Trip leaders taking a break for some fun outside!

Every year, Adventure Treks kicks off the summer with our five-day Trip Leader Retreat in Oregon, where our leadership team gathers in a cabin near Mt. Hood, next to the Salmon River, for senior staff training.

Our 14 trip leaders and four regional directors hail from 11 states, average 29.5 years old, and have 129 collective years of Adventure Treks experience, with an average of 7.3 seasons of AT experience each. (Two were former Adventure Treks students!) I’m proud to be a part of this group of mentors who will be training our new instructors and overseeing the success of our trips. As an Adventure Treks parent myself, I’m also thrilled to have these role models interacting with and inspiring my own kids!

The other half of our awesome trip leader team.

So what do we do at Trip Leader Retreat? Besides forming our leadership team community, we apply leadership theory and current child psychology and brain theory to Adventure Treks. We also learn and relearn the specific details of each trip itinerary, and we use this time to review safety and the policies and procedures that lead to successful trips. Together, we share the tips and tricks we’ve gleaned as we work hard to make every trip exceptional.

DMAC loves talking to our trip leaders!

As we prepared for our all-staff orientation that began June 9, I wanted to share what we have been reading this winter. It’s our job to stay on top of the latest youth development trends and literature so we can make sure that the Adventure Treks program remains relevant to parents. Besides being a ridiculous amount of FUN, as your partners, we want Adventure Treks to be a tool that helps kids develop the skills, mindset, optimism, confidence, character, and resilience that will help them become happier and more capable adults.

Topics from these and other books will be featured in our instructor orientation sessions as we facilitate the best possible learning and growing experience for your child. Below are our 2015 suggestions for those who share our obsession in helping teenagers experience personal growth.

From Harvard’s Robert Putnam, the expert on community who wrote the seminal book, Bowling Alone, we have a treasure trove of data on how kids succeed among the tremendous inequality brewing in our country. One of his many conclusions is that it matters deeply who your kids go to school (and camp) with. He also stresses that non-cognitive skills (communication, collaboration, creativity, grit and resilience—the things we teach and practice at Adventure Treks) are very often the key to adult success.

Two generations ago, the vast majority of “our kids” went on to live lives better than those of their parents and society generally aided them. But their children and grandchildren (the current generation) have had less opportunity amid diminishing prospects and less help from the “bigger community.” Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done specifically for this book.

Find the book here.

Responding to what he calls the culture of the “Big Me” (which emphasizes external success), David Brooks challenges us, and himself, to re-balance the scales
between our “résumé virtues”—achieving wealth, fame,
and status—and our “eulogy virtues”— those that exist
at the core of our being: kindness, bravery, honesty, or faithfulness—focusing on what kind of relationships we have formed. (Read more about how we focus on character development at Adventure Treks in this blog.)

Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and an understanding and appreciation of one’s own limitations, people have built a strong inner character.

Find the book here.

The author who brought us Mean Girls and Queen Bees and Wanna Bees, Rosalind Wiseman has now written the definitive book on boys: Masterminds and Wingmen. Using a panel of more than 160 boys (including at least one Adventure Treks alum), Wiseman exposes us to the world of teenage boys and gives us great insight into the lives our boys are experiencing, the rules of boys’ world, and how male teenage power structures work. She introduces the “Act like a Man Box” and the effects attempting to live up to these expectations can have on young male behavior. As school and the economy change, we are concerned that boys are falling behind, and we hope the culture we create at Adventure Treks will help our male students succeed in life outside camp.

Find the book here.

Below are books we still use frequently and have included on previous lists.

In Mindset, Stanford researcher Carol Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success, but whether we approach challenges with a fixed or a growth mindset. Praising intelligence and ability isn’t the best way to foster self-efficacy and confidence, and may instead actually jeopardize success. Instead, understanding that the brain is malleable, and that we are all works in progress, leads to the development of a growth mindset. By encouraging and rewarding effort and hard work over innate talent, we can better motivate our kids to more eagerly approach new challenges while building resilience. We use Dweck’s book in instructor orientation to show staff how to encourage our students to develop a mindset focused on continuous growth rather than accepting our talents and abilities as fixed.

Find the book here.

Harvard professor Edward Hallowell gives us a
wonderful five-step program to help give our kids a childhood that creates a footprint for them to
become happy adults. In The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, Hallowell promotes childhood as a time to provide opportunities to feel connected to others, to play and be joyful, to practice and attain mastery in numerous activities, to fail and build resilience, and to receive recognition.

We use Hallowell’s model in our staff training and
wrote a blog about how his model applies to Adventure Treks.

We love this book!

Find the book here.

One of the Wall Street Journal’s “most important reads for 2013,” The Big Disconnect: Protecting Child and Family Relationships in the Digital Age discusses how technology is affecting family relationships and how parents’ involvement with technology at home affects family connections. Renowned clinical psychologist and author Catherine Steiner-Adair explains that families are now in crisis around this issue. Not only do chronic technology distractions have deep and lasting effects, but children desperately need warm interactions with the adults in their lives.

Drawing on real-life stories from her clinical and consulting work, Steiner-Adair offers insights and advice on how parents can achieve greater understanding and confidence as they come up against the tech revolution happening in their living rooms. When Adventure Treks students have an amazing experience and succeed beyond all expectations without any technology, they are often given a unique perspective on how technology fits into their lives. Read a recent blog we wrote about her book.

Find the book here.

T-minus 6 days until our first trip starts!
—Dock

Two weekends ago, I found myself joining a coed team of 12 runners (the Banditos) and embarking on a 28-hour race called the Smokey Mountain Relay. The race started in our backyard (Pisgah National Forest) and ended at the Nantahala Outdoor Center—212 (hilly) miles away. It’s much quicker to drive there, or even hike in a straight line, but everyone knows that races don’t always take the most direct path. While I could write about how great the run was, how much fun I had, or how sleeping for only one hour out of 36 is hard, I’m going to pass on all of that. What I want to write about instead is the brand-new Ford Transit van that we used for our team vehicle.

The Ford Transit is replacing the old Ford Econoline as the new passenger van for the entire Ford fleet. Adventure Treks uses only brand-new vans each year, so we will also be making the switch to the Transit for the 2015 season. I will happily admit that I am very excited about the switch.

Our office team had checked them out at the dealership, but I had not had the opportunity to test drive one until the race. Driving the Transit was so much nicer than the Econoline. It was easier to drive and handled like it was much smaller than it truly was. Riding in the back was even better. Each person has his/her own seat—instead of bench seating for three. And the windows are massive! They are about twice the size as the Econoline’s – Perfect for great views this summer!

But the best things were the unseen things. The standard safety advances are incredible. Here are a few:

• Air bags. Not just for the driver and passenger, but for the entire van.
• Lower center of gravity. With higher side walls, this ensures that the van will only roll over in the most extreme of situations. Plus, people up to 6 feet tall can walk down the aisle without bending over.
• Center aisle. While this may not seem like a big deal, it now means that weight is distributed evenly throughout the entire van.
• Rain-sensing wipers. Not that we ever drive in the rain without our wipers on, but this is just one more way to help with the sudden splash of water on the windshield.
• Advance Trac with Roll Stability Control. The most advanced stability control system out there; it automatically brakes and/or shifts power to wheels.
• Trailer sway control. This passive feature keeps the trailer more stable in crosswinds or at highway speeds.

As safety is the most important thing at Adventure Treks, we work hard to make sure we use the most reliable vehicles to transport our students. But we can’t rely solely on the safety options of our new vans. Each instructor attends an eight-hour course on van driving and procedures, and then is tested and ultimately approved by Dock or myself. Then we practice driving for more than 1,000 miles before we get our first students.
 
While I imagine that most people are not as excited as I am about these new vans, I hope that you share our desire to have the best possible equipment for our trips, in order to provide the best possible experience for our students.

And for those of you that are interested, the Smokey Mountain Relay is a great way to spend a weekend running through the woods!

We will be picking up 20 brand-new Ford Transit vans on June 3, but we  cannot wait till June 22 arrives (when our first three trips open!), and we can get these vans loaded with students and finally get on the road.

All the best,
DMAC

It’s Monday morning during rush hour traffic. Cars are whizzing by, morning news shows are blaring, and the daily grind is apparent everywhere. For some, this can be a source of adrenaline, but for many there exists a strong desire for an escape into a space encompassed by tranquility and calmness. The idea of going outside to find peace from the everyday stresses of life is certainly not a new one. Literature from the romantic period, such as William Wordsworth’s poem about clouds, to the more modern books like “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv and the forever comical “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson, talk about the benefits of being in nature. Until recently, though, there have not been many studies on the physiological reasons behind why going into nature causes one to relax and destress. We all feel the relief that washes over when winding down a trail with the distant sound of cars and people slowly fading, but does something in our body actually change from being outside?

Looking out at the North Cascades

In 1982, the Japanese government under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries created the concept of shinrin-yoku, which roughly translates to “forest bathing.” It basically means taking in with all of your senses when in nature. With 64 percent of Japan covered in forest, but a majority of the population living in crowded urban areas, around 92 percent, the government wanted to promote health by inspiring people to get out in nature. They were interested in finding scientific data behind the effects of walking in a forest.

A study by the Center for Environment, Health, and Field Services at Chiba University was conducted on 500 adults, looking at the difference between walking in an outdoor setting versus a non-outdoor setting—on a crowded street, for example. The Japanese researchers found that “20 minutes,” in nature, “(compared with 20 minutes in an urban setting) altered cerebral blood flow in a manner that indicated a state of relaxation.” Participants’ hemoglobin levels, which are normally high when the body experiences heightened stress, decreased when in the forest. The study also found a link between phytoncide, chemicals secreted by evergreen trees, and improved immune functions. A similar study published by the National Institutes of Health showed subjects with a decrease in pulse rate and blood pressure. No physiological negatives from going outside occurred in the study.

Backpacking in British Columbia

Many outdoor enthusiasts are already well aware of the amazing perks from being a nature-seeker. (Maybe that’s why Adventure Treks instructors are always smiling in their photos!) Basically, these studies emphasize that seeking better personal health requires more than just looking out the window at the view, but physically going out and experiencing what happens when surrounded by nature. While a trip to Japan’s forests sounds exhilarating, the United States has tons of outdoor places to offer as well.

There are 155 forests that the National Forest Service manages which collectively make up roughly 249.1 million acres out of a total of 2.3 billion acres in the United States. Forest area in the U.S. accounts for roughly 33 percent of the total land area. Aside from the number of national forests, there are hundreds of national parks, state parks, and other outdoor areas to explore, many of which are not as far from your hometown as you might think. The links below show by state the amazing areas that await your exploration. Adventure Treks’ trips go to many of these outdoor areas as well! Whether the science behind a forest is interesting or not, it’s time we lift our heads up toward the sun and head out for our own dose of shinrin-yoku.

List of National Forests by State

http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/map/state_list.shtml

List of National Parks by State

http://parks.mapquest.com/national-parks/national-parks-by-state/

List of State Parks, State Forests, and State Wildlife areas

http://www.stateparks.com/usa.html

Sources

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793346/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/forest-bathing-ze0z1301zgar.aspx?PageId=1

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS

http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/forestry.html

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/249896/eib14_reportsummary_1_.pdf

AT Superstar Josh Goldbach is unafraid to fly his AT Colors!

A comment that I hear often from people when I tell them I am work at Adventure Treks is, “what could you possibly be doing in the winter?” To put it simply, a lot! The surprising thing about running a summer (and fall) program is, it takes almost 3 times as much work in the off season to run those 6 months of programs. Here are some things that we are doing:

Talking with families; prospective, new and returning. You form the basis of Adventure Treks, and it is because of you that our program is as successful as it is. We feel fortunate that we are small enough, so when you call, we can get to know you as a parent, family and partner in how we operate our programs.

We are also working to get new students to come for their first time! We have several trips that are already full, and several more that are close. There are already 250 students committed to come for the summer of 2015, which is over 60% of capacity!

Josh is in the process of hiring new instructors and inspiring veteran instructors to return (Josh will talk more about this next week). Interviews have begun, and we have already hired several great new instructors. Again, we are anticipating a 70% return rate for our veteran instructors!

We have already begun to plan Instructor Orientation and Trip Leader Retreat. Staff training is 2 weeks long and we want to make every moment count!

Kate is well into logistics, and she is currently reserving campgrounds, talking with outfitters about the summer, and the biggest one of them all; getting all of our permits renewed on federal lands. Each permit takes at least 5 hours of time to complete (and we have 15 permits).

The brochure took a few weeks to create, but we hope it has arrived at your house. If you did not receive a 2015 AT brochure or would like some to pass out to friends, let us know! We will happily send one out to you ASAP!

The new hat and t-shirts have been designed and are getting ready for the final proof. I must say, that I am really excited about how they look (and I promise the hats will fit better this year!) If you really want to know what they look like, you’ll have to wait till your trip starts. I just can’t spoil the surprise.

On top of all of this, Dock and Josh will be doing a little traveling.  Dock was in Durham, NC last weekend at Triangle Day School. Later this winter, he or Josh will be in Nashville, Florida, Boston and New York. If you are interested in having us come to your area, please let us know. We will try to work a trip to your area.

While there is always a lot going on, we are eager and excited to talk with our parents and students. So, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, or just want to say, “Hi” please give us a call. We’d love to hear from you and hear about any adventures you are having this winter!

All the best for a great 2015 and happy Groundhog Day! Since the Groundhog saw it’s shadow today – only 140 days until our first students arrive! We are excited!

DMAC