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21st Century Skills

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:

  • collaboration
  • creativity
  • communication
  • and critical thinking

These are balanced with life skills, which include:

  • adapting to change
  • dealing with ambiguity
  • flexibility
  • independence
  • resilience
  • and organization

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.

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Connections

 

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!

John Dockendorf

 

 

 

 

 

by John Dockendorf,
Founding Director of Adventure Treks

 

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The Buzz About Mosquitos

Top Runner Up

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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

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Open the Heart of an American Teenager

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

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Bridge Jumping

Honorable Mention: Student Story

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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

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Be Your Best Self

Top Runner Up

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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

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Strangers.

Honorable Mention: Student Story

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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

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Definition of a Friend

Top Runner Up

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I really didn’t think I could make it up Mt. Shasta the 2nd time I tried. On California Challenge 08′ I struggled and struggled… but I was turned around at 12,500ft because of altitude sickness. I knew it would not be my last time on the mountain after I was defeated the first time, and I was right. Two years later, I found myself at the base of Mt. Shasta again on the Peak Leadership 10′ trip. This time, I knew it would be war.

Every step I took starting at the 2am departure time was a struggle. We were hiking with crampons and ice axes, and just trying hard not to fall off the face of the steep slope, let alone advance another inch. There were many times I wanted to give up…. turn around to my warm comfortable tent and my sleeping bag and just forget it.

My friends wouldn’t let me quit. They knew that this climb meant so much to me… and no matter how tired I was they supported me, and I supported them back. We all walked together checking on each other constantly… we made sure we were safe doing switchbacks, and while attached to ropes we supported each other when someone slipped. Read more

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