What is it?
An opportunity for 12 young people to join 2 experienced wilderness guides for an unforgettable 5 night camping experience in the Lake District, above Coniston Water, from Tuesday 18th – Sunday 23rd August 2020. As an small community we will top up on Vitamin N (‘N’ is for nature), reaping the benefits of deepening our connection to nature, and having a lot of fun along the way. By connecting to our wild side for a week, we feel empowered to live our most joyous lives.
What will we do?
As a group we will base ourselves at a remote campsite next to the lake, and together we will spend the week living together in the wild, cooking over the fire, swimming in the pristine lake, hiking through stunning mountains and taking part in a 24-hour ‘nature solo’ (more info on this below!).
A lot of this experience is about letting the magic of the mountains do it’s work on us! We adventure into the unknown, into the wild, to see who we could become, who we really want to be.
Who is it for?
15-20 year olds. You don’t need to have any previous camping experience. This experience is the perfect antidote to the pressures of modern teenage life and can be huge step in becoming a full independe. It’s a chance to go out and experience the world in a new way, learning about our own potential and seeing what’s possible in life. Participants often grow in confidence, make new lifelong friends, develop useful life skills and enhance their physical and emotional health. Some bits might be outside of your comfort zone, but that’s the whole point! It’s in doing things that feel a little edgy where we learn the most about ourselves and, more importantly, it’s where we grow!
What will a typical day be like?
Each day will include an invigorating balance of adventures, personal enquiry and reflective practices that lay the foundation for participants to go out on their ‘nature solo’ – an important threshold that helps us to be the best version of ourselves.
We keep the schedule quite free and include a whole range of activities, that include hiking, lots of laughter, moving, swimming, art-making and creating, gentle scrambling, nature games, mindfulness practices, check-in circles, journaling, telling stories and connection to nature practices. We explore a whole range of topics over the course of the week, including individual purpose, identity, relationships, empathy, and leadership.
What is a ‘nature solo’ all about?
At the heart of the programme is this ‘nature solo’ – an opportunity for each participant to camp alone in the wild for 24 hours. This practice is inspired by traditional the rites of passage and ‘vision quests’ of many human cultures dating back millennia. This process helps individuals cross over the threshold into young adulthood, supporting a feeling of greater independence, self-reliance and ambition for life.
Each participant will pick a spot in nature, typically 36 feet in diameter, away from the others and spend an overnight in solitude, normally without shelter and without food (all by choice of course). This emptying out of modern distractions creates a valuable space for reflection and to simple ‘be’ and to see what emerges. It can be quite challenging but the benefits can be profound! This process can really help an individual to find their purpose in life, their role in society and feel more connected to the world around them. The following morning, each participant returns to rejoin the group, where we share their stories, and support each other to begin to incorporate their experiences into life after the programme.