Preparing Multi-Day Wilderness Treks Offers a Chance to Develop New Skills

"Seeing teens engage in a variety of settings from the outdoor therapy setting back at base camp helps provide a comprehensive outlook into their progress."

 -Kathy Rex, Owner/Founder

There is enough out here in southern Idaho to explore for a lifetime.

Once the group has decided where they want to go, they will work as a team to package the food and other supplies they will need for their treks. When the group is prepared and ready to go, they will be transported to where they have chosen as their starting point. From that point forward, it is up to the group to follow through with their plans.

The experience of planning a multi-day trek, preparing for the journey and following through with it is unique and powerful – unique because clients truly experience the positive results and sometimes negative consequences of their decisions during the planning process and in the field. Perhaps their route is more circuitous or tougher than the group thought or planned. Perhaps the group brought too many supplies and weighed down their journey; powerful because through the multi-day wilderness experience, clients face challenges and measure their emotional and behavioral reactions, which are immediately transferable to their lives and relationships back home.

Groups participate in ongoing hiking expeditions, often camping at different sites each night. They will also take multi-day outings to other areas in the southern Idaho region, which will offer a combination of adventure activity, learning and volunteer work.

During wilderness experiences, clients participate in volunteer activities that help preserve the beautiful natural environment of southern Idaho.

Return to Base Camp

Each group has a base camp that they operate from which is set up with gear, food and supplies storage. This campsite is outfitted with a yurt for year-round sleeping during in-climate weather, complete with cots and heat. The site has a picnic and cooking area and storage for gear, which the group might use during their time there but can leave behind to travel lightly when they explore. Each week, groups will begin their week at their established base camp to engage in group therapy, equine therapy, take showers, get clean clothes and send/receive mail and/or Skype calls with parents & family members.

At base camp, groups also facilitate and plan their next multi-day trek. Clients might leave one week to take a multi-day backpacking trip. The next week, they might go to the city for a multi-day rock climbing/service project trip to one of the Mecca’s of rock climbing in the country.

Our use of the wilderness has helped families for decades, but now research supports what we have always known about Adventure therapy. Read more by clicking here>>

Adventure Therapy:

• Utilizes active (kinesthetic) experiential methodology to engage clients and establish an identical or parallel process between the client’s life experience and the client’s therapeutic experience and enhances the transfer of learning from the therapeutic context to the client’s life.
• Focuses on therapeutic goals, possibly including the cognitive, behavioral, affective, physical and spiritual facets of the person. This differentiates adventure therapy from uses of adventure for recreational, education, or physical health purposes.
• Involves a dynamic therapist-client relationship enhanced through the shared experience and the active involvement of the client in the creation and maintenance of an effective therapeutic environment, such as goal setting, personal decision-making, and achieving outcomes. The therapist is intentional in facilitation of process, the selection and design of the intervention, and about the role of the environment. This process may, but does not always, include real or perceived, physical or psychological stress or discomfort.
• Incorporates a dynamic use of the environment and often the role of nature.  This may include exposure to unique environments or environments with adaptive dissonance for the client.