Wilderness Orientation Archives

Not-so-New Eagle Rockers Embarking on Wilderness Course

After a year of virtual learning and a long-awaited return to the Eagle Rock campus, this trimester is rapidly coming to a close. In the next two weeks, our two newest student cohorts will complete their classes and begin preparation to venture into the Lost Creek Wilderness for their Wilderness Orientation Course.

For decades, our wilderness orientation course has been an introduction and a rite of passage for new students at Eagle Rock. However, for the past three trimesters, the health pandemic put a halt to this tradition. In March of 2020, we sent all of our students home and shifted to virtual classes until it was safe to bring everyone back to campus this March.

Lost Creek Wilderness. Image © Hogs555 via Wikimedia Commons

As a result, and unlike any wilderness orientation before, students embarking in this trimester’s course have already been members of the Eagle Rock community for three to six months, albeit some of it from their own homes. Wilderness participants this time around include two incoming cohorts of students — those in the 82nd and 83rd trimester of our school’s history (ER 82 and 83).

And because those students are currently enrolled in on-campus classes before their wilderness course, they have the opportunity to participate in more prep work prior to the trip. Our wilderness instructors are Continue reading…

Eagle Rock is Scouting for an Outdoor Education Course Manager

If leading a group of incoming students on a multi-week wilderness orientation program at one of the nation’s most progressive high schools sounds like an exciting and rewarding opportunity, then you may be interested in our full-time Outdoor Education Course Manager opening.

Backing up for a moment, numerous studies have shown the benefits of wilderness orientation programs. From metrics associated with fostering a sense of place to those related to social benefit, you don’t have to look very far to understand why curriculum-based outdoor and experiential programming — including a multi-week orientation program like ours — offers tremendous efficacy with respect to student engagement and growth.

Eagle Rock School students participating in a recent Wilderness Orientation Program.

Here at Eagle Rock, our new outdoor education course manager will serve as part of our Student Service Team within our Human Performance and Outdoor Education (HPOE) department. If hired, you will support field-based courses and contribute to residential life on our Estes Park, Colo. campus. Located on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park, this position offers unmatched opportunities for foster rich relationships with students and peers, with the great outdoors serving as your classroom.

Required qualifications and essential tasks of the position include: Continue reading…

Princeton Intern Learns There’s No Easing into the Water at Eagle Rock

If I were to best describe my recent introduction to Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, the phrase I would use is “Hit the ground running.”

That’s because only moments after my arrival on campus, several Eagle Rock students invited me to sit down and eat breakfast with them — this before I had even met the Eagle Rock staff member, I’d be reporting to during my summer internship. Two hours later, I was issued a pair of yellow shorts and a T-shirt that proclaimed my membership in Juniper House, one of Eagle Rock’s six on-campus residential houses. Then I was rushed off to a day of intramural soccer matches with the staff and students.

The author, Abelardo Cruz (center), with Eagle Rock School students in the cafeteria.

While this whirlwind experience might appear intimidating for someone who had never stepped foot on campus, I’ve come to realize that diving into the deep end is not only normal, but almost a common occurrence in order for its community members to gain a firm grasp on the school. The fact that new Eagle Rock students are required to complete a 24-day wilderness orientation trip just a week after their arrival here only confirms that theory.

While orientation trips are not all that uncommon among educational institutions, a month in the backcountry seemed Continue reading…

New Event Celebrates Student Successes at the Halfway Mark

At Eagle Rock School, we place the same value on personal growth as we do our insistence on academic success. Over the course of their time here, there are countless opportunities for our students to challenge themselves and develop their own character.

This trimester, we’re piloting a celebration to recognize students’ personal growth at the half-way point of their time here. It takes an abundance of commitment and dedication to become successful at Eagle Rock, and we find it often takes about a year for our students to fully find their groove here. Thus, our new Mid-Career Celebration is what we’re blogging about today.

Eagle Rock School students achieve growth in many ways, including by learning about, experiencing, and practicing effective communication skills, dealing with conflict, and embodying a centering practice. For example, students begin their Eagle Rock School career with a month-long wilderness course focusing on not only becoming part of a community but becoming comfortable with one’s self.

Upon their return to campus, these new students immediately begin the practice of effective communication and teamwork. And they do that while residing in a diverse community and participating in such non-volunteer tasks as Continue reading…

Outdoor Education Adjunct Instructor Sought for Eagle Rock School

Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center is seeking an experienced outdoor educator who is not only comfortable guiding experiential educational programs in remote backcountry environments for weeks at a time, but who can transfer the confidence and enjoyment gleaned from such experiences to novice teens — many of whom will be experiencing life outside their hometown for the first time in their young lives.

The job title is Outdoor Education Adjunct Instructor, and we’ll tell you up front that one of the most important aspects of this position is helping coordinate our three-times-a-year New Student Wilderness Program that sees incoming students participate in and successfully complete a 24-day wilderness course at the beginning of each trimester.

For that program, the Outdoor Education Adjunct Instructor will facilitate outdoor and on-the-trail instruction to our students, supporting experiences that contribute to their personal and academic growth.

In addition to playing a pivotal role for the New Student Wilderness Program, the adjunct instructor wears many hats back on campus. Among the responsibilities our new staff member will take on are Continue reading…

Eagle Rock’s Wilderness Documentary Film ‘All Who Dare’ Debuts Sept 28 in Estes Park

Each year just like clockwork, Colorado’s blue skies offer its citizens a front-row view of the migration of wild geese — those long-necked waterfowl heading south in pursuit of sufficient grains, sunshine and open water to wait out the winter. Also like clockwork, each trimester at Eagle Rock School finds its incoming cohort departing on a 24-day orientation program to a remote wilderness area, each location placing them in an unfamiliar landscape with other new students who must rely on each other to complete two dozen adventurous and often emotion-filled days on the trail.

It’s a rite of passage for these new students, who have just arrived at our school that features an unconventional approach to education — a system that for decades has provided hope for young people striving to turn their lives around by engaging themselves in their own education.

A new hour-long documentary film called “All Who Dare” records the incredible experience that recently took place within the Lost Creek Wilderness area of Colorado. The documentary “stars” include nine incoming Eagle Rock students, accompanied by our school’s accomplished wilderness instructors.

Supported by the American Honda Motor Co., the film premiers at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 28 at the Stanley Hotel, 333 E. Wonderview Ave., in Estes Park. And while tickets are free, they must be reserved in advance (by Sept. 26) by visiting http://allwhodare.eventbrite.com.

Additional screenings of the documentary will be held around the country, and those interested should check back for updates regarding “All Who Dare” regional screenings by visiting www.AllWhoDare.com

The nine students featured in the film all arrived at Eagle Rock’s mountainside campus on May 14, 2016, as part of the incoming group of students known as ER 69 (for Eagle Rock’s 69th incoming class since our founding in the early-90s).

As the film begins, these teens look into the camera and tell the interviewer about their battles with Continue reading…

An Outdoor Education Fellow’s Perspective of The Eagle Rock School Wilderness Orientation Course

Since Eagle Rock’s inception, a new student wilderness orientation course has been an unconventional tradition that sets ours apart from other learning habitats. As an Outdoor Education Fellow, I continue to be blown away by how Eagle Rock engrains — and then celebrates — the wilderness experience as a right of passage for new students.

The moments they first step foot on campus, new Eagle Rock School students find themselves surrounded by veteran students and the first topic of conversation is inevitably, the wilderness course. These more experienced students talk about how much they enjoyed it or hated it. They offer the newbies tips and tricks on staying clean, or the best way to snag some extra toilet paper.

And soon, these fresh new faces hear about circles — a restorative process that is used frequently while in wilderness. Like the name suggests, students and instructors form a circle in order to create an emotionally safe space for discussions. Interestingly enough, there has been an evolution in how students reminisce about their experience with circles.

It was often described as a negative experience, but over time, something has changed. The concept of circles, and the perspective of them, has changed. I’ll explain why I think this change has occurred in just a moment.

I often tell students near the end of the 24-day wilderness expedition, that one of the many reasons we go out into the backcountry for two dozen days is because there’s really no place to hide. Wilderness forces us all to step up to the plate, to embody our strengths consistently, and it exposes areas with which we are struggling.

Sometimes, it exposes problem areas we didn’t even know we had. But the one thing 24 days gives us is time. We have time to stop, time to contemplate, time to discuss what’s going on. And time to figure out how we can move forward in order to curtail, contain or take the power out of a conflict that might impede the functionality of the group — our community.

Of course, conflict is unavoidable. We like to think it is a healthy approach to developing a positive group culture that correctly, and appropriately reflects the vast values and perspectives of its community. An introductory way that we do this is with affective statements and questions. These tools are incorporated into circles and the progression of questions the facilitator uses. One-on-one coaching is an essential tool of the wilderness instructor. Students often need support in how they bring up issues or frustrations with affective statements.

For instance Continue reading…