of balsam fir.

I’m usually huffing quite a bit to get over roots and rocks, and it’s not quite slow enough for me to stop and collect or linger over things – but being that low, I see more detail in everything near the ground.

I have also come to appreciate how few off-road handcyclers there are in the region, and thus how few resources describe access issues for non-asphalt spaces in the greater Portland area (like parks, preserves, land trust holdings, and municipally owned lands). So I was thrilled to talk with Enock about Maine Trail Finder and the opportunity to write about trails for people who may wish to explore new sites with their adaptive vehicles. I'll be happy if anyone finds a morsel of utility in what I report.

The gist is that off-road handcycling has allowed me to reencounter my athletic wilderness self, with whom I hadn’t spoken since 2009 – I like him.

Feel free to contact me anytime. And I'll see you out there! 

Last fall I installed mag tires and hydraulic brakes on my handcycle, and then there was no such thing as too cold for a ride! (Percy Baxter’s Pet Cemetery, Mackworth Island, Falmouth)