What Will I Take Home From The Wilderness?

Posted by Jason Sibley, Field Director at Cascades on August 16, 2016

I’ve worked in the wilderness and through experiential education for 8+ years and believe more passionately than ever in the simple, tangible, and connective benefits we take home from every wilderness experience. Having just worked a 20-day wilderness course, I feel a renewed sense of appreciation for these take-home skills and lessons. Here are five you can expect to experience and benefit from long after you leave the field:

1. Accomplishing tasks: You accomplish more individual meaningful tasks in a day, yourself and as part of a team, than in just about any other setting. The wilderness experience simplifies need while it highlights how much we can and do achieve:

• Planning and executing a group dinner, cooking for ten over a fire

• Meticulously packing your pack so that it weighs 45 pounds but feels like it’s 30, instead of the opposite should you pack it poorly

• Setting up a group campsite from scratch, with the myriad of tasks required to make it “home”

• Hiking 4 miles, with each of those miles its own movement and accomplishment

These are but a few of the many tasks you connect to, appreciate, and complete each day.

2. Communicating with intention and grace:
You learn how important and helpful consistent, clear, and assertive communication is when you depend on teammates and they depend on you. Which is no different at home, except that the wilderness has a way of reminding us much more quickly and honestly. You practice and constantly feel the difference between a cohesive, connected family and a struggling, divided one. This stays with you and impacts your relationships long after you leave.

3. Being detailed and prepared:
You quickly appreciate the consequences of half-measures and forgotten details. This happens because you know immediately when your pack is uncomfortable, your rain jacket is buried as the first drops fall, or you forgot the groups ration of rice at the last site. You walk away understanding how much easier life can be when your key details are covered.

4. Healthy acceptance and perseverance:
You learn to separate between these two seemingly conflicting concepts: when and what to accept and when and what to fight through. Getting mad at the swirling storm clouds achieves nothing, and certainly doesn’t improve your preparedness for them. However, persevering through the last half-mile of a difficult hike achieves everything in that moment and allows you to prepare for whatever may be next.

5. Living simply:
You are constantly reminded of the increasingly important truism: going without not does mean losing or lacking happiness. You laugh more heartily than ever before, without the benefit of the latest meme, a TV show, or Snapchat. You appreciate a meal well prepared and lose your mind with delight when a new ingredient surprisingly shows up. You are mesmerized by sunrises and sunsets, which pictures do not adequately capture and filters will not improve. You discover joy in what you have, which is a perspective that will never, ever grow old.