He learned about himself at the top of a mountain

For a young man used to confrontations with gang members on the streets of Mar Vista, climbing an 11,500-foot mountain in the wilderness was an unaccustomed challenge.

“It’s crazy!” says 19-year-old Mario Munoz of his adventure last summer hiking up the side of the highest peak in Southern California. “It’s just so intense.”

The 26-mile, four-day odyssey ascending Mt. San Gorgonio found Munoz hauling a heavy pack filled with camp supplies and living without toilet paper. But he says the experience has helped him tackle everyday life in his neighborhood, where he has avoided joining a gang.

“Sometimes you feel like quitting, and that wasn’t going to happen up there. You can’t let yourself,” he says. “That’s kind of the way you have to think about things down here too.”

The trip, through UCLA UniCamp’s wilderness leadership program, made such an impression on Munoz that he’s going back for a week in August to be a counselor at the program’s home base, Camp River Glen in San Bernardino National Forest.

Though the open-air cabins can be chilly, Munoz likes getting a break from the city. “The river is running when you’re trying to sleep, which is really relaxing,” he says.

Munoz, who just finished his first year at Santa Monica College, wants to be a teacher after he gets his degree. He loves working with kids. And he knows from personal experience how going to camp helps underprivileged children.

“I think a lot of the kids that go up there don’t have role models,” he says. “Having people around that are going to UCLA -- it allows the kids to make goals.... It helps them out too. It relaxes them, makes them forget their worries.”

Right now, Munoz works as a part-time teacher’s aide at Grand View Elementary, where he says imparting discipline to kindergarteners can be frustrating. This summer, Munoz is also holding down a part-time retail job and helping coach kids in basketball at the Neighborhood Youth Assn., where he spent much of his childhood.

Munoz started going to NYA reluctantly at age 11, when he was very shy. In high school, he worked at NYA as a “youth leader,” learning to work with younger kids while training for life beyond the streets.

“This place definitely changed me,” he says. “It showed me what I wanted to do, and my skills, my strengths.”

Now, Munoz wants to help kids -- at camp and in his own community -- have similar revelations.

“The influence that I make, that’s what’s important,” he says.

About 10,000 children will go to camp this summer, thanks to $1.6 million raised last year.

The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.1 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771.

To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.com/summercamp.

To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash.

Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.