,

On Bears and Alaska!

I am certain you have seen the media coverage on the bear attack on a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Group of teenagers up in the wilds of Alaska. I know it made parents of any student still in the outdoors with us a bit nervous. The good news is that everyone will fully recover. As the person ultimately responsible for all of our students, it certainly made me a bit nervous. I wanted to better understand this incident before we published any comments (though of course we have communicated with Alaska parents.)

Anytime there is an accident or incident in our industry or at Adventure Treks, we try and study it, learn from it and figure out ways to prevent it from happening at Adventure Treks. Initially this bear attack made me extremely nervous because it contradicted our heuristic that there had never been a documented bear attack on a group of four or more. (This group size was 7) In Alaska we do everything in groups of four or more. We also have bigger hiking groups than we do in the 48 (12 (including instructors) instead of 10) primarily to make us more intimidating to bears. Over the years we have had very few bear encounters. We figure they hear us coming from miles away and lay low until we have passed. Of course we also carry bear spray, just in case. So far, in 13 years of running programs in Alaska, we have never had to use our bear spray.

NOLS is an excellent company and one of the safest. They didn’t do anything wrong and it seems like their students were very well prepared. This was a different type of trip than we do in Alaska in that it was an off trail section, it was a student led section and the students were hiking in an area known for bears. None of this would have created a problem except the students discovered that going up stream drainage was the only way they could move through heavy underbrush. Unfortunately it was early evening and even more unfortunately a momma Grizzly happened to be coming down the drainage. The consensus now seems to be that the students were a little spread out and the grizzly had no idea the group size was designed to be big enough to supposedly intimidate her.

Could a bear attack like this happen at Adventure Treks? It is certainly less likely at Adventure Treks but it is still possible. Our mission is different than NOLS. We do not do student led sections in Alaska; we stay on developed trails, and hike in larger groups. That doesn’t mean, however that it couldn’t happen to us. Bear and nature are unpredictable …as is life. The alternative to a risk free environment would be staying home in a padded room playing video or virtual reality games all day. We believe that ultimately the latter would be more risky to the mind, body and spirit. We have to accept an element of risk if we want to truly live. We at Adventure Treks and our partners in the outdoor industry like NOLS, do everything we can to minimize risk so people can enjoy the Adventure Treks experience. Whether driving in the suburbs or hiking in Alaska, we face some risk each day as soon as we get out of bed. Many philosophers will even argue that risk is an essential part of the human experience and to not have risk is to not be human. Our mission is to minimize risk, we know we can’t eliminate it completely and we thank you as parents for understanding the risks associated with our programs and activities.

We are ecstatic that all the students in the NOLS bear attack will recover. We have relocated our last backpack in Alaska which was going to be about 35 miles away from the NOLS incident. We feel a little bit better staying far, far away from that area this year. We always like to err on the side of safety.

And if your friends say you are crazy to let your children hike in the woods, raft the rivers and climb the rocks, you might remind them that they let their children drive in cars. 42,000 people a year die in car accidents. We know the outdoors is safer than driving, even in bear country!

Best, Dock

/by
,

Thoughts from 30,000 feet

Greetings from another Delta Jet! I have loved meeting hundreds of students from 11 different trips since I last wrote. I may recount some of these adventures later. I remain incredibly impressed with our Adventure Treks students and instructors this summer. We are having a lot of fun! Who knows summer may have finally come to the Northwest, too! I thought I’d share some observations and thoughts as I enjoy my time with teenagers…

My blackberry has a pull on me that is both seductive and addictive. I have to set firm limits. But I still find myself resisting sneaking a peek when conversing with others. The Smart Phone has fundamentally changed how we run Adventure Treks and that has been good. Believe it or not we used to communicate back and forth by answering machine in the early 90’s. Cell phones were expensive, used only for emergencies (like our use of Sat phones now) and could only reach you within your area code. Back in the “old days” My instructors also needed to know how to read a map (they still do in the backcountry) but one couldn’t plug the destination into the “Tom Tom” in their van and instantly know (with 95% accuracy) reasonable directions, the location of the nearest grocery store for “freshies” and where we could get the most affordable fuel. Putting “expert” information directly in the hands of our instructors has significantly cut down phone calls to the office and our regional directions and let us focus more on serving our students. Instant communication has consistently helped us make better decisions. To this extent, technology is great!

While knowing where the cheapest gas is important especially this summer, I worry about the effect this technology is having on our kids. This generation of kids are “digital natives” which means they never knew a life without the internet. With the rapid change of technology each 3-4 year cohort is growing up with a different digital world view.

As we tried to facilitate “get to know you” conversations between shy 13 year old boys nervously beginning their first AT trip, yesterday, I was not surprised that the first question some were asking each other was “what video games do you play?” (It was already a given that they had all seen Harry Potter) This is a much more frequent question, than students asked each other 5 years ago and a different question then they asked ten years ago.

On the final night on an Adventure Treks trip, we have to be very careful about how we return technology to our students. We strongly discourage them from checking in with their outside friends or checking texts and Facebook until they get to the airport. They can call home and load their AT friends into their address books and Facebook accounts but as soon as they check their messages and email, we have to work hard not to “lose them” as they fight the return to their digital world. I always hate to watch this happen, as I am naturally much more partial to a world where everyone is communicating face to face and this communication is enhanced through immersion in nature.

A typical teenager sends over 3000 texts per month (4000 per teenage girl and 2500 per boy) there’s been a 6% rise in 2010 over 2009. That averages to over 100 texts per day. Voice usage is down and a plurality of teen say the number one reason they own a phone is to text. 43% of teenage girls actually sleep with their phone and many check email and texts in the middle of the night.

Obviously all this texting comes at a cost. It means when texting or checking emails we are probably multi tasking (though this generation can multi task much better than I) which means focus may be drifting from where it’s indented to be. I question whether constant communication by text will affect teens’ ability to communicate when conversations become difficult. I remember communication with my camp friends by letter. Those days are long gone and that is a good thing. Facebook strings keep our AT students connected and in a much better and more current way than the letter did 35 years ago.

A conversation with a nervous girl one opening day in Portland sums up my fear of our reliance on digital communication. “Can I please bring my cell phone on the van with me?” she implored. “No we are cell phone free form this point on,” I said trying not to sound too flip. You have so many wonderful people to meet in the van, I would hate for you to be distracted. These people are going to become some of your best friends. “

“But there are bound to be some awkward silences, the girl responded, when I feel them, I can text a friend from home and then I won’t feel so awkward.”

Are kids still learning to communicate face to face? Are they able to empathize with others and listen to and understand a different point of view? or are they relying on their hand held devices as a digital security blanket. Can teens effectively communicate in 160 character blocks? Are we losing nuance, body language and often the courage to look people in the eyes and reflect back their feelings? These are valid questions but the research has not yet been conducted. In a time of rapid change, we are in a real life experiment and we won’t know the answers until the damage may already been done.

I also worry about video games. Kids are getting softer. We see it in the field. Over the years, we have had to make our backpacks less challenging. It is a generalization but students are not in as good a shape as they were 10 years ago. Data is also coming out beginning to show that excessive video game use affects brain development in adolescent boys and can affect motivation and decision making.

I feel that the Adventure Treks experience is a great antidote. Three weeks away from text messages and electronic games has a soothing effect. Our evening meetings give every student a chance to address issues face to face. There is time to listen, empathize with others and communicate in the same ways we have been for the past ten thousand years. Life immersed in the elements can give real life consequences and thus learning opportunities.

Now our mission is to make the Adventure Treks experience, the best, most relevant and most fun experience in a young person’s life, so that they can see that there are some alternatives in a technology driven world!

/by
,

Greetings from 30,000 ft.

There is never a typical day at Adventure Treks! I write this from 30,000 ft on a Delta Jet, eventually heading to Sacramento to greet the incoming California Challenge 2 students who begin their Adventure Treks experience tomorrow. Then it’s a night flight to Alaska to welcome our Alaska 2 students.

Today we have 238 students in the field. This goes up to 261 students tomorrow when we open Cal Challenge 2 and Alaska and bid a tearful goodbye to our wonderful Blue Ridge experience students.

As I write this the Blue Ridge students are zip lining over the Pigeon River, they did a cool night hike last night after watching an incredible sunset from Max’s Patch on the Appalachian Trail. The Pac NW Experience students are climbing Mt St Helens. Their trails are still buried under seven feet of snow, but they will give it the AT Try! Leadership Summit is taking their wilderness advanced first aid course and improving their judgment and safety skills in the process. Cascades Challenge is on a 4 day rafting trip on the Snake River (switched from the Lower Salmon due to high water levels.)

Meanwhile in British Columbia, one group is backpacking in the Trophies while another is canoeing on crystal clear Clearwater Lake. In New England, our students are beginning an ascent on Mt Washington, while in Utah, students are starting a three – day mountain biking trip near Moab.

Great news from California Challenge 1! Yesterday, 22 of 23 summitted Mt Shasta under a sunny sky. Today, they are rafting the Upper Klamath! I am eager to hear from our California Adventure students as they come off their 4 – day backpack on the Lost Coast today. And up in Alaska, one group finishes their five-day sea kayak, while another group puts in for a six day backpack in the Talkeetnas.

Every group is facing different age appropriate challenges and sharing incredible scenery. But more importantly, despite their different activities and locations, all of our students are learning the same things:

That you can accomplish more with the unconditional support of your friends
That doing more than your share is a good thing.
That happiness comes from being part of something bigger than oneself.
That effort and reward are related.
That you can accomplish more than you think.
That you can have the time of your life without a computer, a cell phone, a video game or facebook.
And that good friends are a lot more important than stuff.

All of our students are enjoying being immersed in a community based on a culture of kindness and inclusion that minimizes cliques and teenage drama while maximizing laughter, fun and friendship.

I’m also very excited about the role modeling your children are getting from our instructors. In a culture that celebrates the fall of too many public features, your kids are hanging out with solid, dependable adults who are modeling your values. Somehow they listen a lot better to folks in their 20’s than they do to us parents!

Thanks for your trust and support. You are sharing a wonderful group of kids with us. All of us in AT land are going as hard as we can to help your child have an incredible experience.

Best regards,

John Dockendorf
Director

/by
,

Greetings from 30,000 ft. Happy Fourth of July!

Greetings from 30,000 ft. Another red eye… This one from Portland heading home to NC to see my own kids, go rafting with the Blue Ridge Experience students and check in with our office. It’s been an exciting two weeks on the road meeting our incredible Adventure Treks students and helping our instructors open trips and set students up for success. I have visited the Cal Adventure, British Columbia 1, British Columbia 2, Cascades Challenge, Pacific Northwest Experience 1, Leadership Summit and both Alaska trips. Meanwhile our regional directors Ben Mirkin, Niki Gaeta and Stephen Gardiner are supporting trips and getting to know students in their regions.

Summer has come to the West at long last. It seems like high pressure has finally set up and every trip has enjoyed a beautiful last couple of days. Many groups caught some rain (British Columbia 1 and Leadership Summit even got snowed on) in the first few days of their trips but everyone has dried out. Several students have some great “war stories” of the rain and snow they “survived.” It’s experiences like these that build the resilience that kids need. 35 years later, my best memories from camp are of the challenges I faced and pushed through, not the easy times. Challenges successfully overcome, breeds more success.

The snowpack is ridiculous this year. In some places it is 650% of normal for this time of year. We have been busy modifying backpacking routes. Even the back ups to our backup plans didn’t consider 150 year record snow depths. While some of the backpacks may not have been as rigorous as we would have liked, first backpacks are all about building a community and fostering a sense of belonging to something bigger than one’s self. We have a great group of students and they genuinely like and respect each other. The students and instructors have set up a great rapport on every single trip.

Today, I just finished staff orientation with the Alaska 2 and California Challenge 2 instructor teams. Both are very strong teams and they are now scouting their trips and preparing to meet their students next week.
Adventure treks is off to a great start. Thanks for your support! We are doing all in our power to create incredible and indelible experiences for your child. I hope you are enjoying the updates / treks checks. we are enjoying getting to know your child!

Have a great Fourth of July
Best, Dock

/by
,

Reflections on Instructor Orientation 2011

I am very excited for your child to meet the outstanding role models that comprise our 2011 instructor team! This is our strongest team of instructors ever. (And I don’t say this lightly!) Each six person Adventure Treks instructor team has a great balance of fun and engaging personalities with the right mix of “hard” and “soft” skills so they can lead an exciting and effective trip and connect with every single student. I wish my own children were old enough to spend time with these wonderful role models. Please watch our recent video so you can meet just a random few of our many incredible instructors.

We’ve just completed 7 days of Instructor orientation and our instructor’s enthusiasm for creating indelible and incredible experiences for youth far exceeded my extremely high expectations. It’s a privilege to have so many returning instructors with multiple years of Adventure Treks experience at orientation to help model the Adventure Treks culture to our new instructors. At orientation, we share the big picture stuff… Safety, and Adventure Treks standards, policies and procedures. We also discuss trends in youth development and education and how to successfully reach children who are raised as digital natives. In many ways, we run orientation so it feels like an Adventure Treks trip. We want our instructors to know what it feels like to be a fist time Adventure Treks student.

Our instructors are now spread out across the country in their six person teams. From New Hampshire to North Carolina to Utah to British Columbia to California, each staff team will spend the next week, breaking in their brand new 2011, 15-passenger vans, learning their trip logistics, organizing food, meeting with outfitters, and assessing snow and trail conditions. Of equal importance, they will be working on their communication and community so they can effectively model a culture of kindness, caring and open communication to their students.

If I were to sum it up, Adventure Treks is the place a person comes to be their best self. One can focus on the activities, the outdoors the great scenery and the fun events and be completely satiated; but Adventure Treks is much more than outdoor activities. We want our students to feel great about themselves and realize how capable they are. Our instructors are bringing “their best selves” to your child’s trip. We are excited for the magic to begin.

Best regards,

John Dockendorf
Director

/by
,

Greetings from Instructor Orientation!

Hear from our instructors: we’re exited to see you soon!

/by
,

Airport Day

We look forward to seeing you soon!  Enrolled students, you can log in to access all of your travel information specific to your trip.  You can also learn lots of tips and hints about flying or driving to Adventure Treks on our Traveling to Your Adventure Webpage, which features our latest video:
 

 

/by
,

Adventure Treks Instructor orientation begins today, Friday, June 10, 2011!

Dmac and Niki Coordinating the Summer

Adventure Treks Instructor Orientation 2011 starts today! We have just completed our 2011 Trip leader retreat and I wanted to tell you all how excited I am for these wonderful and capable folks to lead your children this summer.   We have spent the past five days in a large cabin near Mt Hood in Oregon.  This is an incredible group of leaders.  Let me begin with our four regional Directors, Stephen Gardiner, Ben Mirkin, Niki Gaeta, and Liddell Shannon.  In this group are three Masters degrees and a Doctorate! They are on average 33 years old and together they share 35 years of combined Adventure Treks experience (average tenure 8.5 years).  Next are the wonderful trip leaders. Our 14 trip leaders average 27 years in age with an average tenure of 5.5 years each at Adventure Treks.  Obviously there is a lot of collective Adventure Treks wisdom to be shared within this group!

During the retreat, we focused on how to both lead and manage a trip and how to use your personal style to best advantage. Several discussions focused on Read more

/by
,

Greetings from 30,000 ft. – June 5, 2011

Greetings from 30,000 feet.
Though our first students won’t arrive until June 22 and despite the fact that we have been working with school programs since May, Adventure Treks officially begins today.

Today, our senior staff, consisting of our trip leaders and regional directors begin a five day retreat.  This is an exceptional group of folks with years of Adventure Treks experience, several of our trip leaders began their AT career as students.  Five years of Adventure Treks tenure is the norm here and several staff have spent more than seven years with us.

Here we get ourselves on the same page, share tips for success, revisit all the details that make an Adventure Treks program successful, examine trends in today’s youth and youth development,  revisit policies and procedures and prepare for the massive job of staff orientation which begins on June 10.

It’s also a social time.  This group of folks truly loves one another.  We have been together for a long time. This is time they have together before they change their focus to training and leading new instructors and leading and role modeling our students.

Creating a strong community of our senior staff sets the basis for the rest of the summer.   We can’t facilitate a strong and caring community, where students become their best selves; if their leaders aren’t doing the same.  When our senior staff exudes  genuine warmth, a culture of kindness, a culture of competence and strong communication, it’s picked up by our new instructors and ultimately our students.

We have been preparing for summer 2011 since last November.  We have done all in our power to make it the best summer ever.  It’s game time now… and we are very excited.

We can’t wait to meet your child in the days and months ahead.

Best regards,

John Dockendorf

/by
,

As My Own Kids Head off to Camp…

As I fly to the west coast to begin the Adventure Treks summer, three of my own children begin their own camp experiences.  Everyone is excited and it certainly gives me the opportunity to put myself in the shoes of the Adventure Treks parents whom I serve.  My two oldest daughters, Audrey and Ella, ages 9 and 10 are headed off for three weeks to Camp Green Cove. My own camp experience began at the brother camp to Green Cove in 1972.  My youngest daughter, Ava who is 7 begins an 8 day overnight at Gwynn Valley, a wonderful camp which specializes in younger children.  Charlie my four-year old is bemoaning the fact that his is left at home with Mom… too young to qualify for even day camp.

We have had many conversations in the past week as they prepare for camp with nervous excitement.  My advice to them is: Have a lot of fun, represent your family well, help out, be your best self, be kind to everyone, make the most of every minute of the experience, stay safe and embrace new challenges and people.  I am excited to hear their many stories when we all get together again.

I also get the chance to reflect on what Jane and I want from their experiences.  Camp certainly comes with a big financial sacrifice, but we also know it’s the best money we can spend on our kids.  First we want our kids to be safe.  And all we can do is hope that everyone will make good decisions. It’s out of our hands.  We also hope they will have a lot of fun, they have worked hard at school this year and they need a fun break. . We are excited for them to have their own experience, away from our micro managing. It’s time for them to experience standing on their own, though we hope it will come with careful guidance from their counselors.  We’d be delighted if they stepped up a little in self responsibility which might translate into helping out more at home. That might be too much wishful thinking!

We are ecstatic that we can temporarily suspend our constant battles with all that we find inappropriate with the Disney Channel and pop radio. (And these battles only get more intense as kids grow older)  I can’t wait for my kids to experience three weeks without the internet, pop culture, computer games and TV! We are excited for our kids to be outside, challenge themselves, have constant adventures on their personal frontier and live simply and healthily. We are eager for them to meet great role models, folks a lot “hipper” than we are, but folks we desperately hope will communicate our values. And we hope they will make a lot of new friends, friends from all over the country and friends whose parents have raised them with similar values.

As you look forward to your child’s Adventure Treks experience, I’m certain you share many of the same goals for your kids. At Adventure Treks, we want to be your partner.  Parents can’t raise children by themselves. We promise to use the Adventure Treks’ opportunity to help your kids grow.  We want your experience with us to be as successful for you and your kids as I hope camp will be for my kids.

We look forward to being of service this summer.

Best regards,

John Dockendorf

/by