A Typical Day at Aspen Achievement Academy

Students at Aspen Achievement Academy experience profound change through the power of the wilderness, a positive peer culture, and a caring team of therapists and field instructors.

• Hiking and Therapy – Typically, teens spend three to four days a week hiking and processing their experiences as a group, while the other three days are filled with individual and group therapy sessions. Every three to four weeks, students experience a healing rite of passage called “solo” that helps them mark their transition into adulthood.
• Chores – Each student is assigned daily chores, such as cooking, cleaning or loading the handcarts that they use to transport their packs, so that they leave our care with a new set of daily living skills and a sense of personal responsibility.
• Meals – Fresh fruits and vegetables, snacks, spices and seasonings, and other foods are transported to the field three times a week to ensure a healthy diet and to allow students to get creative with cooking.
• Academics – Teens complete hands-on academic lessons each week, learning history by hiking to ancient rock carvings, studying the flora and fauna of the Utah desert, or discovering the secrets of astronomy while sleeping under the stars.
• Personal Time – During personal time, some of our students’ favorite activities are playing hacky sack and other games, sharing life stories and letters from home, and working on “busting fires” (building a fire with a bow drill).

The scenery at Aspen Achievement Academy sets the stage for the life-changing experience students have in the field. No matter what the season, teens remark on the awe-inspiring beauty of our course area, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island!

Each day is a lesson in contrast as teens hike to the summit of a mountain in the morning, walk through the forest in the afternoon, and end the week exploring the sands and red rock formations in the desert. In a typical week, students might see the fish jumping in Miller Lake, come across a waterfall, cross paths with a wild turkey or learn that a ponderosa pine tree smells like butterscotch.

After a hard day’s work, teens set up camp, enjoy a meal they prepared over a fire that they built, and reflect on the progress they’ve made. After a few weeks in the wilderness, teens feel stronger, healthier and more confident than ever, and have addressed the issues causing them trouble at home or in school through individual, group and family therapy.

Students typically follow one of two daily schedules, depending on whether a therapist is accompanying the group in the field that day. Schedules change frequently, depending on the needs and goals of the students, and opportunities arise throughout the day for ongoing counseling and therapeutic experiences.

Schedule 1: Typical Day in the Field

8:00am	Wake Up, Journal, Meditate or Pray
8:30am	First Call (breakfast, foot checks, personal hygiene, cleaning up the campsite)
10:30am	Group Processing Session, Experiential Activity, or Hiking and Pushing Handcarts
1:00pm	Lunch
2:00pm	Hike, Push Handcarts or Academic Lesson
5:00pm	Last Call (group and individual chores, personal hygiene, prepare and eat dinner, campsite set-up)
8:00pm	Group Processing Session or Personal Time
10:00pm	Bed

Schedule 2: Typical Day in the Field with a Therapist

8:00am	First Call (waking up, breakfast, personal hygiene, cleaning up campsite)
10:00am	Personal Hygiene, Personal Time
12:00pm	Group Therapy
1:30pm	Individual Therapy, Lunch
5:00pm	Last Call (group and individual chores, personal hygiene)
6:00pm	Prepare and Eat Dinner
8:00pm	Group Therapy
10:00pm	Bed