We’re looking forward to a great 2011, and that always involves lots of stories and memories of last summer! We hope you’ll enjoy a trip down memory lane on Flickr:
See your 2010 Trip Photo Album
*Want photos? Just right click on the photo and view the largest size. Save to your computer and print as many as you like.
As the director of Adventure Treks, one of my many jobs is to stay in touch with trends affecting teenagers, the environment, education and the outdoor industry.
I’d like to share some of the better books I have read (and am reading) this year, so you can see what is affecting my thinking as the Adventure treks staff facilitates the best possible learning and growing summer outdoor experience for your child.
The View from Lazy Point by Carl Safina
I would have missed this great book had not an AT parent so loved this read that she mailed our office a copy…
The countdown has begun, and we are eager for your arrival! New gear is arriving in our office on a daily basis: new hats and shirts, backpacks and sleeping bags, 100 new Big Agnes tents, a new trailer for the Blue Ridge trips, and much, much more.
Click for a larger image.
We can’t wait to see our many returning students (our return rate exceeded 60% again this year) and we are very excited to get to know our many, many new students. You’ll receive more information about your trip (and about your tripmates) as your arrival day gets closer. Find out where our 2011 students are coming from – see our map!
We have almost completed staff hiring and are delighted to once again have an 80% instructor return rate. We are excited about the superbly qualified new instructors who will be joining our outstanding team of veterans. This is an inspirational group of mentors, role models and friends. Many instructors will have been with Adventure Treks for over 5 years and several were former students themselves. We’ll announce all of the 2011 instructors in a future blog!
Please let us know how we can help you get ready for what promises to be an incredible summer together. See you soon!
The partnership for 21st Century Skills has identified the skills necessary for success in our ever-changing global economy and connected world. While a strong academic framework is always important, the identified 21st century skills are:
These are balanced with life skills, which include:
Frankly, we think students can learn 21st century skills better at Adventure Treks than in most school environments. While Adventure Treks is a lot of fun, our program is highly educational, as evidenced by the success of our graduates and their testament to the impact Adventure Treks has had on their life. In the video below, some of our 2010 Leadership Summit students were able to articulate the benefits they received through multiple summers at Adventure Treks:
We are excited to help our new and returning students in 2011 improve their skills for success in the 21st century.
More than any other word (except for fun), “connection” sums up what the Adventure Treks experience is all about. Soon you will be forging a connection with the natural world, connecting with a new group of friends from across the country and forming strong relationships with your instructors. Through immersion in the Adventure Treks community, you will soon connect with others in completely different ways than you do at home. Perhaps the most powerful connection, however, is the one you will make with yourself – and the realization that you are capable of more than you believed possible. At Adventure Treks you will also get glimpses of your very best self.
We begin by disconnecting each summer…turning off our cell phone and signing off facebook and email. By definition, an adventure can only begin when we leave behind the comfortable and the familiar. We all know the quote “A ship is safe in harbor…but that is not what ships are built for.” It’s time for you to prepare for your ship to sail.
In the natural world we learn how little we need to be truly happy. A cold drink from a fresh mountain stream (treated, of course), a simple dinner in the middle of spectacular scenery, challenging activities, great friends, lots of laughs and the true joy in being part of something larger than yourself.
Summer is coming soon and we can’t wait for the adventure treks activities and communities to begin. See you soon!
by John Dockendorf,
Founding Director of Adventure Treks
Top Runner Up
When I think of Adventure Treks, I think of great friends, hilarious instructors, amazing experiences, and ramen extreme. Last summer, I was on the British Columbia 2 trip, with 23 other kids, and 6 “adults.” I say “adults” because they are basically just older kids. Anyways, one of our adventures was a backpack through Well’s Gray National Park. This beautiful place is full of rolling meadows, lush forests, and mosquitos.
A required item for you to bring is a mosquito net. After visiting Well’s Gray, I definitely understand why. It began when we drove up this sketchy dirt road to the trailhead. Getting out of the van, we expected to be swarmed by bloodsucking bugs, but there were only a few buzzing about. All of us thought that this was how bad it was going to get, but we were way wrong. Read more
Honorable Mention: Instructor Story
I have at last come full circle, though it has been a process of realization and understanding that has taken most of adolescence and early adulthood. I should start by saying that I am writing from a small hotel perched high on a cliff above the sometimes tranquil, but more oftentimes white-capped waters of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. I watch the sun rise every morning above the volcano visible from my left-most window and the sun set every night behind the volcano visible from my right-most window. In between, I run, read, write, and reflect upon these past months of journeying throughout Central America as a faculty member with a traveling American boarding school—aptly named The Traveling School.
You might be saying about now: what is all this talk about Guatemala and The Traveling School—this is supposed to be a story about an experience at Adventure Treks! Read more
Honorable Mention: Student Story
Happy screams filled the air as we rafted over eight-foot waves and six-foot drops. The White Salmon River of Washington flowed clear and blue around us, splashing me with the occasional tidal wave. Even though it was a mid-July afternoon, the water temperature hovered around a refreshing forty degrees. I was at Adventure Treks summer camp on our last full day together. Over the course of the past fifteen days, I’d made seventeen new best friends and done some amazing things, such as backpacking for miles along the Olympic coast and scampering up tall granite cliffs in Icicle Canyon. Our rafting trip down the White Salmon was the grand finale – everyone was happy to have a fun break, as we’d just come down from climbing to the summit of Mt. St. Helens the day before. I’d been having a fantastic time all day, but the experience was tinged with sadness – the next day, our entire group would be at Portland International Airport, flying back home.
After plummeting down a small waterfall, Seabass, one of our instructors, yelled, “Forward!” Read more
Top Runner Up
Be Your Best Self
Seventeen guys, four girls and six instructors left on the Western frontier for twenty days… “What goes on?” one might wonder? Well, twenty days packed with adventure, excitement and, most importantly, memories. My story begins under a starry sky in Utah, possibly the most spectacular night sky on the planet. It was pitch dark due to lack of light pollution, and two girls were falling asleep on top of a tarp beside the Colorado River. They were just falling under when one girl feels something crawl across her arm. She taps me, did I mention I was one of these girls? I turn on my headlamp and shine it on what looks like a cockroach. It was huge, at least the size of a mouse. We screamed and then realized the rest of the camp was sleeping. We jumped up and hopped in our sleeping bags to the opposite side of the tarp. This is called the caterpillar. We both started saying the name of one of our instructors first quietly, then a little louder until we were squealing “Pete! Pete! Pete!” Pete ran over to see what all the commotion was about. By this time the bug was crawling frantically across the sand. Pete let out a manly scream and grabbed the concrete block holding our tarp down. He threw it on top of the roach, but that roach was a fighter – it started hissing. That was one of the more frightening noises I have ever heard. Pete lifted up the block. Read more
Honorable Mention: Student Story
There’s a funny thing about strangers: they don’t leave when you want them to, especially when you’re stuck with 23 of them for 16 days, with nothing to look forward to except hiking five miles up a snow-covered volcano. As it turns out, Mount St. Helens doesn’t leave when you want it to, either.
“What is hard to endure is sweet to recall.” This French proverb certainly held true during and after my Washington expedition over the summer. The summit of Mount St. Helens wasn’t the only hardship endured on this trip. Rocks, as they did on the mountain, presented a challenge on our four-day backpacking trip along the beaches of the Olympic Peninsula; I slipped multiple times on their slimy saltwater coating, and I soon tired of the sharp angles underfoot. I had never before hiked with a full, heavy, external-frame backpack, which cut into my shoulders and back with every step, leaving visible bruises. The tides, also, were quite an intimidating, unchanging force. We had to time the legs of our journey to make our tide points, but, despite our best efforts, sometimes high water blocked our path.
There were many more hardships to come: next we sea kayaked in the cold Puget Sound waters, which topped out at 48o. The cold and the wet, the main hindrances on this part of the trip, numbed my fingers so that fastening the skirt around the lip of the cockpit was difficult, and left me shivering for long afterwards.
But as we sweated through the hot, dry, desert-like climate of central Washington, rock-climbing and river-rafting, the prior experience seemed like it would be quite welcome. I desperately gripped the sheer rock wall with my hands and feet, but knew that my exceedingly tight-fitting shoes and harness were supporting me. When rafting the Wenatchee River, I faced a new challenge: Read more