Think Outside

Mountain Environments

Mountain environments are defining features of the Western United States. Whether your group is looking to participate in a backpacking trip or spend a day at our Challenge Course, we can create a program to meet your needs. Activities and locations offered vary by specific itinerary and may include some of the ones detailed below.

 

Recreational Activities

  • Hiking and peak attempts
  • Backpacking
  • Rock climbing
  • Mountain biking
  • Yoga and mindfulness practice
  • Large group games

 

Educational Activities

  • Guided natural history and ecology hikes
  • Lessons in biology, geology, weather, aquatic/stream science, outdoor survival skills, native plant use, and more
  • Exploration of native and endemic species
  • Environmental awareness games and lessons
  • Team-building initiatives/challenges
  • Journal writing and creative assignments
  • Service-learning projects

 

Evening Activities

  • Campfires with skits, songs, stories, and s’mores
  • Environmental resource use discussions
  • Astronomy observation and lessons
  • Native American myths and stories
  • Night-hikes focusing on nocturnal animal adaptations.

 

Activities are presented in a variety of formats throughout the program and are experiential in nature. Lessons are planned to be stimulating and challenging. Instructors give participants the tools to promote personal discovery and self-direction in learning, while supporting learners with information about the topics being explored. A thoughtfully developed progression of hands-on learning, structured lessons, experiential outdoor activities and free time is provided to maximize learning and craft a positive, memorable experience.

The Big Bear-San Bernardino Mountains program offers a premium outdoor experience set among the pine-clad backdrop of the San Bernardino Mountains. The comfortable residential camp setting offers modern living amenities, a dining hall, as well as many indoor and outdoor spaces for activities. The structured, established camp setting offers the perfect to focus on group and personal development. Participants may be able to enjoy hiking trails, low and high ropes courses, campfire areas, and rock climbing.

Backpacking is a great way to immerse participants in the environment while providing a forum for interpersonal and intrapersonal growth. These backpacking trips take place in Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness. This environment includes lush sub-alpine meadows, a 10,880-foot peak ascent, and ponderosa forests. Trails are accessible via the Humber Park Trailhead (outside of Idyllwild) or the Palm Springs Ariel Tramway.

The San Jacinto residential program is based in Idyllwild, California at a comfortable residential camp with modern living amenities, a dining hall, as well as many indoor and outdoor spaces for activities. The structured, established camp setting offers the perfect to focus on group and personal development. Participants may be able to enjoy hiking trails, low and high ropes courses, campfire areas, and rock climbing.

With waterfalls, rivers, towering rock faces, and miles of wilderness trails, Yosemite offers an unparalleled experience for any group. Boojum offers a number of different opportunities in Yosemite: lodge-based, basecamp, and wilderness backpacking programs. Yosemite basecamp programs primarily use day-hikes out of the Tuolumne and Yosemite Valley area, and may include experiences at the visitor’s center or museum. Yosemite backcountry expeditions take place in the pristine wilderness of the park’s high country. They offer excellent opportunities for studies in mountain ecology, geology, public lands management and landscape geography.

Our Santa Cruz program is designed as an introduction to the unique and diverse natural areas of the central coast of California. Participants explore mountains, forests, and coastal landscapes through day hiking, natural history lessons, and environmental awareness activities. Groups also experience a full complement of group-development and team-building games, initiatives and activities, and build character and responsibility through group living. The program’s main outdoor classrooms are the forests, meadows, and riparian (stream-side) areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Participants stay in tents or wooden cabins during the program and eat hearty meals in a comfortable dining hall.

The Sierra Nevada backpacking expeditions take place in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks as well as the Jennie Lakes Wilderness. While on a multi-day backpacking program, participants may encounter beautiful alpine lakes, open meadows, and lush pine and fir forests. This landscape allows for instruction in mountain ecology, geology, camp craft, reflective journaling, and evening programs.

We acknowledge that the land on which we currently program includes the ancestral homes and unceded territory of the Yuhaviatam/ Maarenga’yam, Newe Segobia, Ɂívil̃uwenetem Meytémak, Me-Wuk, Nuwuvi, Yokuts, Chukchansi, Chumash, Amah Mutsun and Costanoan people, commonly referred to as Serrano, Western Shoshone, Cahuilla, Coast Miwok, Southern Paiute, Pueblos, Southern Sierra Miwok, Chumash, Barbareño Chumash, Popeloutchom, Ohlone, and Chalon people. This land was stolen by Spanish, Mexican, and then American profiteers through acts of forced servitude, genocide, and deceit.

As a land-based business, we acknowledge that we benefit from the ongoing system of settler colonialism, which includes the genocide waged against these people and the theft of their land. 

This acknowledgement is an essential, yet small, element of a much larger attempt towards cooperatively building a world where right relationship is possible. 

We constantly ask ourselves: “What does it mean to use and be successful from stolen land? How do we achieve right relationship to this land and its people?” 

We feel it is our duty as a guest to this land to listen to Native voices, in the spirit of building continued accountable relationships. 

Allan ZabeckiMountain Environments