All Team Cabin Camping Trip

Each quarter, Solstice students get the chance to go on an Adventure Therapy camping trip. While these camping trip are normally attended by one team at a time, earlier this month all of our students were able to spend some time savoring the mountain air together. After a steady 2 mile, uphill hike, our Solstice family found their Retreat in the Mountains (R.I.T.A.), a cabin not meant for profit, but rather to be used as a retreat center for people to come up and enjoy time in the beautiful mountains near Causey Reservoir.

We had beautiful, clear skies for the hike in and most of us were down to our t-shirts & tank tops by the time we reached R.I.T.A. It seems as though spring has come a bit early this year. Once at the cabin, various adventures ensued from extreme sledding to competitive air hockey, pool, and ping pong. Some chose to create paper cranes and stars out of origami paper. It was a time for the girls to relax & create their own fun. The opportunity for this kind of “down time” is often lost in our busy day to day lives. This unstructured play time allows our students the freedom of independence and risk taking, which helps lead them to discovery.

Our students were asked to pick an organization to donate the cabin fees to. In regards to this our Adventure Therapy Director, Stacey, said:

The owner of R.I.T.A. asked me to choose an organization that we would like to donate the cabin fees. We decided that it was important to have the girls be involved in this process. So we chose two organizations that we felt were important to both girls & education and left it up to them to decide. The organizations we chose were The Malala Fund (https://www.malala.org/) and Rachel’s Challenge (https://rachelschallenge.org/). It was great to be part of the discussions and really see each of them have a voice and an ability to see outside of their own perspective. Although it was a short trip, they all left feeling rejuvenated and with new shared experiences.