Life At Second Nature

Hi all,
As i sit typing this am am trying my very best to prolong some of the other tasks that I have for the day, Things like Doing laundry, going food shopping, and packing my gear. Any thing at this moment that can keep me out of the sun and doing anything related to work in the sun is a good thing. Hence I am sitting in a blissfully cool spot hacking free WI FI from the town of St George.

With that digression out of the way I guess i should get on with posting about my internship. I am spending the summer working for a Wilderness therapy company called Second Nature Entrada. One of the premier wilderness programs in the country Second Nature works with teenagers and adults using the wilderness of Utah to strip away all expectations and distractions. what is left is a Intense 8-12 week long therapy session in the desert where the clients from all over the world learn to heal.
Where do i fit into all of this you may ask?
well I am a backpacking instructor for second nature. It is my job, along with the rest of the staff to manage safety and learning while assuring that the clients are progression in their therapy.
this ends up looking like me working eight days in a row and then having six off to do what ever I please in this lovely ( very hot) epicenter of adventure that Utah is.
My days start at seven in the morning and more often then not do not end in till well into the late evening. a midnight bed time is not unusual. It is the goal of the program to have their groups move each day, most of the time this happens, even if a move is only two miles down a dirt road its a move, and for some of these clients who have never in their life had to do anything for them selves, that can be a very major thing.
Backpacking, that in its self is a core part of the work that this program does students do not leave the field for anything short of a medical emergency, thus they have everything they need on their backs for the entire length of their stay, for soem of them that can be as much as fifteen weeks.
The concept that my company works with is one that the average outdoors type and typical unity college student would not find harsh, in fact some of us at Unity would even consider a program like this a vacation. months at a time backpacking in the high desert, where do i sign up?
For the clients of my program the simple concept of relying on one's self is something that is so completely foreign, it put them outside of the comfront zone, and that is where the real healing and work starts.

I go back to work in the morning and i have to say that I am looking forward to it. My first shift was one of the most intense, tiering, and rewarding things that i have done in a very long time. Its a lot of work, but so far I am enjoying it.
Cheers all
td