Backpacking Trek Program
July 18 to August 14, 2008
The Backpacking Trek is extensive and challenging teen adventure into one of the few remaining wilderness areas in the continental United States: the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountain Ranges in northwestern Wyoming and southwestern Montana. This country is as scenic as it is primitive. The backpackers ascend several mountains in the 12,000 feet range and spend most of their trip in areas above 8,000 feet!
Much of the country lies within designated wilderness areas and all of it within Shoshone, Gallatin, and Custer National Forests. The backpackers travel through the summer ranges of elk, deer, mountain sheep, and mountain goats. (In fact, goats in recent years have even invaded the Beartooth trekker's camp.) They travel as far from "modern life" as the mind's eye can conceive.
Because of the rugged and primitive nature of the country, the keynote of the backpacking program is the group experience. As is true of the Ranch Camp Program, we place great emphasis on the smallness of each group, limiting the number to ten backpackers. This size both requires and enables the full participation of each teen.
Such trips cannot be safely and successfully undertaken without the full and responsible involvement of all the kids and staff. On the trail, the backpackers receive training in packing, low-impact camping, cooking and high altitude dietary requirements, map and compass reading, first aid and evacuation, physical health, and group dynamics. With that background the group faces each new challenge, making decisions and shouldering responsibilities as a unit. This blend of wilderness challenge and cooperative endeavor provides each individual with a memorable western experience.
"The purpose of the Trek is to leave the comforts of home, family, and friends, and to venture out and cope with the unfamiliar and challenging backcountry of Wyoming.
The Trek will put you into a series of situations and challenges that demand more of you than you might demand of yourself. You will not only develop the skills required for safe backpacking, camping and small-group living, but will also use these skills as tools in your individual development of an instinctive relationship with the country.
The small group encourages a close-knit relationship between the people, which instills caring for others. Through this appreciation you will find that you are learning more about yourself than you might otherwise. It is a great feeling to emerge from the wilderness knowing yourself better than when you entered."
Whether on the Camp or Backpacking Program, the Elk Creek Ranch experience has been for fifty years and remains today many-faceted, appealing to a variety of interests and abilities. Our purpose is to provide a challenging summer for each teen. The challenge is partly physical in that we are very active and mobile. It is partly mental in that the individual encounters a totally different mode of life. The challenge is also environmental in that the ranch is located in one of the few truly wild areas left in the continental United States. In meeting this blend of challenges, each individual gains a widened awareness of himself or herself and a greater appreciation of our western wilderness heritage.
