There are a lot of good reasons why creating a "backcountry expedition based program" for teenagers making the transition from middle school to high school is a good idea. They're pretty much the same reasons that backcountry trips are good for everyone...........getting away from the real world and focusing completely on the most basic tasks at hand (imagine a world without Twitter, Facebook, Iphones, Kindles, and Sirius XM); experiencing amazing natural terrain; learning a lot about yourself; working closely with a small group of friends toward accomplishing real goals; and simply stepping out from your everyday existence to experience something mysterious and rewarding. Anyone who's ever been a part of a good expedition team knows what I'm talking about.

So, it's just natural that we've turned to a mountain expedition format with The NEXT Expedition as we take on the challenges of helping to prepare 14 year olds for what they will soon be experiencing at the bottom of the high school totem pole. By heading out into the Tarryall Mountains in Colorado without most of the conveniences and crutches of modern living the team and our ALP guides will have only the mountains and themselves to entertain, blame, question, observe, lean on, discuss and share with. One of the keys to backcountry trips is that a lot happens quickly. Individual team members leave their homes and the world as they know it one morning, hours later they're in a new city with new people, within a few more hours they have left most of the comforts and conveniences they have grown up with behind and another day later they're looking up at a distant mountain and walking toward it with their stuff, some strangers and a lot of questions. There really is little time to take it all in as everyone is focused on the tasks at hand. Life is compressed and experienced in a whirlwind of walk, talk, think, eat, sleep, repeat--a thick and condensed slice of life.

Standing in front of the OWA Base Camp lodge, our NEXT team will look to the northeast at the summits of Bison Peak and McCurdy Mountain. Their backpacks will be packed with everything they actually need, a couple of teachers (or guides if you will) will be at the edge interjecting some "how to's" and "whoa, wait a minute's", and each team member mind will be swimming with a bunch of vague notions about what they will find between the lodge and the not too distant summits. There will be way more questions than answers- "how do we cook?", "will it be hard?", who can I count on?", "will we make it?", "which way do we go?". Eventually they'll put the first foot forward, and as a group of virtual strangers will push and pull themselves off into the Lost Creek Wilderness. Some of the team will be moving forward enthusiastically-- unphased by the physical strain and clueless about where they are going. Some will be breathless and trying to interject the idea that maybe they should think about their route. Someone will follow along, silently questioning the lack of a plan or a wrong turn. Most everyone will wonder how life ever ended up like this.

A few days later, the team will find itself sitting on the top of Bison looking down at some distant specks otherwise known as Base Camp. Some will be eating sardines for the first time and wondering why their mother never served 'em at home. Everyone will be basking in the alpine aura and each person will somehow appear different. There will be inside jokes, duct tape on the heels, bargaining for a Snickers, and more questions than answers. But now the questions won't be so much about how to get to the next point or the basic mechanisms of daily life . Talk will turn to things like "how can we do it better?"and "I wonder what's over there?".

As the group makes their way down from the Tarryalls and crosses the river they will have changed. What began as a disparate group of individuals will most surely be a unified, functioning TEAM. That's just the way it is when you head out on the trail. Everyone will eventually put their best foot forward and find out more about themselves, what a team is, what a leader is, when to talk and when to listen, how to solve problems and how important it is to look out for each other.

Being on the 2010 NEXT Expedition team will not guarantee that everything will be smooth for each individual as they return to the real world and head off to high school. But the high school experience will feel somewhat familiar and each person will have thoughts, ideas, confidence and a scattered, but vigilant set of fellow team members to fall back on when the way forward is less than obvious.