Most participants in wilderness programs dislike the stay in a wilderness program while they are in it, but years later when they are adults, life experience may produce a more sophisticated outlook on life. On of the former participants in the wilderness program Sagewalk wrote a blog-entry back in 2006 where he states some of his viewpoint on the society and life as an young adult. All rights belong to the author.
I don't know what all the sudden made me wanna start typing all this shit down but I guess its because of all the BULLSHIT that's going on with me right now .It has to do mostly about being the person you wanna be. For people like me It's almost impossible. When I say people like me I mean people who really just don't give a fuck. People who like to smoke, drink, pop, snort, whatever way intrigue them. It's much more clear inside my head .the only way I can think of explaining it is this. Think about when people say that they hate fakes now bare with me cause It's going to get a bit confusing. Say I want to smoke and drink the things I really love to do everything else is just an occasional thing or something ive done and am over with. This is what happened to me a while ago which started all the BULSHIT that's going on right now.
I got way to drunk in Pittsburgh and for some reason ended up passed out on the sidewalk a few blocks down from a party I was at was. Now by this point I had already blacked out and don't remember shit that happened the rest of the night. So what your about to read is all stuff that was told to me by my friends or parents. Two cops who I guess were on their way to break up the party I was at see me passed out on the sidewalk and come wake me up to see what's going on. As soon as they wake me up I'm yelling and swearing pushing them off me and just a bunch of BULLSHIT. So they arrest me for being drunk in public and take to the station where I wait to get picked up by my parents.
As soon as I get home with my parents I start to try and get out of every door window anything I could just because I didn't want to be home. I ended up wrestling with my dad for about 25 minutes until I finally get out of the house now while I was fighting with my dad my mom had called the cops and they just so happened to show up just as I get out so I start jetting down my street until my shoe fell of which slowed me down enough for them to catch up and tackle me to the ground. I need up getting arrested for being drunk in public and resisting arrest. This all happened sometime early July.
Now months and months later I'm on probation for 6 months. But on top of that for the past 9 months my parents have been on my nuts about drinking and smoking as well. When I found out I might be getting put on probation I saw kind of a bright side. I figured shit maybe my parents will lay the fuck off and let probation take car of me. But I was way wrong now my parents are even more uptight because they don't want to se me go to juvi which is a bullshit excuse to keep on bugging me about fallowing rules and shit. Because just the other night I went out without telling my parents. When I came back they were pissed and started saying shit like I violated my probation. I responded saying "no I didn't because they don't know about it and there not gonna find out either". So later that night I was chillin in my garage watchin t.v. And laying on the couch and my mom comes in and says " next time you do that I'm calling the cops myself and you'll be gone" which makes the whole "we don't wanna see you get sent away again" line a bunch of BULLSHIT.
Oh and she said "again" because a long while ago my parents sent me to a wilderness program called sagewalk for 67 days. So I know they don't have a problem with sending me away.
Now back to the whole being who you wanna be thing. Sorry theirs just so much going through my mind right now its hard to concentrate and stay focused but all this stuff ties into what I'm trying to say somehow. I don't think its possible to be who you really wanna be because of all the laws I mean think about it if you do something someone doesn't approve of you get punished for it. And the punishment just gets harsher and harsher each time. With all the laws that there are its ridiculous they're trying to make everyone fallow the some way of living. Your born you grow up going to school with you parents pushing you to get good grades and graduate. Then you get a job that you get stuck doing forever unless you catch a break and get rich quick. Then after you get a job you get married and get a house and have kids whom you raise and teach to live the same BULLSHIT way you lived because that's the way America thinks is the best way to live life. I know that not everyone lives this way that would be impossible. But its what they want you to do and how they want you to live don't ask me why. Cause Ill just keep it simple and tell you because they a bunch of dickfuckin bitches. I hate all of that BULLSHIT I just wanna live young and say fuck you to everyone and everything trying to stop me. Now this isn't logical but shit why not do your best to try. I know tons of parents/adults who bitch and whine all day about going to work and paying bills and blah blah blah all saying have fun while you're a kid don't grow up with a lil chuckle at the end. Then you go out get drunk and smoke some pot and their lecturing you about school and getting a job and being more mature. Fuckin wake up you air headed fagots I'm jus trying to have some fun incase as I get older I get sucked into the same mess your in walking around with stick up your ass never getting laid and being bossed around by other dickfucks who got trapped in the life that is suppose to be fallowed by everybody. So really you cant be who you wanna be…. I cant be who I wanna be. Just a kid who wants to – GET DRUNK, GET HIGH, AND GET LAID-. So everyone who feels the same way just keep having fun and doing what you're doing but be smart about it. Because now I'm stuck on probation for 6 months fallowing rules like a bitch. Well I could go on for days but I'm gonna stop with this last lil thing
Source:
The original blog-testimony on Myspace
torsdag den 8. september 2011
torsdag den 25. august 2011
Doug at Sagewalk
I don't know how to really dispell the myths about Sagewalk being a "boot camp" and students being "tortured and abused" other than just describing how a typical day went for me. This is rather long so pop some popcorn or something...
Day starts off by counselors calling 5 minutes. This means that everyone has 5 minutes to be dressed, have their sleeping bags hung on a tree, grab their food bags, and be sitting around the firepit. If everyone does not have this done by 5 minutes, everything gets put back the way it was, then you do it again until every thing is completed in the 5 minute slot.
After this, there is hygeine. This involves filling your cup with water and soap, taking your rag and washing your face, hands and feet. I believe 8 or 10 minutes was given for hygeine. You had to be checked off by a counselor. If not everyone was checked off by a counselor in the allotted time, everyone had to do it again, although it was fairly easy the second time around, since most everyone was already clean and didnt need to do additional scrubbing.
Then came breakfast, usually 20 minute time limit. Breakfast consisted of usually cold oats, with water, powdered milk, and then if you rationed well, brown sugar and raisins. If a fire was going, campers had the option of heating their oats, although only a few did so (I preferred my oats cold). You were required to eat at least 2 cups of oats, and one quart of water, both checked off (one girl forgot to check off that she had drank her quart of water, was forced to drink another and promptly vomited next to me) After this, you needed to clean your cup, which involved taking making mud and scrubbing the inside of your cup with it and rinsing it out until it was spotless. If everyone did not have their food eaten and cups cleaned by time limit, then spices would not be available for later meals (you needed to make 3 time limits in a row in order to have spices). All food that was prepared is required to be eaten, regardless if you feel full or the food doesn't taste good. Some people vomited because of this, including myself after using too much spice on my rice and lentils.
After this, usually came some sort of planned activity, gathering firewood, some sort of group therapy, or when we were moved to a site in the Orinoco (?) Forest, day-hiking (food and water only, no packs) up mountains and through forests and what not (probably the most fun activity there, incredibly beautiful) although we couldn't really do this at the high desert site and apparently, SW has moved back there where I spent my first 10 days or so. Gathering firewood was rather difficult in the high desert, since we were required by both SW and BLM policy to take only dead and down trees.
Lunch was usually very light, just some granola and another quart of water. Very easy to make time limit, if there was one (sometimes we would stop hiking and sit and snack then continue). This meal wasn't required, but was only taken away if the group was misbehaving (never taken away if we were hiking or going to hike). Afternoon activities were performed, sometimes our "homework", coursework that focused on goals, aspirations, management skills, etc. not your typical math, science, english etc. or more firewood collecting, therapy, etc. Dinner was usually at sunset or so (preceeded by hygeine again), since we could not really do much after dark anyways.
Dinner was rice and lentils except for Wednesday nights and Thursday nights. Wednesday night, we were given dehydrated refried beans and tortillas, made absolutely amazing (well, in comparison to the rice and lentils) burritos and Thursday nights was Macaroni night, which if you still had some cheese (most was used during burrito night) could make mac and cheese. Even without cheese, however, just regular macaroni was much better tasting than the rice and lentils. Since Rice and Lentils take at least 20 minutes to cook on the fire, time limit was either 40 minutes or 60 minutes depending on behavior (longer time limit for better behavior).
While food was cooking, we were required to write a page in our journals. We also had a moment of silence (controversial, i think) and this was also the time when most of the group therapy occurred, when counselors encouraged the campers to express greivances, whether it be with SW, the counselors themselves, other students, or just problems in general. Usually, this either allowed for compromise and conflict resolution, or sometimes flared tempers (some girl I remember believed in Creationism, which I was fine with, but then she started ripping on evolution, which I was not cool with). Food was then eaten, then cups cleaned, food bags put away and we were dismissed to bed. Although we did not have any concept of time of there other than what day it was, I could guess that we received at least 11-12 hours of sleep a night (7-8pm till 7-8am).
Perhaps the least fun activity, and the one with the most controversy, would be the hiking. This involved taking down camp, with a time limit, packing up, then hiking upwards of 8 miles. Taking down camp involved dismantling the shelter, usually 2 or so tarps tied up to trees with rope. Filling in the firepit, filling in the latrine, then rock and sticking it. Filling up the "reds" (small water jugs). Spilling excessive water from the reds would require you to lift a full "red" above your head 25 times yelling at the top of your lungs "I will not spill the red, this is for my safety (rep number)".
After the camp was taken down, next (still during time limit) was to pack our packs...usually involved rolling our gray mats (what we sit on around the campfire) and our tarps up, strapping to the back of the pack, then filling our packs with our sleeping bags, extra clothes and food bags. Packs usually weighed somewhere around 80 (supposively) pounds, depending on how full the food bag was. In addition, several were assigned to carry the full "reds" (probably between 10-20 lbs) in their hands, and someone with the empty whites and siphon hose. Hiking was what you made of it.
I had undiagnosed diabetes, I weighed 115 (when I finally got diagnosed and started insulin, I spiked at just under 150 lbs, 35 lbs weight gain in about 3 months) and was chronically fatigued. My first hike, we need to scale a small rock face, basically about 100 ft of steps. I fell over a few times and threw up. I was reassured by my peers that this was normal, and the counselors would make us continue until we reached our destination, regardless of fatigue level. The counselors gave us a break after 1/2 mile after we finished the rock face climb. After I got some water in me, I felt much much better and we hiked another 5 miles or so, me only falling over once more due to a misstep. I was also taught early on in my program that the biggest key to hiking is packing your pack correctly, putting your heavy stuff on top and making sure the waist straps are above your hips. After this tip, hiking was fairly easy, with the only real problem being overall fatigue from high blood sugar (all food is high in carbs to provide energy, which was not good for me).
After hiking, camp set-up, opposite of camp take-down with time-limit. If camp setup or takedown took longer than time limit, rules dictated that we were supposed to re-do it all over again (45 minutes worth of work) but many times, the counselors, if they saw genuine effort and hustle (or if problems out of camper control came to light) they were pretty lienent.
I'm positive I've forgotten many things, or certain details are incorrect, it has been 3 years since I attended. If you have any questions as to other stuff, feel free to post them here, or im usually on AIM/AOL at phawktard. Please, if you're going to contact me on AIM, don't abuse this. I'm more than willing to answer questions as long as they're not of rhetorical nature...leave your criticism here on the board.
Doug
Sources:
Typical Day at Sagewalk, a thread on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
lørdag den 30. juli 2011
Movie: Aaron Bacon
Unfortunately his death was neither the first, the only or the latest. This tragedy was just a number in a long, long statistic.
As late as 2010 the latest known death occured in Texas treatment program during a wilderness outing.
Can wilderness therapy be conducted in a safe way. The managers of the wilderness programs claim this but as teens continue to be listed among those who never returned such claims must be regarded as doubtful.
You have to judge. Please watch the movie and decide for you self.
Source:
lørdag den 4. juni 2011
A testimony from the Second Nature Wilderness program
This statement were given in relationship with the GAO hearding years back. All rights belong to the original contributor edantes169 who wrote it on the End Institutional Abuse Wiki:
“GROUP FOUR!”
My eyes jerked open. NO.
“GROUP FOUR!”
No. You have GOT to be kidding. Not now. Not after we’ve all just settled down…
“GROUP FOUR!”
These were my thoughts, the moment I heard P’s voice sound throughout the silent wood, as I felt tears spring to my eyes yet again. What, in the name of God, could it possibly be now?
We had done something else wrong. That was the obvious answer. But what vile, unforgivable sin against mankind had one of the group members committed to make us deserve this?
Fighting tears, lest that weakness earn some other punishment, I felt around in the pitch black tent for my discarded socks, already filthied from three or four straight days’ hiking in the wilderness of Georgia. I laced back up those detestable boots, covered with caked mud which I felt crack and scatter over my sleeping bag and other possessions which I tried so hard to keep clean. The darkness was impenetrable, and as I rose once more I could only follow the sound of Petra’s barking call for us to assemble at the beastly hour.
I could see the staff’s hat flashlights gathered in a circle as I stumbled through the deciduous vegetation in the darkness. As I joined the circle I observed the expressions of my fellow groupmates. E was crying. I could not blame her; I was about ready to cry myself. In addition to being imprisoned in this physically, mentally, and emotionally strenuous Wilderness program, I was being forced to take a powerful anti-psychotic, Abilify. This medication made me constantly exhausted, flat. It was like a perverted joke. I had been on the border of sleeping; we had been dismissed to our tents for only ten to fifteen minutes at the most. Why they had waited this long to call us, I can to this day only assume is to inflict misery and suffering on the weak and disadvantaged. Upon the face of every staff- P_, D_, M_, the lot- was fixed what we called the “Staff Expression” something which can be most simply described as a borderline smile. It was like a smile of sadistic pleasure suppressed only from acting and experience in hiding the pleasure gotten from watching the us suffer.
We were constantly exhausted: the routine of hiking, mile after mile, day after day- was too much for us. We were never permitted to know what time it was, or where we were going, or to even speak while we were hiking. Staff, meanwhile, could laugh, talk, and joke all they wanted. This was their power. If they didn’t like something that was said, they could put you on “Silence.” No talking. No one was even allowed to talk if a Staff wasn’t in earshot. We were not permitted to say certain words- words such as “very,” or “kind of.” If you said, “I am very tired,” or “I’m kind of hungry,“ you were punished, because you are tired, or you aren’t. You are hungry, or you aren’t. You were also not allowed to feel “secondary emotions.” These were emotions that resulted from other emotions. For example, anger is not something you can feel in a wilderness program. You can feel sad or frustrated, but not angry, because anger is a Secondary Emotion stemmed from sadness or frustration. This is what we were taught, and if we went against it, we were punished.
They called a Random Pack Search. We all stood in that circle of misery and waited, waited in turns for them to finish searching everything we had so that we could just go back to our sleeping bags and let the darkness envelop our bodies and minds. One staff stayed with the rest while the other three went with three different group members at a time to search their things. P went with me on my turn and I emptied everything I had onto the ground until she was satisfied and ordered me to put everything back.
They waited until the very last to bring out the evildoer. As D_ and K came back from her tent I could see tear streaks that cut through the grime on her face. Dave was holding a summer sausage in his hand. I felt a stab of weary frustration: we had already put up the bear bags. Every night, part of our routine was to rope together all the food bags and hoist the heavy load over a tree branch so that animals would not reach it.
“K,” D_ said, the Staff Expression dancing on his face. I remember watching him to see if he would break into a smile, and at one point he did. “Would you like to explain to the group what this is?”
We all looked at the perpetrator. K was burning with shame and anger. And why not? She was the one we had to blame for being called out of our sleeping bags after we had already pulled our rough socks and boots from our swollen and blistered feet, only to pull them back on again, like an April Fool’s joke from hell. And for what? As it turned out, she confessed to us, she had noticed the forgotten sausage only after the bear bags had been hoisted, and stuffed it into her own bag to save us the suffering of hiking the half mile back to the bear bags to replace the sausage with its fellow food items, which could, as we were taught, attract bears living in a sanctuary twenty miles away. Because bears will travel twenty miles in pitch darkness just to torment a treatment kid with a single summer sausage buried deep at the bottom of her bag, as the staff knew.
Since one person is guilty then the whole group is guilty. And since one person suffered, the whole group suffered. It is the way of Wilderness. If one person fails to complete a task, the whole group fails. We are all punished. For the transgressions of another. And because of K’s great sin- putting the whole group in danger of a bear attack stretching twenty miles, then covering it up like the delinquent conspirator she was- we would all suffer the same fate as she. I remember pitying K- she acted out of consideration for us all.
We began our trek to the bear bags. Since they were across a stream, we were all soaked again. The darkness covered everything not within five feet of one of the staffs hat , and so as we climbed, I remember tripping and stumbling over the uneven ground as we journeyed closer toward the bear bags, and hearing similar cries of pain from my groupmates. Staff, meanwhile, jumped and strode cheerfully onward, jauntily swinging their lights around as though to mock us in our blind desolation. One girl asked M_ twice to keep her light steady, and both times she was ignored.
We reached the bear bags, untied the holding rope and dropped them to replace the sausage. The loathsome task completed, we hoisted the heavy food bags again and journeyed once more back through the woods and back across the stream. Then, and only then did they dismiss us back to the tents that were not big enough and the sleeping bags full of spiders and millipedes and slugs and god knows what else. “Let this be a lesson to you all,” D_ had said, before letting us go. “Always be honest. Don’t ever try to hide anything, because you will get caught, and you will be punished. Good night.” The next day, K__ was put on “Separates” and we were thus forbidden to speak to or of her.
More than three years have passed since then. Why, then, do I recount this story? Because I must. I must give this snapshot, one of countless other sufferings that occurred and continue to occur there. It is my obligation to expose the corruption, the misery, the suffering found within Second Nature Blue Ridge Wilderness Program. As a veteran and survivor I denounce that place of suffering and desolation masquerading as a program of help, of healing, of positive energy. I forget nothing. I forgive nothing. I will remember, and I will see justice for that suffering.
Source
The End Institutional Abuse Wiki
“GROUP FOUR!”
My eyes jerked open. NO.
“GROUP FOUR!”
No. You have GOT to be kidding. Not now. Not after we’ve all just settled down…
“GROUP FOUR!”
These were my thoughts, the moment I heard P’s voice sound throughout the silent wood, as I felt tears spring to my eyes yet again. What, in the name of God, could it possibly be now?
We had done something else wrong. That was the obvious answer. But what vile, unforgivable sin against mankind had one of the group members committed to make us deserve this?
Fighting tears, lest that weakness earn some other punishment, I felt around in the pitch black tent for my discarded socks, already filthied from three or four straight days’ hiking in the wilderness of Georgia. I laced back up those detestable boots, covered with caked mud which I felt crack and scatter over my sleeping bag and other possessions which I tried so hard to keep clean. The darkness was impenetrable, and as I rose once more I could only follow the sound of Petra’s barking call for us to assemble at the beastly hour.
I could see the staff’s hat flashlights gathered in a circle as I stumbled through the deciduous vegetation in the darkness. As I joined the circle I observed the expressions of my fellow groupmates. E was crying. I could not blame her; I was about ready to cry myself. In addition to being imprisoned in this physically, mentally, and emotionally strenuous Wilderness program, I was being forced to take a powerful anti-psychotic, Abilify. This medication made me constantly exhausted, flat. It was like a perverted joke. I had been on the border of sleeping; we had been dismissed to our tents for only ten to fifteen minutes at the most. Why they had waited this long to call us, I can to this day only assume is to inflict misery and suffering on the weak and disadvantaged. Upon the face of every staff- P_, D_, M_, the lot- was fixed what we called the “Staff Expression” something which can be most simply described as a borderline smile. It was like a smile of sadistic pleasure suppressed only from acting and experience in hiding the pleasure gotten from watching the us suffer.
We were constantly exhausted: the routine of hiking, mile after mile, day after day- was too much for us. We were never permitted to know what time it was, or where we were going, or to even speak while we were hiking. Staff, meanwhile, could laugh, talk, and joke all they wanted. This was their power. If they didn’t like something that was said, they could put you on “Silence.” No talking. No one was even allowed to talk if a Staff wasn’t in earshot. We were not permitted to say certain words- words such as “very,” or “kind of.” If you said, “I am very tired,” or “I’m kind of hungry,“ you were punished, because you are tired, or you aren’t. You are hungry, or you aren’t. You were also not allowed to feel “secondary emotions.” These were emotions that resulted from other emotions. For example, anger is not something you can feel in a wilderness program. You can feel sad or frustrated, but not angry, because anger is a Secondary Emotion stemmed from sadness or frustration. This is what we were taught, and if we went against it, we were punished.
They called a Random Pack Search. We all stood in that circle of misery and waited, waited in turns for them to finish searching everything we had so that we could just go back to our sleeping bags and let the darkness envelop our bodies and minds. One staff stayed with the rest while the other three went with three different group members at a time to search their things. P went with me on my turn and I emptied everything I had onto the ground until she was satisfied and ordered me to put everything back.
They waited until the very last to bring out the evildoer. As D_ and K came back from her tent I could see tear streaks that cut through the grime on her face. Dave was holding a summer sausage in his hand. I felt a stab of weary frustration: we had already put up the bear bags. Every night, part of our routine was to rope together all the food bags and hoist the heavy load over a tree branch so that animals would not reach it.
“K,” D_ said, the Staff Expression dancing on his face. I remember watching him to see if he would break into a smile, and at one point he did. “Would you like to explain to the group what this is?”
We all looked at the perpetrator. K was burning with shame and anger. And why not? She was the one we had to blame for being called out of our sleeping bags after we had already pulled our rough socks and boots from our swollen and blistered feet, only to pull them back on again, like an April Fool’s joke from hell. And for what? As it turned out, she confessed to us, she had noticed the forgotten sausage only after the bear bags had been hoisted, and stuffed it into her own bag to save us the suffering of hiking the half mile back to the bear bags to replace the sausage with its fellow food items, which could, as we were taught, attract bears living in a sanctuary twenty miles away. Because bears will travel twenty miles in pitch darkness just to torment a treatment kid with a single summer sausage buried deep at the bottom of her bag, as the staff knew.
Since one person is guilty then the whole group is guilty. And since one person suffered, the whole group suffered. It is the way of Wilderness. If one person fails to complete a task, the whole group fails. We are all punished. For the transgressions of another. And because of K’s great sin- putting the whole group in danger of a bear attack stretching twenty miles, then covering it up like the delinquent conspirator she was- we would all suffer the same fate as she. I remember pitying K- she acted out of consideration for us all.
We began our trek to the bear bags. Since they were across a stream, we were all soaked again. The darkness covered everything not within five feet of one of the staffs hat , and so as we climbed, I remember tripping and stumbling over the uneven ground as we journeyed closer toward the bear bags, and hearing similar cries of pain from my groupmates. Staff, meanwhile, jumped and strode cheerfully onward, jauntily swinging their lights around as though to mock us in our blind desolation. One girl asked M_ twice to keep her light steady, and both times she was ignored.
We reached the bear bags, untied the holding rope and dropped them to replace the sausage. The loathsome task completed, we hoisted the heavy food bags again and journeyed once more back through the woods and back across the stream. Then, and only then did they dismiss us back to the tents that were not big enough and the sleeping bags full of spiders and millipedes and slugs and god knows what else. “Let this be a lesson to you all,” D_ had said, before letting us go. “Always be honest. Don’t ever try to hide anything, because you will get caught, and you will be punished. Good night.” The next day, K__ was put on “Separates” and we were thus forbidden to speak to or of her.
More than three years have passed since then. Why, then, do I recount this story? Because I must. I must give this snapshot, one of countless other sufferings that occurred and continue to occur there. It is my obligation to expose the corruption, the misery, the suffering found within Second Nature Blue Ridge Wilderness Program. As a veteran and survivor I denounce that place of suffering and desolation masquerading as a program of help, of healing, of positive energy. I forget nothing. I forgive nothing. I will remember, and I will see justice for that suffering.
Source
The End Institutional Abuse Wiki
mandag den 16. maj 2011
Student or Detainee
On the talk-page on Wikipedia people were discussing whether the teenagers who are forced to attend the soon closed Aspen Achievement Academy were students or detainees. Here is a story from one of the now adults who were forced to walk the wilderness.
Yes, I felt like a detainee
It is not my intent to become involved in an argument over the proper use and definition of the word "detainee". However, this debate has been recently brought to my attention, and I feel the need to contribute. As an Aspen Achievement Academy "alumni" or survivor, the question of whether or not I felt like a "detainee" has been posed to me. The answer to that question is "yes".
This is my story:
I ask that any parent thinking about enrolling their child in The Aspen Achievement Academy, to please reconsider. As a former student of the program myself, this request stems from my first hand experiences in the program. Please be for warned that the organization’s advertisements are misleading. I did not see any of the literature provided to my parents until after my return from Utah. After the initial review of a videotape, and several pamphlets provided by the program, I was disgusted. Aspen did not accurately portray itself. My parents were shocked when I came home and they saw the evidence in my backpack, and heard my stories. They had no idea what they had really signed me up for. According to advertisements for the Aspen Achievement Academy, the program resembled a rugged, yet therapeutic summer camp experience. In reality, this could not have been farther than the truth.
It has been nearly twelve years since I spent those two months in the Utah wilderness, and my experience there still haunts me to this day. The extensive neglect that my fellow students and I experienced was unacceptable. I’ll never forget May 11th, 1994. It’s a date that will trouble me for the rest of my life. That morning two strangers awakened me at 5 am. They ordered me to get up and get dressed "because I was going to Utah for a long time". I told them "I couldn’t go to Utah; I had to go to school that day!" However, as it turned out I had no choice. After a lengthy physical struggle with these people, I found myself forced onto a second rate airplane (who’s ever heard of “Morris” airlines anyway?) bound for Salt Lake City. That day remains in my memory as one of the most emotionally devastating and difficult things I have ever been through. My family had betrayed me; they had forever destroyed my full trust in them.
I remember before the program even started, they took us to a therapist, or maybe he was a psychiatrist (they refused to tell me anything), in Provo Utah. It was his job to be sure we were evaluated before being sent out into the desert. One of the worst moments in my life was when this man looked me in the eye and told me that he did NOT believe that I was a very good candidate for the program, but that he was going to recommend that I attend anyway. He said I seemed like a relatively normal and stable teenager. My heart sank; I could actually feel it. He validated this by saying that he thought the program would be good for anyone, even himself.
I felt so helpless. He also told me that my parents had paid $23,000 for my time in the desert. I don’t know where that money went; because it certainly did not go to proper care and feeding of my fellow students and I. Sometimes I suspect that that psychiatrist in Provo saw a fair amount of it for his “recommendation”. All that money my parents spent, for me to just walk for 52 days. Against my will I walked in a line, over cow patties and large rocks, through a desert wasteland, day after day. I remember walking along sheer cliffs with no safety ropes or harnesses, eating from dirty and rancid dishes, and having to use our bare hands to dig up and relocate human "waste" on several occasions. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, all of that didn’t start until a few days later.
The initial “evaluation” period in Utah lasted a couple more days. During that time I stayed with a family in Provo, Utah. The wife (sometimes literally) dragged me around town with her. I joined her while she did things like get her hair done and pick up her kids from school. The family talked to me about God and accepting the Mormon religion into their hearts. It was a confusing couple of days. No one would answer any of my questions. I wish now that I would have screamed and tried harder to run away while we were out in public. We went grocery shopping, and I stayed by her side. During the night I was forced to stay in the living room of her house, guarded by inferred sensitive alarms "so that I could not escape". At the time I thought maybe I was sent to Utah to stay with her. Obviously I had no idea what I was in for. She took me to be drug tested. I have no doubt that the results of this test came up clean. I also spent many hours filling out a lengthy “true or false” personality evaluation. I remember specifically questions such as “I am a secret messenger of God. True or False” and “I like to physically harm small animals. True or False.” It was insulting and humiliating to answer those questions, I wasn’t mentally ill. Looking back, I doubt anyone ever even looked at my answers anyway. I had no idea where I was, or why I was with this strange family.
I slept on their couch for two nights. Then I was transported in a rickety van several hundred miles south to (what I now know was) a remote area of Southern Utah, near the Henry Mountains. That’s when the horror really started.
During the initial days (called “Impact phase”) my fellow group members and I were forced to hike for hours on end with absolutely no food. Our bodies weren’t used to such grueling activity or carrying the primitive backpacks. Several kids screamed, cried and fought. Some collapsed and refused to go on. The counselors were all in good shape. They carried comfortable backpacks, and were able to eat. They stood by, laughing and talking amongst themselves, waiting for us to pick up the fallen victim, even drag them if necessary. I was too exhausted to even talk, let alone expend any energy on tears. They told us nothing; we were at their mercy. I really and truly thought we were going to die. My Mom wrote me a letter a week later, in which she said she had heard that the first phase was “pretty hard”. I resent that understatement to this day. Finally after a few days of “impact phase” we were given a little food (two over ripe bananas to be exact).
Then, later the next day we got a little more, but it was never much. We were starving in Utah; I lost over 20 pounds, and I wasn’t overweight to begin with. We simply were not provided with adequate amounts of food. Often times we were given no food at all, or forced to hike, exhausted for many miles before any food was provided. On a good day, in the mornings we were able to eat half a cup of cold uncooked oatmeal, and then at night if we were lucky we could eat the same amount of cooked potatoes and rice. For a treat we occasionally ate salted pork fat or butter. If we could not start a fire this food was consumed raw. I still eat too fast, and too much as a result of this. To this day I still struggle with my weight and feel like I need to eat as much as possible. Before Utah, it wasn’t ever an issue for me.
Furthermore, the healthcare was unacceptable. There were three specific instances that come to mind concerning this subject. The first concerns my knees. I was born with knee problems (a tendency for my kneecaps to dislocate). During my time with Aspen my knees dislocated twice. This was a preexisting condition, and in no way created by Aspen. However, after each incident I was allowed to rest for only a few minutes and then was forced to hike on the injury. I have still had persistent problems to this day. In fact, a couple of months ago I finally opted for surgery. The surgeon found extensive scar tissue and damage. I wonder how much of it came from those hikes. For the last month in Utah, I also walked on what felt (and looked) to be a broken toe. We were pushing a very heavy handcart that ran over my foot. I got the feeling that they didn’t really believe us when we were hurt. I was never examined, so I can’t be sure if it was broken, but the pain was excruciating for many weeks.
At one point I contracted the stomach flu during the program. One of the counselors came in sick with it once, and I caught it. She got to go home immediately. Meanwhile, I spent three days hiking and vomiting. Eventually I had finally fainted and collapsed several times from the exhaustion, and medical help was brought in. They waited until I was lying helpless in the dirt, physically unable to continue. This was not an acceptable response.
During my two months there, I was allowed to bathe only twice, both times in the same mud and cow filled streams that we drank from. I tried to do the best I could to stay clean, and splash my face with water daily, but it was difficult. Several of the girls got bladder infections. The second bath I took didn’t come until the very end of the program, right before our parents came. We had to stand in the mucky bottom of an icy stream and wash as best we could. Before our parents saw us, we had to wash and change into fresh clothes. If we didn’t then we couldn’t eat. We argued that we wanted them to see us as we really were, but there was never any reasoning with the staff. My Mom didn’t see the tattered truth of what I really wore until we were back home. I remember her crying when she did.
The web site for aspen Achievement Academy contains photos of clean, smiling teenagers. Their clothes are not in rags. There is even a picture of pensive teenagers sitting around a campfire, with a box of hot chocolate in front of them! There is no way we were ever given anything like hot chocolate! These photos in no way resemble the reality. Often times we drank from streams with high sulfur content that made us very sick. More often than not the water in my jug was brown. Sometimes there was even brine shrimp swimming around in it. I’ll never forget the feeling of them squirming on my tongue as I tried to swallow the gritty water, always to the sound of a counselor saying “come on suck it down!” We had to drink it; we had no choice.
As a "student" I had no rights, I was not even treated like a human. I was a prisoner. In fact there were several other teens there with me who had been sent there by the court system as an alternative to Juvenile Hall. Sometimes I couldn’t even pee behind a bush without the rest of the group having to stand guard. People tried to run away, but were hunted down and brought back. At night they took our shoes so that we couldn’t escape into the wilderness, and believe me we would have tried.
As a member of Aspen’s Group 211, I saw a thirteen year old girl turn purple and then blue as the staff sat by waiting for her to get herself up off the ground and keep walking. We walked in circles, up and down mountains, in the heat, in the cold and in the dark. We were always lost. For most of the time we carried a pack made of a blue tarp with seat belt material for straps. It was painful and awkward. Towards the end they finally gave us a real backpack, and more food. That was what our parents saw when the came to meet us. At home people watched OJ Simpson’s white bronco racing down a Los Angeles freeway.
Meanwhile, we walked, completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world. I got the feeling that a war could have broken out, and they wouldn’t have told us anything. We knew absolutely nothing of the outside world for those two months. My Mom was surprised that I got home and had no knowledge of the OJ incident.
We could not even know where we were, or how long we would be there; let alone what was going on at home. If we asked any questions about such things we were punished by having to carry a large stone in our pocket, one for each question. This wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't hiking. But in that circumstance every added ounce of weight can be excruciating. I knew that I was somewhere in Utah, but that was all. There were “no future questions” allowed. We couldn’t even ask when we would get to stop and rest, or be allowed a drink of water, because that concerned the future.
The program relies largely on scare tactics and threats to coerce students into behaving. There was the constant threat that if we didn’t do what was expected, we would be forced to stay longer, or even repeat the entire 52 days, but by ourselves without a group. They told us that our parents had no choice in whether or not we stayed in the program longer. Looking back I can see how ridiculous these claims were, but at the time they seemed to be a real threat. No one really stayed longer; we all went home that day in July.
We did go home as compliant teenagers, but mostly because we were so terrified of returning. My hiking boots were brand new at the start of the program. However, by the end, the tread on the bottoms had worn down completely. They were basically flat bottom boots. That’s how much hiking we did. In fact, that’s pretty much all we did. We hiked and we hiked, always carrying that heavy backpack.
On my high school transcripts there are credits for classes from “Wayne County High School”. I never went to such a school. They are really from my time at Aspen. These “classes” consisted of the completion a series of “curriculum” packets. They were really just confusing worksheets stapled together. The worksheets had obviously been typed out by one of the Aspen staff members. The physical education credits however, I had earned tenfold! There was a wonderful older man by the name of “LaVoy” who I found out later, was supposed to be the teacher. To the best of my knowledge, he had been a local sheep farmer for his whole life, and had never taught in any classroom. He would come and visit rarely, and when he did it was never for an actual academic lesson that I can remember. I do remember that never the less, that his visits were one of the few pleasant things about the whole experience. Actually, the academic instruction was a responsibility delegated to one of the older students and me. We, of course did not understand anything included in the curriculum anymore than the other kids did, yet were the ones expected to “teach”. At the time I had no idea what, or how to teach. They told us it was a reward, because we were always the first ones packed up and crushing the coals from the fire every morning. It seemed like a strange reward to me.
Aspen markets itself as a “therapeutic” environment. I find that strange too. There was very little actual “therapy” involved. Once a week, for half and hour or less a “therapist” would come speak with us. This was an occasion we looked forward to because for one, the therapist would bring each of us an apple to eat, and for two, it got us out of having to hike for a couple of hours. Other than that they were of no consequence. These therapy sessions were to brief and far between to be of any help. Mostly in Aspen we just walked and starved. The only other mention of something resembling therapy came each morning when one of the 19 to 21 year old staff members would ask us to use a single word to describe how we felt for that day. We’d go around the circle saying things like “sad”, “mad” or “depressed”. The staff would nod. Then we’d all put on our packs and spend the next eleven hours walking. The “therapy” was a joke.
Apparently the “therapist” had periodic phone conversations with my parents. I don’t know what they could have talked about; the therapist knew little of me, or my daily experiences in the program.
My main connection to my parents was the letters that we wrote back and forth. The staff had to sensor them all. I never sent or received a sealed envelope. I had to be careful about what I wrote. I tried to tell my parents what was happening, but it was hard. When I got home I found out that they warned our parents that we would exaggerate and not to believe our first hand descriptions of the program. I even heard that my parents had to actually sign over custody of me to the program, and couldn’t have taken me out if they wanted to. I don’t know if that was true, or just another scare tactic used by the Aspen staff, but that’s what they told us.
To this day my parents and I rarely (if ever) talk about Utah. About once every few years I casually bring up the subject. They never do. I still have a hard time finding the ability to forgive them in my heart. I hated them like never before during the entire program. I was not happy when they arrived in Utah for the last 2 days of the program, nor did our relationship improve once we got home. It got worse for a while, and to this day I still hold a grudge because of the experience.
I know that they had been misinformed, but it is still difficult to forgive them. Before I went to Utah, I was a relatively good kid. I was seventeen years old. Sure, I wasn’t perfect. I had tried smoking cigarettes, tried smoking pot (and hated it) and had sex with two people. When compared to my peers I was fairly normal. Aspen didn’t care; they’ll take anyone whose parents will pay. After I came back from the program I had lost all sense of self worth and self-respect. I decided I didn’t care; it no longer mattered if I continued to resist the bad things in life, because I had already been so severely punished. Within a month of my return I had tried hard-core drugs (such as hallucinogens and Crystal Meth), I spent time in crack houses, with homeless drug addicts, and became a heavy smoker. I also had a lot of casual unprotected sex with different partners, had essentially decided to drop out of high school, and even had an affair with a much older man.
Before Aspen I wouldn’t have done any of this. But because of the fact that I’d been punished already whether I was "good" or not, I didn’t care anymore. I’d been through a much more traumatic experience in Utah, drugs and street people couldn’t even compare. Also, after hearing about some of the things the other kids in Aspen had done in their lives I felt like a prude. Actually in comparison to some of them, I still wasn’t very out of control. I learned not to trust my parents under any circumstances. While I had once shared the details of my life with them, I had learned what they were capable of. I knew I had to be careful about letting them in ever again. After Utah, I lied and pretended. I felt like I had to; because I was so afraid that they would send me back if I wasn’t absolutely perfect.
many years after the experience I was tormented by nightmares about Utah and my time there. I’ve been back to the state, and even out into the desert where the program was held, all in an effort to make peace with the memories. Slowly, over time I did recover. I only dream about it ever few months now, and I’m rarely kept up at night by the memories anymore. I think my parents are still paying off the loan they took out to pay for Aspen. I wish they had used the money to help me in school, or something like that instead.
Eventually I recovered, and got on a good track. But I feel that (had I not been sent to Aspen) I would have become a healthy productive adult much sooner. In recent years I have heard that the program has been altered slightly. Apparently students now progress through the program at their own rate. It is no longer an issue to wait for everyone in the group to complete a task. Maybe this helps to control the animosity and resentment that existed in my group. We hated each other much of the time. Still, no matter how many changes are made in the program, or how many favorable accounts they post on their web site, I would NEVER recommend this program to anyone.
Now despite the “Aspen Experience”, twelve years later I have been able to successfully graduate from college, find a healthy love relationship, a job as a teacher, and even quit smoking. I have become the person my parents had hoped I would be. But, I still have nightmares of Utah.
I remember Aspen T-shirts that read, “You’ll go to Hell and Back”. They were half right; I went to hell all right, but it took nearly a decade for me to make it back.
References:
Datasheet on the program on Fornits Wiki
The original statement - slightly edited to make it easier to read
Yes, I felt like a detainee
It is not my intent to become involved in an argument over the proper use and definition of the word "detainee". However, this debate has been recently brought to my attention, and I feel the need to contribute. As an Aspen Achievement Academy "alumni" or survivor, the question of whether or not I felt like a "detainee" has been posed to me. The answer to that question is "yes".
This is my story:
I ask that any parent thinking about enrolling their child in The Aspen Achievement Academy, to please reconsider. As a former student of the program myself, this request stems from my first hand experiences in the program. Please be for warned that the organization’s advertisements are misleading. I did not see any of the literature provided to my parents until after my return from Utah. After the initial review of a videotape, and several pamphlets provided by the program, I was disgusted. Aspen did not accurately portray itself. My parents were shocked when I came home and they saw the evidence in my backpack, and heard my stories. They had no idea what they had really signed me up for. According to advertisements for the Aspen Achievement Academy, the program resembled a rugged, yet therapeutic summer camp experience. In reality, this could not have been farther than the truth.
It has been nearly twelve years since I spent those two months in the Utah wilderness, and my experience there still haunts me to this day. The extensive neglect that my fellow students and I experienced was unacceptable. I’ll never forget May 11th, 1994. It’s a date that will trouble me for the rest of my life. That morning two strangers awakened me at 5 am. They ordered me to get up and get dressed "because I was going to Utah for a long time". I told them "I couldn’t go to Utah; I had to go to school that day!" However, as it turned out I had no choice. After a lengthy physical struggle with these people, I found myself forced onto a second rate airplane (who’s ever heard of “Morris” airlines anyway?) bound for Salt Lake City. That day remains in my memory as one of the most emotionally devastating and difficult things I have ever been through. My family had betrayed me; they had forever destroyed my full trust in them.
I remember before the program even started, they took us to a therapist, or maybe he was a psychiatrist (they refused to tell me anything), in Provo Utah. It was his job to be sure we were evaluated before being sent out into the desert. One of the worst moments in my life was when this man looked me in the eye and told me that he did NOT believe that I was a very good candidate for the program, but that he was going to recommend that I attend anyway. He said I seemed like a relatively normal and stable teenager. My heart sank; I could actually feel it. He validated this by saying that he thought the program would be good for anyone, even himself.
I felt so helpless. He also told me that my parents had paid $23,000 for my time in the desert. I don’t know where that money went; because it certainly did not go to proper care and feeding of my fellow students and I. Sometimes I suspect that that psychiatrist in Provo saw a fair amount of it for his “recommendation”. All that money my parents spent, for me to just walk for 52 days. Against my will I walked in a line, over cow patties and large rocks, through a desert wasteland, day after day. I remember walking along sheer cliffs with no safety ropes or harnesses, eating from dirty and rancid dishes, and having to use our bare hands to dig up and relocate human "waste" on several occasions. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, all of that didn’t start until a few days later.
The initial “evaluation” period in Utah lasted a couple more days. During that time I stayed with a family in Provo, Utah. The wife (sometimes literally) dragged me around town with her. I joined her while she did things like get her hair done and pick up her kids from school. The family talked to me about God and accepting the Mormon religion into their hearts. It was a confusing couple of days. No one would answer any of my questions. I wish now that I would have screamed and tried harder to run away while we were out in public. We went grocery shopping, and I stayed by her side. During the night I was forced to stay in the living room of her house, guarded by inferred sensitive alarms "so that I could not escape". At the time I thought maybe I was sent to Utah to stay with her. Obviously I had no idea what I was in for. She took me to be drug tested. I have no doubt that the results of this test came up clean. I also spent many hours filling out a lengthy “true or false” personality evaluation. I remember specifically questions such as “I am a secret messenger of God. True or False” and “I like to physically harm small animals. True or False.” It was insulting and humiliating to answer those questions, I wasn’t mentally ill. Looking back, I doubt anyone ever even looked at my answers anyway. I had no idea where I was, or why I was with this strange family.
I slept on their couch for two nights. Then I was transported in a rickety van several hundred miles south to (what I now know was) a remote area of Southern Utah, near the Henry Mountains. That’s when the horror really started.
During the initial days (called “Impact phase”) my fellow group members and I were forced to hike for hours on end with absolutely no food. Our bodies weren’t used to such grueling activity or carrying the primitive backpacks. Several kids screamed, cried and fought. Some collapsed and refused to go on. The counselors were all in good shape. They carried comfortable backpacks, and were able to eat. They stood by, laughing and talking amongst themselves, waiting for us to pick up the fallen victim, even drag them if necessary. I was too exhausted to even talk, let alone expend any energy on tears. They told us nothing; we were at their mercy. I really and truly thought we were going to die. My Mom wrote me a letter a week later, in which she said she had heard that the first phase was “pretty hard”. I resent that understatement to this day. Finally after a few days of “impact phase” we were given a little food (two over ripe bananas to be exact).
Then, later the next day we got a little more, but it was never much. We were starving in Utah; I lost over 20 pounds, and I wasn’t overweight to begin with. We simply were not provided with adequate amounts of food. Often times we were given no food at all, or forced to hike, exhausted for many miles before any food was provided. On a good day, in the mornings we were able to eat half a cup of cold uncooked oatmeal, and then at night if we were lucky we could eat the same amount of cooked potatoes and rice. For a treat we occasionally ate salted pork fat or butter. If we could not start a fire this food was consumed raw. I still eat too fast, and too much as a result of this. To this day I still struggle with my weight and feel like I need to eat as much as possible. Before Utah, it wasn’t ever an issue for me.
Furthermore, the healthcare was unacceptable. There were three specific instances that come to mind concerning this subject. The first concerns my knees. I was born with knee problems (a tendency for my kneecaps to dislocate). During my time with Aspen my knees dislocated twice. This was a preexisting condition, and in no way created by Aspen. However, after each incident I was allowed to rest for only a few minutes and then was forced to hike on the injury. I have still had persistent problems to this day. In fact, a couple of months ago I finally opted for surgery. The surgeon found extensive scar tissue and damage. I wonder how much of it came from those hikes. For the last month in Utah, I also walked on what felt (and looked) to be a broken toe. We were pushing a very heavy handcart that ran over my foot. I got the feeling that they didn’t really believe us when we were hurt. I was never examined, so I can’t be sure if it was broken, but the pain was excruciating for many weeks.
At one point I contracted the stomach flu during the program. One of the counselors came in sick with it once, and I caught it. She got to go home immediately. Meanwhile, I spent three days hiking and vomiting. Eventually I had finally fainted and collapsed several times from the exhaustion, and medical help was brought in. They waited until I was lying helpless in the dirt, physically unable to continue. This was not an acceptable response.
During my two months there, I was allowed to bathe only twice, both times in the same mud and cow filled streams that we drank from. I tried to do the best I could to stay clean, and splash my face with water daily, but it was difficult. Several of the girls got bladder infections. The second bath I took didn’t come until the very end of the program, right before our parents came. We had to stand in the mucky bottom of an icy stream and wash as best we could. Before our parents saw us, we had to wash and change into fresh clothes. If we didn’t then we couldn’t eat. We argued that we wanted them to see us as we really were, but there was never any reasoning with the staff. My Mom didn’t see the tattered truth of what I really wore until we were back home. I remember her crying when she did.
The web site for aspen Achievement Academy contains photos of clean, smiling teenagers. Their clothes are not in rags. There is even a picture of pensive teenagers sitting around a campfire, with a box of hot chocolate in front of them! There is no way we were ever given anything like hot chocolate! These photos in no way resemble the reality. Often times we drank from streams with high sulfur content that made us very sick. More often than not the water in my jug was brown. Sometimes there was even brine shrimp swimming around in it. I’ll never forget the feeling of them squirming on my tongue as I tried to swallow the gritty water, always to the sound of a counselor saying “come on suck it down!” We had to drink it; we had no choice.
As a "student" I had no rights, I was not even treated like a human. I was a prisoner. In fact there were several other teens there with me who had been sent there by the court system as an alternative to Juvenile Hall. Sometimes I couldn’t even pee behind a bush without the rest of the group having to stand guard. People tried to run away, but were hunted down and brought back. At night they took our shoes so that we couldn’t escape into the wilderness, and believe me we would have tried.
As a member of Aspen’s Group 211, I saw a thirteen year old girl turn purple and then blue as the staff sat by waiting for her to get herself up off the ground and keep walking. We walked in circles, up and down mountains, in the heat, in the cold and in the dark. We were always lost. For most of the time we carried a pack made of a blue tarp with seat belt material for straps. It was painful and awkward. Towards the end they finally gave us a real backpack, and more food. That was what our parents saw when the came to meet us. At home people watched OJ Simpson’s white bronco racing down a Los Angeles freeway.
Meanwhile, we walked, completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world. I got the feeling that a war could have broken out, and they wouldn’t have told us anything. We knew absolutely nothing of the outside world for those two months. My Mom was surprised that I got home and had no knowledge of the OJ incident.
We could not even know where we were, or how long we would be there; let alone what was going on at home. If we asked any questions about such things we were punished by having to carry a large stone in our pocket, one for each question. This wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't hiking. But in that circumstance every added ounce of weight can be excruciating. I knew that I was somewhere in Utah, but that was all. There were “no future questions” allowed. We couldn’t even ask when we would get to stop and rest, or be allowed a drink of water, because that concerned the future.
The program relies largely on scare tactics and threats to coerce students into behaving. There was the constant threat that if we didn’t do what was expected, we would be forced to stay longer, or even repeat the entire 52 days, but by ourselves without a group. They told us that our parents had no choice in whether or not we stayed in the program longer. Looking back I can see how ridiculous these claims were, but at the time they seemed to be a real threat. No one really stayed longer; we all went home that day in July.
We did go home as compliant teenagers, but mostly because we were so terrified of returning. My hiking boots were brand new at the start of the program. However, by the end, the tread on the bottoms had worn down completely. They were basically flat bottom boots. That’s how much hiking we did. In fact, that’s pretty much all we did. We hiked and we hiked, always carrying that heavy backpack.
On my high school transcripts there are credits for classes from “Wayne County High School”. I never went to such a school. They are really from my time at Aspen. These “classes” consisted of the completion a series of “curriculum” packets. They were really just confusing worksheets stapled together. The worksheets had obviously been typed out by one of the Aspen staff members. The physical education credits however, I had earned tenfold! There was a wonderful older man by the name of “LaVoy” who I found out later, was supposed to be the teacher. To the best of my knowledge, he had been a local sheep farmer for his whole life, and had never taught in any classroom. He would come and visit rarely, and when he did it was never for an actual academic lesson that I can remember. I do remember that never the less, that his visits were one of the few pleasant things about the whole experience. Actually, the academic instruction was a responsibility delegated to one of the older students and me. We, of course did not understand anything included in the curriculum anymore than the other kids did, yet were the ones expected to “teach”. At the time I had no idea what, or how to teach. They told us it was a reward, because we were always the first ones packed up and crushing the coals from the fire every morning. It seemed like a strange reward to me.
Aspen markets itself as a “therapeutic” environment. I find that strange too. There was very little actual “therapy” involved. Once a week, for half and hour or less a “therapist” would come speak with us. This was an occasion we looked forward to because for one, the therapist would bring each of us an apple to eat, and for two, it got us out of having to hike for a couple of hours. Other than that they were of no consequence. These therapy sessions were to brief and far between to be of any help. Mostly in Aspen we just walked and starved. The only other mention of something resembling therapy came each morning when one of the 19 to 21 year old staff members would ask us to use a single word to describe how we felt for that day. We’d go around the circle saying things like “sad”, “mad” or “depressed”. The staff would nod. Then we’d all put on our packs and spend the next eleven hours walking. The “therapy” was a joke.
Apparently the “therapist” had periodic phone conversations with my parents. I don’t know what they could have talked about; the therapist knew little of me, or my daily experiences in the program.
My main connection to my parents was the letters that we wrote back and forth. The staff had to sensor them all. I never sent or received a sealed envelope. I had to be careful about what I wrote. I tried to tell my parents what was happening, but it was hard. When I got home I found out that they warned our parents that we would exaggerate and not to believe our first hand descriptions of the program. I even heard that my parents had to actually sign over custody of me to the program, and couldn’t have taken me out if they wanted to. I don’t know if that was true, or just another scare tactic used by the Aspen staff, but that’s what they told us.
To this day my parents and I rarely (if ever) talk about Utah. About once every few years I casually bring up the subject. They never do. I still have a hard time finding the ability to forgive them in my heart. I hated them like never before during the entire program. I was not happy when they arrived in Utah for the last 2 days of the program, nor did our relationship improve once we got home. It got worse for a while, and to this day I still hold a grudge because of the experience.
I know that they had been misinformed, but it is still difficult to forgive them. Before I went to Utah, I was a relatively good kid. I was seventeen years old. Sure, I wasn’t perfect. I had tried smoking cigarettes, tried smoking pot (and hated it) and had sex with two people. When compared to my peers I was fairly normal. Aspen didn’t care; they’ll take anyone whose parents will pay. After I came back from the program I had lost all sense of self worth and self-respect. I decided I didn’t care; it no longer mattered if I continued to resist the bad things in life, because I had already been so severely punished. Within a month of my return I had tried hard-core drugs (such as hallucinogens and Crystal Meth), I spent time in crack houses, with homeless drug addicts, and became a heavy smoker. I also had a lot of casual unprotected sex with different partners, had essentially decided to drop out of high school, and even had an affair with a much older man.
Before Aspen I wouldn’t have done any of this. But because of the fact that I’d been punished already whether I was "good" or not, I didn’t care anymore. I’d been through a much more traumatic experience in Utah, drugs and street people couldn’t even compare. Also, after hearing about some of the things the other kids in Aspen had done in their lives I felt like a prude. Actually in comparison to some of them, I still wasn’t very out of control. I learned not to trust my parents under any circumstances. While I had once shared the details of my life with them, I had learned what they were capable of. I knew I had to be careful about letting them in ever again. After Utah, I lied and pretended. I felt like I had to; because I was so afraid that they would send me back if I wasn’t absolutely perfect.
many years after the experience I was tormented by nightmares about Utah and my time there. I’ve been back to the state, and even out into the desert where the program was held, all in an effort to make peace with the memories. Slowly, over time I did recover. I only dream about it ever few months now, and I’m rarely kept up at night by the memories anymore. I think my parents are still paying off the loan they took out to pay for Aspen. I wish they had used the money to help me in school, or something like that instead.
Eventually I recovered, and got on a good track. But I feel that (had I not been sent to Aspen) I would have become a healthy productive adult much sooner. In recent years I have heard that the program has been altered slightly. Apparently students now progress through the program at their own rate. It is no longer an issue to wait for everyone in the group to complete a task. Maybe this helps to control the animosity and resentment that existed in my group. We hated each other much of the time. Still, no matter how many changes are made in the program, or how many favorable accounts they post on their web site, I would NEVER recommend this program to anyone.
Now despite the “Aspen Experience”, twelve years later I have been able to successfully graduate from college, find a healthy love relationship, a job as a teacher, and even quit smoking. I have become the person my parents had hoped I would be. But, I still have nightmares of Utah.
I remember Aspen T-shirts that read, “You’ll go to Hell and Back”. They were half right; I went to hell all right, but it took nearly a decade for me to make it back.
References:
Datasheet on the program on Fornits Wiki
The original statement - slightly edited to make it easier to read
søndag den 17. april 2011
With the news of several programs closing or merging
Aspen Education Group did announce that Aspen Achievement Academy will be merged into another wilderness program. So will an adult program also managed by the same owner. It will merge into SUWS in Idaho.
The blog Today-a-child-died wrote a story about how harsh the now closed Texas Wilderness program was. Fact is that several wilderness programs managed by Aspen Education Group have lost clients during the expeditions.
As mentioned one of the deaths was in the Texas wilderness program. Here is a link to the blog-entry: Matthew Meyers - 2004
The blog Today-a-child-died wrote a story about how harsh the now closed Texas Wilderness program was. Fact is that several wilderness programs managed by Aspen Education Group have lost clients during the expeditions.
As mentioned one of the deaths was in the Texas wilderness program. Here is a link to the blog-entry: Matthew Meyers - 2004
søndag den 27. marts 2011
Making profit of our nature
Most people want to preserve the nature and the politicians have started to listen. However when you are in a business making profit of the nature, this is of course hard to understand. Here is what one of the founders of a wilderness program wrote in response to the improved protection of the nature.
WILDERNESS THERAPY CHALLENGED
by Larry J. Wells (Press-release on strugglingteens.com - a industry marketing firm)
(Larry Wells is one of the pioneers in wilderness therapy. He founded Wilderness Quest in Utah (originally called Wilderness Conquest) in 1988. In 1971 Larry began doing trips for the State of Idaho and Wilderness Quest later became one of the early private-pay, parent-choice wilderness therapy programs.)
WILDERNESS THERAPY CHALLENGED
by Larry J. Wells (Press-release on strugglingteens.com - a industry marketing firm)
Having read Order No. 3310 issued by Secretary Salazor, Federal Department of the Interior, to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), I believe all outdoor based treatment programs using public lands should be aware of its potential impact. It is an order to find and recognize lands with "Wilderness Characteristics" (it does not say what those characteristics are) OUTSIDE of the Wilderness Study Areas and OUTSIDE of the units of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
It states they shall be described as "Lands with Wilderness Characteristics", and if the BLM concludes that protection of the areas designated with wilderness characteristics is appropriate, the BLM shall designate these lands as "Wild Lands" in their land use planning. They will be managed as wilderness designation areas. This directs the BLM to manage areas as Wilderness without congressional approval, thus without voter input.
When an area is managed as "Wilderness", it means several things. First, it means absolutely no mechanized use. Cars, trucks, ATV's, fixed wing airplane for cargo drop and even bicycles would be prohibited, making it exceedingly difficult to support a group in the field and/or effectively deal with emergencies.
Recently, one outdoor based treatment program was denied permission to move a wheeled portable radio repeater by hand to the needed location because wheels are not allowed off the road because the wheels are mechanical and damaging to the environment.
When I operated in Idaho, to get permission to bring a helicopter into a designated wilderness area was time consuming and complicated. To bring one into national forest or BLM land in that case was not life or death, but I wanted to be on the safe side. However, under the proposed regulations, A helicopter may not be approved in any situation, depending on the person you are dealing with.
Second, it is up to the bureaucrat in charge of the land to decide what constitutes "Wilderness Characteristics" and what management decisions are required to preserve them. The BLM will have unlimited latitude in their management decisions. They may not put many restrictions on the land use, or they may completely close an area to any use, or anything in between.
The pattern that removed grazing is instructive. Although the original explanation included acceptance of many current routine activities, the eventual decision was no motorized repair of springs, trails, stock ponds, fences or corrals and this included use of chain saws. To operate in these areas, everybody had to pack feed for their horses, establish no permanent corral or line camp structures, and at one point they had to defend the horse being able to leave manure on the trail.
Currently one program is being told they cannot gather materials for primitive skills. They can use only dead wood on the ground, but no local rocks are allowed to be used and a decision is being made on yucca leaf for cordage.
The order further states the BLM should develop recommendations, "with public involvement," regarding possible Congressional designation of lands into the National Wilderness Preservation System. Based on my experience presenting at the hearings in San Juan County, Utah last fall on behalf of Wilderness Quest (I am no longer a part of Wilderness Quest, but agreed to present at the hearings), the statement "with public involvement" is referring to organized environmental groups, not local citizens.
To put this into context, the BLM already has many different land area designations, including WSA, WSR, ACEC, SRMA, and others. With many outdoor based treatment programs having permits with the Forest Service, Park Service and the BLM, all the rules are becoming harder to conform to and these new rules are becoming a detriment to providing the opportunities needed for an effective treatment program.
The BLM has never repaired roads in San Juan County, which is a county function, so when I owned Wilderness Quest we did a lot of road repair as service projects to keep the roads usable. Now the BLM states if road repair is conducted there can be no disturbance outside of the road track area. This makes road repair impossible because rocks and soil must be gathered to fill washouts, or you need to create a drainage path off the road, etc. This will effectively close some roads.
We did not use stoves except during fire closures as I feel wood is a far more renewable resource than any form of fuel for backpack stoves. We used a fire pan, crushed coals into a fine powder, scattering it to wash and blow away. Now a fire pad is required under the fire, and fires are not allowed in Dark Canyon, Fable Valley, White Canyon nor any of their side canyons. This requires stove and fuel. Students must pack out their feces, and all charcoal. It is already a challenge in the winter to meet the state licensing regulations regarding pack weight at 4000 calories per day and extra clothing using a one week resupply. Add one week of feces, charcoal, fuel and stoves and the loss of the one week resupply, the program is becoming less and less of a wilderness program.
The treatment industry needs to lobby against the closing of areas by wilderness management that will take away the ability to provide the 24 hour support for safety. It is also my belief the regulations are against providing appropriate outdoor opportunities for treatment that can fill the gap that mental health, talking therapy and RTC's did not meet for certain adolescents.
Filling that gap is the reason we started doing what we do. It would be harmful to the children we help if this opportunity were lost due to an increasing pattern of restrictive regulations.
(Larry Wells is one of the pioneers in wilderness therapy. He founded Wilderness Quest in Utah (originally called Wilderness Conquest) in 1988. In 1971 Larry began doing trips for the State of Idaho and Wilderness Quest later became one of the early private-pay, parent-choice wilderness therapy programs.)
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