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Bob Coomber does not think of himself as courageous. The 30-year Livermore resident and recently elected City Council member considers the way he goes about his life “just me being me.”
But to the panel of judges, the 62-year-old was a clear choice for recipient of the 2017 Tri-Valley Heroes Courage Award, which singles out one resident each year “for an act of bravery or for determination and strength of character to triumph over adversity.”
A Piedmont native, Coomber grew up an avid hiker who often went on family trips to Tilden Regional Park.
He also had juvenile diabetes that was unknowingly causing bone density issues. In 1989, Coomber was walking on a beach at Lake Almanor when, as he puts it, “my left leg just kind of blew up.”
Coomber rehabbed from the injury, but the day doctors gave him the green light to start using a cane he broke both ankles just from bearing weight.
He went through seven breaks overall. By the early 1990s, Coomber was in a wheelchair and faced with figuring out how to adapt.
“It was tough, (but) it was manageable,” Coomber recalled of the transition. “And what made it manageable was my willingness to just get up into the chair and do it.”
“Once you got started, it’s almost like the possibilities were endless — there’s so much you found you could do that you presumed you couldn’t do, and then it was, ‘What’s the next thing to do?'” he added.
One of the things Coomber found he could still do was hike.
He recalls training at a hill in Hayward once a week, wheeling himself up as far as he could before turning around. Then he would head back to the gym and repeat the exercise until, after seven weeks, he made it to the top.
“Once I realized I could do that, all the shackles were off,” Coomber said. “Every step I took forward, metaphorically, I learned more about what I could do and I wasn’t fixated at all about what I couldn’t do.”
As a result, Coomber kept moving forward. He became the first person in a wheelchair to reach the summits of Mission Peak, Mount Diablo and White Mountain — California’s third-highest peak at 14,252 feet.
The latter hike took Coomber three days, an excursion that involved climbing over shoebox-sized rocks and navigating switchbacks. He says it was an experience that “pretty much cemented the idea that I could do anything I wanted.”
“There was no feeling like being on top of a 14,000-footer after three days on the trail,” he said. “That was the crowning achievement to this point.”
Now Coomber has his sights set on a new summit: He wants to become the first wheelchair hiker to cross the 11,485-foot Kearsarge Pass in the Sierra Nevada.
Coomber’s first two attempts to cross the mountain pass — which were thwarted by a malfunctioning insulin pump and threat of an infection — were documented by Bay Area filmmaker Tal Skloot and turned into a film titled “4 Wheel Bob,” which debuted last year.
Coomber is hoping to make it back for a third try this summer. In the meantime, he’s thinking about his annual wintertime 68-mile round trip from Pleasanton to Concord and back on the Iron Horse Regional Trail, as well as other excursions of significance.
Throughout the year, Coomber meets with veterans and seniors with limited mobility and takes them out to local parks and trails. Recently he accompanied a group that was mostly in wheelchairs on a hike at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline.
“Here’s a bunch of folks who rarely get a chance to exercise that way, but once they did it, they all recognized they could do it,” he said. “I saw a couple (since) and they asked about the next time we’re going to go out. That’s such a cool thing to hear.”
The biggest reward Coomber gets from hiking, he said, is realizing, “if I’m willing to push and stay in shape, I can still do the things I love doing.”
“14,000 feet couldn’t stop me, so we don’t know what will,” he said.
Hero FYI
* Bob Coomber lives in Livermore with his wife Gina. Bob also has a daughter named Amanda who lives in Cotati.
* Sycamore Grove Park, Del Valle Regional Park and the Sunol Regional Wilderness are among his favorite local places to hike.
* Inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame in 2007 and recognized by the George W. Bush administration in 2008 with a President’s Council on Physical Fitness Community Leadership Award.
* Elected to the Livermore City Council for the first time in November.
* The documentary “4 Wheel Bob” has been shown at theaters and festivals throughout the Bay Area and Europe. It will next be playing Nov. 17-23 at the Oslo Theater in Monterey. Visit 4wheelbobfilm.com.
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Coomber, who often leads hikes in the Tri-Valley, is also a new member of the Livermore City Council. (Photo by Julia Brown) -
Bay Area filmmaker Tal Skloot made a documentary about Coomber’s attempts to cross the Kearsarge Pass titled “4 Wheel Bob.” (Photo courtesy of 4 Wheel Bob film) -
This photo of Coomber serves as the centerpiece of the “4 Wheel Bob” movie poster. (Photo courtesy of 4 Wheel Bob film)
