Seven years ago, Jess Burke was living in Portland, working as a disability analyst for the State of Oregon, and regularly hiking upward of 60 miles a month with her husband, Rod. She began experiencing stiffness in her neck, shoulders and right side, so her doctor prescribed physical therapy.
“It wasn’t helping much, but I finally ended up with a therapist who said, ‘I think there’s a problem here,’” and recommended an MRI, Burke recalls. That was when the longtime athlete and lover of the outdoors found out she had Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder that can cause motor symptoms, including tremors, decreased movement, stiffness, and balance issues.
“I was having a really hard time,” recalls Burke, 67. “My right leg was dragging, and my right arm was swinging, so I started going to physical therapy, but it really wasn’t until I got to Destination Rehab that things started to change. I love it. It’s really made a big difference in my life, and I’m going to stick with it for as long as I can.”
Jess Burke and Rod, 69, had moved to Bend, and an occupational therapist suggested that Burke check out the Central Oregon nonprofit (https://www.destinationrehab.org/) that provides recreation-based physical therapy for people who are experiencing neurological issues, such as those from strokes and spinal cord and brain injuries, Parkinson’s Disease, and multiple sclerosis.
“I started getting really bad by the time we moved here, so I really needed to get into a program. This has worked really well for me. I don’t fall anymore. Well, maybe occasionally, but I was falling all the time,” Burke said of Destination Rehab, through which she attends regular exercise classes that have positively impacted her life, and not just from a physical standpoint.
“It’s not just physical therapy, it’s a community,” she said. “Most of the people in the weekly exercise group are friends, and we have book clubs and other activities. It’s really made a big difference in my life because it’s not that you lose friends when you become disabled. It’s that people just kind of drift away because you can’t do that big hike anymore, or you can’t do this or that anymore, and so you just kind of start getting left out.”
Working with Destination Rehab has also led her to new athletic experiences, most recently at the Bend Rock Gym (https://www.bendrockgym.com/), which provides wall space and customized climbing routes to Destination Rehab participants who are learning to climb. Volunteers help with belaying and teaching climbing skills.
Tim Han, director of operations for Bend Rock Gym, said gym staff regularly check in with Destination Rehab volunteers and therapists to determine what types of routes need to be set for participants. Some need routes with bigger handholds, while others don’t want to go too high or need shorter transitions between holds. Han said participants regularly tell him how much they’re enjoying the program. Many plan to continue to climb once completing the eight-week program.
“Rock climbing has helped them, I think, because it’s a full body exercise that’s also mental,” Han said. “Even though rock climbing seems to a lot of people to be scary and inherently sort of dangerous, it’s actually quite safe as long as everyone is doing their part. You’re using your whole body. You’re not just using your feet and hands. You’re also using your core and all kinds of shoulder muscles and lower-back muscles, and then the mobility that you need in your thighs to your knees to your ankles. It’s all really important.”
For Burke, climbing has enabled her to learn a new sport while make new connections, including with Glenna and Earl Alderson, both 65 and longtime climbers.
“I decided to do climbing in the gym because I’ve always been terrified of heights, and I wanted to try something that would challenge me,” Burke said. “The volunteers are experienced climbers, and they worked with us one-on-one, so within about three weeks, I was able to get to the top of one of the shorter walls, but still quite a distance up.
“I was determined from the beginning to make it up to the top because that was my biggest issue. I would get halfway up, and then I’d look down and I’d freak out. But every time, I just went a little higher, and I finally got to the top,” she added. “Now, we’re working on different skills that help you climb. The volunteers are just awesome. Glenna and Earl have been so amazing. They’ve done a lot of work with me, and it’s made a big difference. They really know how to encourage you and help you, and they help you size up the puzzle, about which way to go and to climb.
“The climbing has made me feel, well, not totally like myself because I was really athletic, but it makes me feel like I still have time to go and enjoy activities, even if maybe I can’t do them as well as I used to,” Burke said.
The Aldersons, who met while students at Oregon State University, have been married for 42 years. They spent 32 years teaching outdoor activities at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. When it was time to retire, they knew they wanted to head back to the Pacific Northwest, where Glenna was raised. Central Oregon beckoned because they could pursue their love of all things outdoors, including paddling, climbing, and biking. Having volunteered with a similar program in Massachusetts, they jumped at the opportunity to help with the Destination Rehab offering at Bend Rock Gym when they heard about it.
“It’s a pretty amazing program,” said Earl. “For people with Parkinson’s, it’s pretty incredible. They might have difficulty walking, but once they get a harness on, and then you tie them in, and they’re on belay, they can climb and not have to worry about balance issues or falling.”
Glenna agrees.
“One woman told us that the climbing gym was really one of the only places that she felt that she wasn’t disabled. That really rang with me,” Glenna said. “She feels like she’s part of the community and that it’s OK to have different abilities. Everybody there is different. There’s a lot of different ages. There’s a lot of different abilities. But there’s something for everyone.”
This article appears in the Source December 18, 2025.
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