Please enjoy this post from Andrew Underwood, from WMI as he continues to share insights in this Biblical Reflections on the Wilderness Essentials series. Not long ago, in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, one of the leaders that we were working with became ill....
Do we love adventure for what we get out of it, or do we love it because it bends us more toward dependency on God? Leading others in the wilderness with attention to risk management requires hard skills to protect your group, but even more importantly, it demands having a shepherd-like heart.
Outdoor leaders are life-long learners who engage in a variety of wilderness experiences where they are pushed to be efficient in the midst of repeated realms of exposure.
The wilderness is just dripping with opportunities to learn how to be a rapid decision maker. I have a half-baked formula for how to develop rapid decision making skills. It’s a combination between 1) experiences, 2) efficiency, and 3) exposure.
This had been one epic trip so far. The group of high school kids were loving life as we had traveled deep into the heart of the Weminuche Wilderness area of southern Colorado. We camped that night high on a ledge in Snowslide Basin and after a great dinner and stories around the stove, we went to bed for a cozy night’s sleep. Yet unbeknownst to us, a crisis was foreboding.
