Our first 166 students are all safely home. We have 95 students in the field and 164 joining us as we open another round of trips this week. All of our directors are in the field greeting students and checking in with instructors. I’m in California and the Northwest, Jan is with the Blue Ridge, Josh is in Colorado and California and D-Mac is in the Northwest.   I love seeing students who were nervous on opening day, but by closing day feel that Adventure Treks has become their second home.

Cal Challenge 1 in the Shasta Trinity Alps

My daughter just completed a British Columbia trip.  I haven’t seen her yet but I can’t wait to hear her stories.  When we talked to her via phone during her trip, my wife, Jane’s conclusion was “She sounded so… happy,” and I agreed.  Her voice was calm and she was practically beaming over the phone. I could tell she was proud of what she has accomplished and excited about the great friends she has made.

In 2014 teenagers are under a lot of stress, my daughter is no exception.  She has studied very hard all year and between the commute to school, club soccer, non-stop texts, middle school girl drama, and the nuisance factor of three younger siblings and two overbearing parents, Adventure Treks has been a wonderful time for a break!  I hear this again and again when I talk to other parents.  “My son or daughter is so happy when they are at Adventure Treks.”  And I hear from our students –  “Adventure Treks is my happy place,” “This is the place I can be myself,” or “This is where I am my best self and my happiest.”

To make some sense of why Adventure Treks is a place where kids can be so happy – I am going to defer to the 13-year old Ted Talk sensation, Logan LaPlante. If you aren’t one of the 5.8 M folks who has seen his viral Ted Talk embedded below – it’s well  worth watching! (especially the first 5 minutes, if you are short on time)

The crux of Logan’s talk (besides the fact that he is ridiculously articulate for his age) is that we adults “have gotten it all wrong.”  Rather than wanting to grow up to be good at a profession, he wants first to grow up to be happy.  He advocates “Hacking” the concept of school and states that school should begin with a focus on teaching people how to be happy, rather than merely delivering information.   Logan references Dr. Roger Walsh and his seven TLC’s or Therapeutic Lifestyle Choices. These TLC’s are habits that lead to a healthy and happy life.

Dr. Walsh’s Seven TLC’s:

Exercise – Healthy people are happy people.  We all know how exercise reduces stress and tension and how much better we feel when we are in shape and burn calories doing something physical and fun.  There is no shortage of exercise at AT.

Nutrition and Diet – There is now considerable evidence of the importance of nutrition for mental health – we try to eat healthy at Adventure Treks!

Nature – for thousands of years wise people have recommended time in nature as a source of wisdom and healing. Now more than ever in our media centered world, time in nature is essential.  Research shows time in nature improves your cognitive functioning and reduces stress.

Relationships – The idea that good relationships are central to both physical and mental well-being is an ancient theme, now supported by considerable research. Rich relationships reduce health risks, and good relationships are associated with enhanced happiness, quality of life, resilience, cognitive capacity, and perhaps even wisdom. We take this to heart at Adventure Treks, with a strong focus on developing healthy communities!

Recreation and Enjoyable Activities – This is at our core – what can be more fun than non-stop, exciting outdoor activities?

Relaxation and Stress Management – Even though stress is universal, few people are trained in managing it. In addition, humans now face an array of novel stressors for which there are no evolutionary or historical precedents. For our Adventure Treks students, three weeks of  living in a community in nature without the interruption of media is about as relaxing and stress free as one can get in 2014. More importantly through real experiences we can teach kids the importance of resilience – a crucial skill in managing stressful situations!

Contribution and Service – We all know that when one takes the focus off yourself and instead gives to others, we end up happier.  At AT we talk about waking up every day and working to make everyone else’s day great, we call this expedition mentality. When everyone is looking out for each other, it’s amazing how rewarding your own experience becomes. When we feel part of something larger than ourselves, it makes us happy.

What quickly impresses me is how much the Adventure Treks experience embodies these seven TLC’s.  More than just a three-week experience, we hope Adventure Treks helps our students build healthy habits that last long beyond the summer.  We hope that our students will take the components from Adventure Treks which makes them the most happy and bring these aspects into their lives at home. Coming home from Adventure Treks can sometimes be tough.  Our kids have literally had a “Peak Experience” and life at home can be a bit boring. We hope if nothing more, your child’s time outdoors with Adventure Treks has made them just a little bit happier and if we’ve done that – we’ve been successful!

John Dockendorf

Executive Director

Read More About Dr. Walsh’s Research Here

One of the joys of an Adventure Treks summer is becoming close friends with people from beyond your school and hometown.   This year, we will welcome students and instructors from 43 different states and 14 countries.  It’s great to discover the differences that culture and geography can have on our perception of things as well as the similarities we all share as part of our human experience. When we share a unified vision for the success of our Adventure Treks trip, it’s easy for a diverse group to come together and work towards a common goal. Together we can create a community that fosters a culture of kindness, inclusion and respect.

This year our twenty – one trip communities will include approximately 40 students who live overseas.  This is about 8% of our student body.  Several of our international students are Expats; American families who live and work overseas. And many are internationals, coming to the states to experience our incredible mountain scenery and become immersed in our wonderful AT culture.   We have 7 students from France, 6 from China, 5 from Italy and 4 each from Canada and the Dominican Republic. We are amazed how many of our international students come back for multiple summers and consider AT their second home!

Our map may expand a little as we add our last few students. This year, for the first time, New York has edged out California as our most represented state.  North Carolina is 3rd followed by Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Maryland, Texas and Oregon.  We are still desperately hoping to welcome a student from North Dakota – over the last 20 years, North Dakota is the only state from which we have never had a student!

Remember to get in your best possible shape and break in those new boots! The first Plus-Delta of the summer will be at trip leader retreat near Mt. Hood, OR on June 4.

Whether you are from Addis Ababa, Paris, New York City or San Diego, we can’t wait to see you on your opening day and welcome you to Adventure Treks. Good luck with your final exams. See you soon!

Congratulations to our many high school seniors who will soon be graduating and heading off for college or a gap year. Below is a list of the schools they will be attending. We know that steering through the college “sorting hat” has been difficult and we want to applaud you for all the hard work you have put into your successful high school careers. We hope you have chosen a school that is a good fit for your personality, abilities and interests. We believe college placement is all about the right match; it’s a shame that sometimes it gets turned into a giant contest.

We did it! High School is over!

We hope you will continue to pursue outdoor activities in college and join your school’s outdoor club. Time spent engaged in outdoor activities, besides being fun, active and great way to meet folks, is a wonderful way to stay grounded and gain perspective as you navigate the exciting whirlwinds ahead.

As you can see from the list below, Adventure Treks kids get accepted to amazing schools. This is because we begin with phenomenal kids. It takes a special person to choose an Adventure Treks summer and colleges understand that the communication skills, resilience, collaboration and contribution ethic fostered through an Adventure Treks experience correlates well with success at college. At a time when only 59% of entering full-time college freshman at four year colleges actually graduate from college within six years, we hope that the character, grit and resilience enhanced through the Adventure Treks experience, will help you thrive in college, and get out in FOUR!

Having talked to dozens of our AT graduates currently in college, we hear that their Adventure Treks experience, helped then feel well prepared:

Evening Meeting in Olympic National Park

“A.T. did a phenomenal job preparing me for the transition to college. I had the ability to adapt to new and changing situations. I knew how to meet people and how to work with different kinds of people. I have seen many of my friends struggle with the transition, but it’s been easy for me.”
—Christopher, University of Richmond

“A.T. made me more comfortable in my skin; so when I got to college I didn’t have to try and be anybody but myself – It was refreshing and empowering.”
—Max, Stanford University

“At Adventure Treks you learn how to help out and look out for others, how to thrive when things aren’t easy and how to see a bigger picture beyond yourself. A.T. gave me the confidence to lead a school organization my freshman year and it means I am always the one doing more than my share in project groups.”
—Jake, University of Nevada, Reno

“A.T. built my confidence and helped me become more outgoing. I learned that people liked me for who I am. I learned how to be a strong member of a community and how to thrive without electronics. When I got to college, I didn’t try to be anybody other than myself and didn’t get sucked into the endless video games and partying that dragged down many of my male peers.”
—Sam, Iowa State University

And here is The 2014 Adventure Treks College List:
Noah Maggin – University of Richmond
Ruby Aresty – Wake Forest University
Teddy Levine – Bates College
Harry Templeton – Bowdoin College
Paul Ryan – Cornell University
James Purcell – Cornell University
Alec Redler – Elon University
David Cocoziello – Elon University
Eryn Lorberbaum – Muhlenberg College
Liam Arnade – Colwill – Yale University
Eric Kay – University of Vermont
Riley Erickson – University of Georgia                                                                                                                                  Jack Cahill  –  Notre Dame University
Quinn Todzo – University of Illinois, Champaign / Urbana
Tyree Cowell – University of Michigan –  Honors
Tylo Ward – University of Nevada –  Reno – Honors
Ben Douglas – Kenyon College
Kim Davidson – Kenyon College
Andrew Plotch – Middlebury College
Nick Dillard – Georgia Technical College
Patrick Mahoney – Sacred Heart University
Adam Tigar – Carleton College
Miles Kelly – Gap year in Europe than University Colorado – Boulder
McKenzie Spooner – Whitman College
Merrit Geary – University of Montana – Honors
Nick Small – University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa
Zach Schaja – Emory University
Kyle Heiner – University of Oregon – Honors
Haley Weiss– University of Pennsylvania
Ben Zervitz – Ithaca College
Abigail Daniel – US Military Academy – West Point
Max Klein – University of Florida
Annie Pharr – Appalachian State University – Honors
Aidan Long – Warren Wilson College
Andrew Jacober  – UNC – Chapel Hill
Michael Lipsitz – SUNY-  Binghamton
Sean Moore – University of Texas, Austin- Honors
Isabella Bingen – University of Seattle
Tory Farrelly – Berry College
Hannah Gallogly  – Wesleyan University
Ches Goodall – Tulane University
Jack Sollee – Haverford College
Emily Anderson – Case Western University
Ella Imes – Lewis and Clark College

Again, Huge Congratulations and very best wishes from all of us at Adventure Treks. We look forward to working with many of you at our Camp Pinnacle summer camp after your freshman year!

I never thought I’d be a soccer dad… I always envisioned that weekends with my four kids would be spent hiking in the woods or mountain biking. Instead, Jane and I spend spring and fall weekends dividing and conquering as we figure out how to get our four kids to different soccer games in multiple locations. These parental challenges are not unique.

My kids love soccer and I applaud the many good things soccer brings. I like the friends my children have made through soccer and their families. I like the conditioning and emphasis on activity and health. I like the camaraderie, focus, and the teamwork my kids are learning. I love the fact that my girls look up to Tobin Heath and Heather O’Reilly and not Miley Cyrus or Rihanna.

On Any Given Sunday!

But while soccer is a great activity, I worry about too much of a good thing. Finding a passion, working hard to attain skills and being able to measure one’s growth through competition is a great way to build the confidence that will serve one throughout life. But now, we feel pressure from coaches and other parents to focus on soccer exclusively. This past fall, the day that travel soccer season ended, we were encouraged to begin winter soccer which began three days later! (We passed)

Whether this quest for specialization is driven by parental dreams of producing an elite athlete or simply the lure of an elusive scholarship to beat the skyrocketing costs of college, I feel that this pressure to specialize in a single sport is ultimately not in my kids’ best interests.

The bar has been set ridiculously high for those who wish to excel. Globalization has created a world that rewards the specialists at the expense of the generalists. We can all quote Malcom Gladwell’s statistic that it takes at minimum 10,000 hours of practice to be great at anything. That bar keeps getting raised. The level of play in high school or even middle school sports has never been higher, but has anyone stopped to question if this is ultimately important? Is there any correlation between the actual caliber of play and the life lessons we can learn from sports?

I was surprised to realize that most of this pressure to specialize comes not from kids but instead from coaches or parents. In fact, less than 5% of kids actually drive the decision to specialize. (Ginsburg, Durant and Bakltzel) It’s often the athletes of average talent that are “asked” to specialize because “these kids are on the bubble.” Specialization creates an opportunity to make an elite team roster and play at a level that wouldn’t be accessible if they divided their time between multiple interests. A varsity roster helps differentiate kids in college admissions, and the “right college” gives kids an “edge” in an increasingly unequal world.

But is this giant “sorting hat” healthy?

When a youngster focuses on one sport year-round “it becomes a job, not a pastime.” By 9th grade, 70% of kids who started a sport at age 8 or younger have given the sport up because they were “bored, burned out or didn’t make the team.”

Besides the mental toll, specialization has a physical cost. Despite a warning from pediatricians that growing kids should cross train rather than specialize; overuse injuries are now responsible for nearly half of all sports injuries to middle school and high school students.

An exclusive focus on sports also takes away the opportunity to have special and spontaneous family days, the kind of activities that build memories and family camaraderie. It also affects the diversity of potential friends. Soccer kids are great but it’s also important to have friends with different interests and perspectives.

Taking a Break on a Hike Up Looking Glass Rock

I don’t believe specializing is mentally healthy, either. I think our brains develop better when challenged in multiple areas with multiple activities. In fact, sports psychologists report that the most successful athletes are the kids who are “the most balanced and centered,” not the one’s who train the most or work the hardest (Ginsburg, Durant and Bakltzel) A study of elite Olympic competitors found that successful athletes grew up in an environment where fun was emphasized over winning until the teenage years. Personality qualities inherent and consistent in medal winning Olympians were ability to focus, self – confidence, optimism, resiliency, mental toughness, work ethic and of course sports intelligence and natural athleticism.

I don’t expect my kids to play soccer in the Olympics. As parents, we don’t have the commitment, even if our kids have the talent. Instead, I hope to be able to raise well rounded, balanced kids who will gain competencies in many different areas. If they get asked to do something like go sailing, play bocce ball or go to a symphony – I would hope they would have at least a working knowledge of each so they could be an eager participant. I want my kids to peak in their sixties not their late teens. I wouldn’t want them to look back at their high school sports career as the highlight of their life, but rather just one of many valuable growing experiences that helped prepare them for an engaged life filled with continuous growth.

Despite our family’s love for soccer and the inevitability that a future coach will attempt to gobble up their summers with lures of endless soccer programs and practices, one thing my kids will never sacrifice is summer camp. I know that my kids have so much fun and enjoy their “Camp” friendships so much that they wouldn’t easily sacrifice Adventure Treks for soccer. Summer programs also provide a much needed mental break from the pressures of daily life. 2013 research by the American Psychological Association shows that teens are now more stressed than adults, and Adventure Treks is just one way that we can help to reverse that trend.

Hiking in Colorado

At Adventure Treks, campers acquire skills in  several activities. These small successes lead to bigger successes. These successes build confidence and self – efficacy. These are the same traits found in successful athletes. At summer camp, one can generalize rather than specialize and learn life and activity skills they will be able to use into old age. While instructors don’t have names like Cristiano Ronaldo or Hope Solo, they are realistic (and larger than life!) role models who engage in two-way conversations. Sure I love soccer, but I know my kids learn more about teamwork, character and leadership at Adventure Treks than they do on the playing field.

Every summer I see kids turning away from Adventure Treks and other great camps because of sports commitments. These are usually good athletes. They are frequently pressured by their coach and worried that if they don’t devote their summer to the same sport they practice the rest of the year, they will fall behind and miss out. It’s a decision real in the moment but usually regretted in retrospect. Sure sport has lots to teach, but so does Adventure Treks and summer camp in general. In the sports vs. Camp equation ultimately it’s about balance. We hope the concept of becoming a Renaissance person will again make a resurgence, after all we want our kids to peak in their 60s!

References:

1) Whose Game is it, Anyway? – Ginsburg, Durant and Bakltzel

2) The Most Expensive Game in Town: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families – Mark Hyman

3) Psychological Characteristics and Their Development in Olympic Champions – Dan~El Gould, Kristen Dieffenbach And Aaron Moffett