Nick's Long Walk || Pacific Crest Trail 2001

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Wilderness Leadership Training

The Wilderness Leadership Training is a comprehensive experiential training designed to teach adult educators to lead powerful, safe wilderness adventures for their students. An orientation, a five-day training workshop, and a supplementary seminar comprise the WLT program.

The orientation provides an opportunity to preview the five-day workshop and to issue the equipment that will be used on the trip. The session includes a slide presentation, testimonials from past participants, and warm up activities to begin to build camaraderie among the participants.

The five-day workshop provides experiential training in group dynamics, gear usage, map and compass, wilderness first aid and safety, wilderness ethics, nutrition, natural history, and emergency procedures. Each youth worker is given the opportunity to co-lead the group for at least a half-day. An emphasis on role-plays allows participants to engage in solving potential group problems, including first aid emergencies and lost hikers.

This outdoor experience gives youth workers an opportunity to see and feel what their students will experience as trip participants, including all of the joys and discomforts. It allows them the opportunity to lead a group in the wilderness, deal with potential problems as they arise, and gain feedback on their leadership skills in a real setting. Finally, it provides the youth workers with first-hand knowledge of wilderness areas that they visit with their students.

At the end of the trip, the BAWT trainer assesses each participant's skills. This evaluation includes a recommendation regarding the type and length of trips that youth workers should plan for their youth. This will range from a day hike to a multi-day backpacking trip.

BAWT schedules three trainings per year. Each session has the capacity for 20 people (two ten-person groups). Participants come from a variety of agencies that want to add an educational, outdoor adventure component to their youth program.

Upon completion of the Wilderness Leadership Training, participants write an action plan. BAWT program staff follow up with youth workers to help them plan trips and obtain camping permits, and to answer the questions that arise while planning outdoor adventures. Finally, a course guide, with in depth information on relevant topics (i.e. Leave No Trace ethics, camping in bear country, etc.) enables motivated youth workers to learn on their own and at their leisure.

After completing the five-day workshop, BAWT offers supplementary seminars to youth workers to utilize the skills learned on the WLT and to organize their planned outdoor experiences. BAWT offers additional, workshops in Map and Compass, and Wilderness First Aid. These workshops are offered to WLT participants at a reduced cost.

Equipment Loan Program

The Equipment Loan Program makes outdoor gear (backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, rain gear, hiking boots, etc.) available to youth organizations so that they can plan their own trips. This program is sustained, in part, through product donations from companies such as Patagonia and REI.

In order to reserve gear for a trip, a BAWT trained youth worker need only make a phone call to BAWT staff. The staff will check the availability of the gear on the dates requested and verify that the person requesting the gear is qualified to lead the planned trip. At the completion of the trip, the youth worker returns the gear. A BAWT staff person checks in all gear. The trip leader's agency is responsible for any lost or broken equipment. This policy ensures that gear is constantly available to all BAWT trained trip leaders.

At this time, the trip leader is required to complete a post trip evaluation that gives BAWT important information regarding the trip's nature. The survey includes demographic information about the participants and leaders, the itinerary, and any comments about the trip or the gear that might be helpful in the future. This allows BAWT to keep accurate statistics regarding the activity of each trip leader, the number of youth being served, and any qualitative comments shared on the survey.