Growing up in Ohio doesnt always lend itself to the thought of adventure. I admit that idea of mountains and snow capped peaks escaped me until I was about 5 or 6 years old. In elementary school we read a book called The Boxcar Children http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxcar_Children I remember these adventures fondly and realized at that moment that there was an entire world out there to explore and I was going to do it!
I began do devour every book I could in search of adventure and wonder. My Side of the Mountain, and the book Hatchet were only a few of the many books I found in my school library. I took my first solo camping trip behind my families farm at age twelve. With a $20 dollar Walmart frame back pack and a motley assortment of old smelly military surplus gear I made my dream a reality. I was terrified! The autumn woods were cold, dark and forboding. The only light in the wilderness was my cheap kerosene lantern which I had hauled on the outside of my pack the epic distance of 3/4 of a mile through the corn field to my campsite along the creek.
All through the night I was kept awake, mostly by fear, of the terrible things outside my thin nylon tent. Occasionallly I could hear the whitetail deer move through the creek and at one time heard one of them take a fall down one of the cutbanks and splash into the creek. Thats when I relit my lantern! I had never spent a more terrifying or restless night in the woods. I was hooked. This WAS adventure!
Summer camp was the next step. I began to wonder who could teach me more about living in the woods, traveling to the remote places in the world and climbing in the mountains. I went to several different camps as a child. Camp Hidden Hollow a 2 week summer camp in Indiana and finally at age 14 a wilderness survival skills camp called Green Mountain Wilderness Survival School based in the green mountains of Vermont. This was the biggest adventure I had ever had. The longest I had ever been away from home, 17 days, and the most remote stretch of country I had ever been in......real mountains. It changed my life. I discovered that adventure is an important part of growing, exploring and just being Human!
Over the years I have had many adventures in great and wonderful places and have come to the conclusion that I can help others experience the same things I did as a young man. this is what caused me to develop Under Western Skies Adventures. The adventure camps for boys were designed to inspire a sense of wonder, strength of character and beleiving that you can do whatever you put your mind to. We focus on community, stewardship and investment in the wild places of the world, fun and trying things you might have never done before. Life is adventure and UWS Adventures hopefully will become a tool for discovering yourself, making friends, learning new skills and passing these things on in the form of lifelong experiences that can be shared with friends family and the community!
Under Western Skies is a unique Adventure travel company based in Bozeman Montana. We are new to the business but not new to the industry with nearly 20 years in the field of adventure travel, guiding and outdoor education. Raft a remote wilderness river, learn to flyfish, go horsepacking, or explore canyons in the desert southwest. Where will your dreams take you? Let us help get you there! See you Under Western Skies.
Thanks for sharing! I would love to hear more about your experiences on horse back. Do you still ride? What was it like as a real cowboy?
ReplyDeleteMy story goes from NYC to Italy to Japan where I now live with my brothers and family. The beginning of my love of adventures involved olive groves, horses and the Alps.
I was born in NYC and had two young women who worked as nannies and tutors from my birth to age 6 that really shaped my love of adventure. These two young women were ballet dancers in NYC and had such love of the outdoors, such escapism and fantasy that they expressed through adventures and such enthusiasm and energy that it was unavoidable that I would not want to experience the same. We slept in makeshift tents of cotton sheets and ski poles in Central Park or played in empty box cars in the train yards (to play Box Car Children) or we hid in the exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum and stayed the night when the museum was closed! On weekends, we would head into the Catskills to hike, picnic and play.
Once I moved to Italy, we spent most of our weekends and summers in Tuscany. It was here that I fell in love with olive trees. They are so big that you can barely get your arms around one-half of them, but they remind me of wise old men who protect me under their branches. I used to sneak outside with my brothers on warm summer evenings to camp in the olive groves and sleep in the aroma of ripening olives and awake dampened by the dew that had formed on the ground.
It was in Tuscany that I learned to ride horses. I love the exhiliration of becoming one with something that is moving more powerfully than I can - and the speed that we could move across the fields and hills. It was on a horse that I could sense the freedom and power of nature - and the beauty of the changing scenery and seasons. One of my nannies from NYC came to live with us in Italy and she was more like my big sister at this point. She taught me how to ride, how to relax into the horse's movements and lead, but not control the animal.
We used to go out for 1 or 2 days with our horses packed with food, blankets and provisions for our adventure. I loved the idea of being out in nature, of listening to the sounds of a river running over rocks or a forest at night. I loved experiencing the changes in nature during each of the seasons: the cold of ice forming on a tree branch or the crunch of leaves under foot in the autumn.
When I was older, I used to go to summer camp in the Alps to learn the more technical skills of creating a base camp, mountaineering, ice and rock climbing, etc. But I never had a mentor or hero to look up to as a leader in these camps and that is what I want - someone who can teach me what it means to form community with nature and with others in nature.
I have loved UWS's mission statement from Day 1 and hope I get the chance to adventure with you in the BIG mountains of Alaska or Montana.