The story begins in 1915, when Laughing Boy, an idealistic and very traditional young Navajo man, travels to Chinle, AZ for a tribal dance and horse racing. While at the dances, he meets Slim Girl, a beautiful woman who is Navajo, but who attended American boarding school and now has one foot in each culture.

Although Laughing Boy’s family doesn’t approve, he marries Slim Girl and they move to her home in Los Palos, setting up a quiet sanctuary for themselves; she, working in town, he, silversmithing and raising horses.  Life is wonderful until her past begins to creep into their world, causing a strained dichotomy between traditional Navajo life and the life led by Americans and also by Slim Girl.

They struggle to make their lives work and to find balance between their worlds. Their immense love for each other keeps their compass pointing north through the storms and they carve a path that is uniquely their own.

Laughing Boy is a beautiful read: poetic, lyrical and accessible to all ages.  It is a love story, a history book and a cultural statement, all in one fascinating story.  It gives such insight into the history of the Navajo culture and the beginnings of the changes that took place with the influence of the European Americans. This, and the fact that it takes place locally, in the Four Corners area, makes it a favorite read for those of us at Deer Hill.

Suzanne Strazza, Admissions Manager

Authors Stephen Trimble and Gary Nabhan collaborated on this revolutionary book that examines today’s children and their relationship with nature and wild places. They begin with the premise that children’s experience with wild places has become a luxury, and that our children are no longer playing outside like previous generations.

They argue that a connection with nature is a “basic human need” and we are short-changing our children if we are not providing them with the opportunities to be in the outdoors, exploring, learning and coming to love places that are a part of their personal geography.

Trimble recalls his childhood in the American Southwest, reminiscing about family trips, camping and specific places that he continues to hold dear in his heart. He believes that by “forging connections with plants, animals and land, by finding ways to experience some relationship to the Earth, individuals can gain a sense of worth.”

Nabhan, the father of two young children, claims that it is imperative that we find ways for children to go beyond the concrete and “gain access to vegetation and earth that allows them to tunnel, climb or even fall.” After travelling through native communities of the Southwest and Sonora, Mexico, he mourns the loss of the peoples’ connection to land and nature, which carries with it a direct correlation to the loss of their cultural language and traditions.

Both men believe strongly in the necessity of a connection to the natural world; that this connection brings with it many other necessary abilities such as observational skills, curiosity, critical thinking and compassion.

Here at Deer Hill Expeditions, we too believe that an affinity with the natural world is imperative – in fact, this is at the heart of our mission.  Our permits and experience allow us to take our students to the real “wild places”, away from busy National Parks and tourist trails. Here our leaders share with their students the natural history of the area, how to be stewards of the land, and further, how to be quiet and comfortable in nature, open to unfamiliar landscapes. Through immersion in the landscape as a group, and alone, our participants observe quietly, and interact respectfully with all that goes on around them.

We also nurture relationships with Native cultures, celebrating their cultural inheritance and their knowledge of their lands, working with families who maintain traditional lifestyles and a connection to Mother Earth.

This mission is urgent, and what is at stake is not just health, but identity – the deeper understanding of “self” and “world” that we believe most teenagers are avidly seeking. To encounter nature is an opportunity to see your life, and your sense of self, against the relief of its demands. In the wilderness, our participants learn about their strengths and weaknesses, their true passions, and how they communicate and share with others in the context of scarcity and challenge. As Robert Coles states in the Introduction to The Geography of Childhood, young people…

“ …want to take stock of things, try to make sense of them, and so doing, hunger to find a place where such moral introspection can occur with grace and dignity.  The “geography” boys and girls ultimately want to explore and comprehend is that of life itself…”

“What is it about the summer camp that goes so deep under their skin? What is the magic of camp?”

Michael Thompson, Ph.D. and co-author of the New York Times bestseller Raising Cain has recently been exploring the answer to this question in his upcoming book Homesick and Happy.

Over time, Thompson has observed that people rave about their time at sleep-away camp in ways that they rarely do about school or childhood neighborhoods. He has recently spent a vast amount of time at a variety of summer camps and shares his observations in his lecture series bearing the same name as the book. Thompson iterates the importance of camp for children, emphasizing the need for children to have time away from their parents to explore who they are as humans, to build relationships with new people and to have experiences that are their very own.

“Camps create a private world with its own rules and rituals and magic. Deep down, all children not only yearn to be Harry Potter, they want a Hogwarts; they want to have their own harrowing adventures with no (apparent) safety net. Camps have the ability to create that world. Now that is magic.”

When we receive our groups each summer, we know what we are striving to create: that special alchemy of group dynamics, leadership, challenge, beauty, learning, relaxation, care and independence that, looking back, feels like “magic” to our participants.

You can read more about Thompson and Homesick and Happy at his website.

In Waterlines, Walka shares not only her feelings about this beautiful desert river, but she also  includes natural history and historical anecdotes pertinent to the San Juan River corridor and the surrounding desert from Bluff, UT to Clay Hills Crossing.  She evokes the life of Mormon settlers in the region, as well as other river dwellers like beavers and the small but beloved canyon wren.

Walka’s sense of place and love affair with this river landscape creates a fluid journey for the reader that follows the flow of the San Juan from the put-in in at Sand Island through the Lime Ridge Anticline, past Mendenhall’s cabin, around Grand Gulch, all the way to where the river meets the waters of Lake Powell.

Her voice is powerful yet her writings are accessible to anyone who has been mesmerized by the magic of a desert river.  She has written several books about the landscapes of the Colorado Plateau but Waterlines is particularly special to us here at Deer Hill because it is about a river that we too, love.

The River

Every morning at dawn

the blonde river

lifts herself like a mare

from the stony terraces

shakes off the dark

and gathers into a slow canter

through oxblood hills

She comes down sleek and heavy

with mud tendrils of steam curling

from her flanks

Light rides on her back

and in the evening

scatters from her mane

in flakes of copper

The river clatters off

between umber hills

and into the appaloosa night

She goes on down

Do you have a favorite book or poem that speaks to the wild lands and/or cultures of the Southwest. Why not share it with others through the Basecamp Blog? Pass on your tip in the comments.

Participants relax on our Ancient Pathways adventure summer camp 2010, rafting past “Tiger Wall” on the upper stretch of the San Juan River.

This is a guest post by Deer Hill Program Leader, Lexi Tuddenham.

When we arrive with our students at Deer Hill Basecamp, we pause for a moment at the end of the driveway, next to the swinging wooden sign, and explain that we will be turning off the radio here, and that it’s time for them to turn off their ipods and power down their cell phones, both of which will shortly be collected and put in a locker for safe-keeping until the end of their trip. Inevitably, the protests rise from the back of the van—surprise and disbelief on the faces of kids with one earplug still in and two thumbs mid-text. We listen implacably, and patiently explain why: It’s not that there is no music here, or no technology—there will be singing in the sweatlodge , guitars on the palapa, even CDs in the backcountry pantry. But at that moment, with the dirt road winding up and around the corner toward Flint Rock, we want them to focus on what’s around them.

The point is not just to cut them off from the outside world “for the sake of it”, but to allow them to be open and present. To listen to us, to each other, and to themselves. To notice, as we roll up the driveway, the bindweed creeping between the tire tracks, the tick-tick of water spraying on a neighboring alfalfa field, kestrels diving into the high grass, deer sneaking up on the vegetable garden, and Jake the horse standing next to the fence to greet new students with a disdainful “whuff.” To enjoy the sun on their faces, to scream at the cold when they jump into the light-filtered depths of the pond. To begin to form friendships that may last for years.

It’s the start of an experience, a leveling of the ground they stand on, and the opportunity to let the struggles they may be having in their outside lives lie dormant for a few weeks. Unplugging from their digital devices enables them to engage fully in the reality of a Deer Hill trip, to get the most they can from it. According to this New York Times article, however, there may be benefits even beyond the improved focus we are immediately aware of in our students.

The piece tells the story of a group of scientists who take a trip down the San Juan River in Utah, to investigate the effect of wilderness on the brain, specifically, the impact of eliminating the all-pervasive media and communications technology that makes such insistent demands on our powers of attention. David Strayer, a psychologist from the University of Utah, organized the trip, and invited  a number of other scientists from around the country to take part, to see how others from different disciplines would interpret and critique his thesis: “that heavy technology use can inhibit deep thought and cause anxiety, and that getting out into nature can help.”

Mr. Strayer argues that nature can refresh the brain, and describes the tuning in that occurs as we tune out the background noise of urban life: “Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment.”

I can speak to the powerful calming and focusing effects of “switching off”, whether on the river, in the desert, or the mountains. This is why our adventure summer camps, and our class trips, are designed to provide true experiences of immersion in the wilderness, because the benefits of unplugging from our various devices increase exponentially the more time we spend with nature.

Read the original article, which contains photos and video of the beautiful San Juan River, by clicking on this link:

“Studying The Brain off the Grid” by Matt Richtel

“I looked up and saw rock art unfurling down a sunbaked cliff, and bits of fallen cliff dwellings hanging from shallow alcoves. The movement of people is one of these thin veneers across the planet’s surface. Flowing over the geologic ripples of the Colorado Plateau, people once slipped into these convenient spaces, journeying between gaps and along ridges as the earth flinched and rolled around them.”

Our teen outdoor adventure programs Canyon Country and Wilderness Leadership will be exploring this fascinating region of the U.S. this summer.

The Hopi are one of the few tribes who have never been resettled (although they certainly suffered at the hands of European settlers). For this reason, their ancient “pueblos”, located atop three connected mesas in central Arizona’s starkly beautiful high desert, are considered to be the longest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. Exploring Old Oraibi, on Third Mesa (established in 1100 A.D.), you literally feel as if you are walking back into history. Deer Hill groups have been working on community service projects with Hopi people for many years. Over this time we have been fortunate to partake in many living traditions: harvesting corn with elderly farmers, working in the ornamental gardens that surround the community springs, making “piki” bread from cornmeal, building bread ovens, carving kachina dolls, and whitewashing village plazas in preparation for ceremonies. Many groups have been able to help prepare for and witness ceremonies such as the annual Homedances, ancestor celebrations held by each village to honor the “Kachina” spirits and bring rain to their cornfields.

For more information on Deer Hill adventure summer camps that spend time with the Hopi, check out Southwest Journey and Wilderness Leadership.

Another fascinating perspective on leadership from a book that’s been keeping me gripped. A trailblazing climber despite being blind since his childhood, Erik Weihenmayer’s story holds innumerable lessons in courage, friendship, and persistence in the face of fear. In the chapter, “Moving Through Darkness”, he recounts a nighttime retreat through a boulder field, from the base of one of Yosemite’s big wall climbs. Weihenmayer takes the lead as the most well-equipped to guide in the dark. Used as he is to following Jeff, his sighted guide, he is forced to consider what it means to lead:

“I laughed nervously to think that I guided Jeff, a better climber than me, but in pitch darkness, I knew I was the best person for the job … As I stepped tentatively forward, I tried to feel confident, but I was unsure, questioning each step. I had always assumed that leadership came easily to a chosen few like Jeff, that people like him were born to take command, but now I wondered if this was only a convenient excuse. Jeff might be as uncertain to lead me by day as I was to lead him by night. Perhaps leadership was not so much a matter of raw talent, as raw courage. Leading was the ability to move forward through darkness towards those immense possibilities, unseen yet sensed, while others allowed the darkness to paralyze them.”

Check out the March 2009 issue of National Geographic Adventure, which highlights domestic adventures in Deer Hill’s “backyard”, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Their “Best of the Southwest” cover story highlights 20 of the top adventures in our area. From paddling the Colorado River, to exploring Moab’s redrock landscapes, to seeking out petroglyphs carved in New Mexico cliffs, to hiking remote canyons in Southwestern Utah that are only accessible by boat, many of these experiences are part of our summer programs for adventurous teenagers.

This issue of Nat Geo Adventure also includes a fascinating article, written by David Roberts, about a journey to Arizona’s incredible Canyon de Chelly: “a Four Corners anomaly: a Navajo stronghold in a national monument … one of the most sacred locales in the Navajo universe. This was the dwelling place of Spider Woman, who taught the Navajo to weave and who gave the Hero Twins the power to overcome monsters”.

Roberts description of Canyon de Chelly is spot on: “To my mind, Canyon de Chelly is far more appealing than the Grand Canyon and, thanks in large part to the Navajo, far more evocative of ancient mysteries. The labyrintine folds give the place a certain intimacy, yet its clean, soaring cliffs of orange sandstone proclaim the sternness of a fortress.”

Many tourists are surprised to hear that the canyon is actually occupied by around 500 Navajo. In fact, for many years Deer Hill groups have been engaging in cross-cultural service deep in the Canyon with a family of Navajo farmers, who are harnessing the power of the Arizona sun for electricity, and working with the land according to sustainable principles.