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WORD OF THE WILD by Brandon Mark Bertelsen A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Science In Parks, Recreation and Tourism College of Health Approved: ______________________________ _____________________________ Daniel L. Dustin, PhD Kelly S. Bricker, PhD Thesis Faculty Supervisor Chair, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism _______________________________ _____________________________ Kelly S. Bricker, PhD Sylvia D. Torti, PhD Honors Faculty Advisor Dean, Honors College December 2014 Copyright © 2014 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Many people value and experience what the natural world has to offer and many people do not. The opportunities that exist outdoors include recreation, education, development, and therapy. Everything I do, school, work, volunteer, and play, is to better provide outdoor experiences for people of all types and abilities. My complete passion and devotion to this originates in how I was raised, strengthened by witnessing the effect of its absence in those close to me, and confirmed by my studies and employment while pursuing my Bachelors of Science in Parks, Recreation and Tourism emphasis Adventure and Outdoor Programming. The purpose of Part 1: Recreation is to show the joy we may experience from outdoor adventures. By sea kayaking the remote tributaries of Lake Powell with two friends, quiet and calm in the winter, we find a refreshment of both our strength and spirit. The purpose of Part 2: Education is to show how learning brings vitality into life, especially when the subject is hands on and reveals a small part of the infinite intricacies of the amazing puzzle we call nature. On a backpacking trip into the Wind River Mountains, Wyoming we learn about what the sky offers during both the day and night. The purpose of Part 3: Development is to show that leadership and confidence are one of the many characteristics that that may grown during outdoor experiences. For the first time, I lead a large whitewater rafting trip through Cataract Canyon of the Colorado River. The purpose of Part 4: Therapy is to show outdoor adventures can provide and wonderful opportunity for healing of both the mind and body. I leave the city to backpack alone in the mountains and canyons of southern Utah. iii This is a collection of creative writings. My purpose is to share what only I, of many outdoor professionals, have done and to help people imagine what is possible. People will look out into the world and dream big then chase their dreams. My purpose is also to share a fraction of what I have done in four years at the University of Utah, and to show that fun is only one incredible part of what the wilderness has to offer. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1: RECREATION 15 PART 2: EDUCATION 30 PART 3: DEVELOPMENT 42 PART 4: THERAPY 54 REFERENCES 81 1 INTRODUCTION What wakes me up early and keeps me up late, keeps me grinding on the weekends, keeps me occupied through the week? My answer is sharing the natural world. This is my gift, my passion. Every day of my life I work to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. My method to this is the outdoors. This allows me to channel my energy into everything I want from the world. What I want is to be happy, at peace. My education in Parks, Recreation and Tourism emphasis Adventure and Outdoor Programming busies me on my path to other people’s happiness and in the end my own. Many people live for others, as politicians, musicians, teachers, public transit workers, chefs, mechanics, in fact in some sense or another about everyone lives for others. I live for others by leading them on outdoor adventures. This has had an increasingly active role in my life because I know the tremendous positive impact I can create on people’s life’s through the natural world. In fact, now everything I do is to better share the natural world with others. My writing shares the four kinds of experiences I facilitate to satisfy the core values people want. Everyone lives to play, to learn, to grow, and to heal. Recreation, education, development, and therapy. By consciously choosing when and how to facilitate these four experiences I can offer the greatest good for the greatest number of people during my time on Earth. I am young but I have tasted the fruit of my labor, even if just the beginning. At times I about cry when I see people benefit from the wilderness. I have seen people laugh and smile truly happy to do nothing but play in a river. I have seen minds work then jaws 2 drop when they can visualize for the first time our place in the solar system from an earthly perspective, why the sun, moon, and planets all cross our sky on the same elliptic. People grow confidence and work in a team. Social skills blossom. Finally, people’s deep wounds, mental and physical, can heal. Struggles are seen in a new light. I know I can do more. I love the powerful benefits I wield through trips in the wilderness. I can do amazing things for many people and I have only just begun. The following is a letter I wrote to my father in the fall of 2012 after moving away from home to college. It is the first time I recorded my inspiration for outdoor adventures and why I share it with others. Three and a half years later it continues to ring true and if anything I am living the future I wrote for myself more and more with every passing season. November 30, 2012 Dear Dad, I remember you telling me about that one winter in college where you claimed to have skied 75 days. The few times you have told me that, you always said it with a smile. You’d say it had cost you an extra year of college, but for some reason I don’t think you regret it, or at least back then you didn’t. I feel as though I’m in that stage of life. All I want to do is to adventure outside. I have so much energy, I am so happy, and I have big plans. When we talk all I want to do is tell you about my adventures in nature, in the mountains, where I grow so much. Out there I learn and become a better person. I think, I enjoy it, 3 and I wish that experience upon everyone I know. The outdoors means so much to me; I never want to let it go, and I don’t plan to. I get a feeling that the person you were in college and the person I am in college are so similar. From what you’ve shared with me, your happiest moments come from your time in the mountains. Sure you, and in a sense myself, have had a good time with the ladies and doing stupid things with friends, but what you seem to really look back upon is your time in that beautiful Montana wilderness. Weren’t you that guy who would go sprinting up and over ridges after that elusive group of deer, build a fire with Grandpa Al in a winter snowstorm to dry out your socks, truck up into the hills to get the family a Christmas tree or a load of wood, and of course ski your heart out at good ol’ Bridger Bowl? You’ve reminisced to me about those days where once class ended you would rush up to the ski hill and squeeze in as many runs as possible. You’d take pride in catching the last chair. And I have a pretty good idea that you loved nothing more than to lap that Bridger lift shredding the moguls on your beloved skinny skis until you could hardly walk. Just like you, my happiest moments come from the mountains, and I have a lot of them. One of the first ones was where you and I road tripped to Whistler. We stopped at the “world famous” Tim Horton’s Doughnuts both there and back. You put me in a ski school to learn some basics while you ripped up the mountain with Sean. Then you came down to where I was making my turns and took me up to the real mountain for my first time. Remember that college ski kid who walked out of the gondola with a cloud smoke following him? Well you shared with me that that was my first smell of marijuana. We rode that gondola up while I clumsily tried to 4 hold all of my gear. It was a foggy day but I tried to show off my skills to you. All the while I got to see you ski some steeps right next to the groomer. I kept up as best I could. We had so much fun that day. And if I remember correctly you bought me my first pair of skis then, some short red ones with a sweat black and white checkered pattern, and celebrated with a tasty dinner out. The last year or two are where my adventures really start to pick up. I sense that their frequency as well as epicness is increasing at an exponential rate, especially haven chosen the University of Utah and being involved in the Outdoor Recreation Program as a trip coordinator. Five days rafting Hell’s Canyon A week in Canada Canoeing Murtle Lake Climbing Mt.

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