Just as with our biking trips, hiking trips are limited to no more than 12 students and there are always two trip leaders. Our hiking trips are designed to give our students a carefully crafted series of challenges with a clearly defined goal.
For example, our hiking trip in Colorado, Rocky Mountain Explorer, starts with a few days of introductory hikes with light packs in Rocky Mountain National Park to acclimatize before heading into the backcountry for a remote wilderness experience. At the end of the backcountry, the group has a break from the trail as they spend two days on a rafting trip on the Arkansas River. The final days find the group taking on their last challenge: climbing Mount Yale, one of Colorado’s famous 14ers. Standing atop Mount Yale’s 14,192 ft. summit is a fitting end to the trip – an exciting and thoroughly satisfying high point.
Over the years we have built on this model of small groups and carefully crafted challenges and expanded our hiking offerings so that there is a wide range of options.
For students currently in grades 7, 8 and 9 there are three 2-week options: New England Explorer (a 3 on our challenge level scale of 1-10); Blue Ridge Explorer (a 3); and Rocky Mountain Explorer (a 4). We also have a 3-week option in Washington on our Northwest Explorer trip (a 5).
For students in grades 8-12 there are three options out West and all are three weeks long: Yellowstone Teton Explorer (a 6); High Sierra Explorer (a 7); and Alaska Explorer (a 7). All of these programs spend eight to ten days in the backcountry in addition to kayaking, rafting, rock climbing, or mountaineering.
Current 9th through 12th graders can join us for a month in Europe on our European Explorer (a 7) or on our ultimate hiking trip in the Swiss Alps, the Alpine Challenge (a 10).
Finally, our Alaska Leadership Course (a 9) is a trip that teaches our students in 10th-12th grade all that we’ve learned about outdoor leadership in over two decades of leading students from New England to the Rockies to Alaska and Europe.
