Ah, Wilderness! : Coping With Life Crisis by Leaving It All Behind

Hugh Beaton of Santa Monica had worked for 14 years as a psychologist, listening for countless hours to a gamut of personal and professional problems. At age 52, he yearned for a life-style change, at least temporarily.

Ray Ennis, 37, had devoted two grueling years to the non-stop promotion of his brainchild--a front-mounted child carrier for bicycles--but sales weren’t as brisk as expected. “Do I want to pioneer a new product,” the Eugene, Ore., businessman asked himself repeatedly, “or do I want to quit?”

Solitary Solution

Both men solved their dilemmas not by undergoing months of psychoanalysis or career counseling, but by spending time alone in the California wilderness.

Beaton and Ennis participated in Dream Journey, a wilderness trip in which participants first hike into remote areas as a group and then go their separate ways, setting up primitive camps for three days and nights of seclusion and introspection.

During the Dream Journey, Beaton decided to take a year off and travel. “Wandering is important to me,” he explained recenty in the midst of planning a trip to Scotland.

Ennis, on the other hand, decided to persevere in his efforts to market the bicycle carrier.

Gaining Popularity

Wilderness trips like Dream Journey are growing in popularity and availability, particularly in California. Proponents say the experience is an ideal way to resolve or cope with life crises such as career dilemmas, family problems, serious illness or the transition from childhood to adulthood. The trips are also designed to help people accustomed to a hectic schedule rediscover nature and return to society recharged and refreshed.

Based partly on American Indian traditions, the trips are usually made in desert or mountainous areas and often are led by therapists or American Indians. The cost for a week or more of wilderness, depending on the leader and such amenities as pack animals, can range from $250 to $800. Red Eagle, a psychiatric technician at Patton State Hospital, does not charge for the advice he gives about wilderness journeys.

People of all ages and with a broad cross section of occupations and beliefs seem attracted to the wilderness trips.

“We’ve had corporate executives, Marines, a 12-year-old girl and a 72-year-old woman,” said Steven Foster, 48, a former San Francisco State University professor who with his wife, Meredith Little-Foster, 35, offer 11-day wilderness trips they call vision quests. Preparations for the trips begin at their School of Lost Borders in Big Pine, Calif., about 250 miles north of Los Angeles.

Dream Journey participants have included a court reporter, a physician, a secretary, therapists and students, said Jack Crimmins, 29, a Santa Monica marriage, family, child counselor who trained with the Fosters and initiated his own trips last year.

Participants need not be extremely athletic, pointed out the trip leaders, although those who are well-conditioned usually enjoy the experience more. Dr. Richard Moss, a Lone Pine, Calif., physician who gave up the practice of medicine and now conducts Soul and Space, a nine-day wilderness trip, suggests participants be moderately conditioned to withstand the mountain climbing.

The most important aspect of wilderness trips is the time spent alone. “In our society,” Crimmins said, “we definitely cut ourselves off from the wilderness and from creative, intuitive nature. By letting go of the everyday world, we have a chance to learn things in new ways, to tap into our own creative and intuitive selves. By going away from modern life, people get a new perspective.”

Added Steven Foster: “It’s not the process that’s magical, it’s the individual. The vision quest provides a powerful forum in which participants can discover their own strength and purpose.”

During pre-trip seminars, participants learn about necessary equipment for survival in the wilderness and get a crash course in safety, including information about how to deal with wildlife.

“If you have respect, the animals won’t bother you,” said Red Eagle, 49, of San Bernardino. The grandson of an Apache medicine man, Red Eagle estimates he has supervised more than 200 vision quests in the last 20 years. Like other wilderness trip leaders, he says no serious accidents have ever occurred.

Distractions Avoided

Participants are advised to take with them only those materials that will be of value in their transformational process. Portable televisions, tape recorders and other “distractions” are discouraged; thought-provoking books and journals are encouraged.

Although Red Eagle offers his trips only on an individual basis, many wilderness trips begin with group discussions and interaction. Participants in the Dream Journey, for example, hike into the mountains or desert together, set up a base camp, and spend two days together before establishing individual campsites.

The value of isolation can’t be overemphasized, say the trips’ leaders. “When people are alone they have to face themselves, and the monsters and fears within themselves,” Steven Foster noted. Participants fill the time alone thinking or engaging in rituals, some self-generated and others borrowed from American Indians.

Fasting for a day or longer is common, unless medical problems prohibit it. “Fasting cleanses the body physically and allows the emotions to be brought to the surface,” Crimmins contends, “and gives a somewhat heightened sense of consciousness and clarity.”

Fasting Is Common

During the last night of the time spent alone, participants on some wilderness trips are asked to build a circle of stones. “The circle represents a symbolic death and rebirth process,” Steven Foster explained. “It represents a womb and a tomb and also the self and how it touches the universe.”

“Self-generated ceremony” is also encouraged. One woman taking part in the Dream Journey wrote a letter to her brother, a street person, detailing her unhappiness about his choice of life style. Then, she burned the letter, an action representing a conscious decision to move on, according to Crimmins, and to stop feeling guilt about her brother’s life style.

Dream Journey

While on the Dream Journey, Dr. Jerry Loney, 48, director of the Emergency Department at Orthopaedic Hospital in Los Angeles, conquered his dislike of being alone. “I wanted to prove to myself that being alone wasn’t a problem, and could be a plus,” explained Loney, who traced his dislike to a period during his childhood, when his father left him with neighbors so he could visit Loney’s hospitalized mother.

Bonnie Collins, a 40-year-old West Los Angeles psychotherapist, spent her time alone writing poetry and songs and climbing the hills around her campsite. “I began to feel more powerful as a person,” she said after the trip. “And, ever since the journey, I feel I’m never alone. The environment furnishes me with something special. I can go out for a walk alone and still feel I have company.”

Lou Rutledge, 38, a Clarement artist and divorced mother of three, said her recent vision quest under Red Eagle’s direction was “an amazing experience.”

“Before the trip,” she said, “I didn’t have much faith in myself. I came back feeling stronger and more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

After returning from isolation, participants compare experiences with each other and with the trip leaders. After participants in Soul and Space return from isolation, Moss also invites them to take part in the sweatlodge, which he explained as “a ritual of spiritual purification.” In the sweatlodge--a 15-by-4 1/2-foot structure of canvas, plastic and flexible piping--participants sit around hot rocks which are carried by pitchfork from a nearby fire.

“People sit, one at a time, and as they sweat, they offer a prayer,” Moss explained. “They remain 1 1/2 or 2 hours, sitting on the dirt, with the doors opened frequently.”

“The sweatlodge (ceremony) is a way to focus on coming back to the world,” said Meredith Little-Foster, who also employs the ceremony in her wilderness trips.

Additional follow-up sessions with the leaders are often offered a week or even a year after the wilderness trips. Some participants repeat the trips yearly or more often.