The Wilderness Leadership Training (WLT) is our most intensive course. The WLT is a field course focused on backpacking, meaning you will hike into camp with all your gear in your backpack. WLT is suitable for all levels of backpacking experience, including first-timers.
We typically offer one WLT in the summer and we may offer an additional WLT in the spring or fall. If you don't see WLT dates that work for you, sign up for our newsletter to be the first to learn about new course dates as they're announced.
Join us for our signature 5-day backpacking course in a scenic wilderness location.
Our courses follow our signature "Train-the-Trainer" model, using experiential education, role modeling, and more to grow participants' technical skills as campers and their facilitation skills as outdoor educators. This is what sets us apart from other commercial outdoor trips–we prepare you to bring your skills back to your unique community of youth and families and take them outdoors. BAWT specializes in culturally relevant education, so all lessons will use a lens of diversity and inclusion.
The WLT focuses on backpacking. You will learn how to pack and dress for backpacking, how to find and set up a backcountry campsite, how to cook with a minimal backcountry kitchen, Leave No Trace skills, risk management for the backcountry, route planning and navigation, and more during a 5-day backpacking trip with a small cohort of peers and experienced instructors.
Your course will begin with a mandatory pre-trip meeting on a weekend a few days before the field (backpacking) component of the course. Your pre-trip meeting will take several hours to get you prepared for this intensive course.Then, the field component of your WLT will be a 5-day backpacking trip. You should expect the entirety of each day to be busy with lessons, discussions, camp tasks–and of course, hiking! Due to the full days and limited downtime in the schedule, we are unable to accommodate participants with scheduling conflicts.
Your registration cost completely covers all the gear you'll need on your course. You will receive a packing list before your course, and you'll have a chance to borrow anything you need from our extensive Gear Library at your pre-trip meeting before the course. If you have backpacking or camping gear of your own already, you can speak with instructors about appropriate gear choices for this course.
We offer a General Registration price and a Mission Registration price for our signature courses. Both of these prices are offered at a substantial discount from our costs to run the course, which helps us ensure wider financial accessibility for all, with special attention to educators working in settings that fit our mission.
A key component of the BAWT course experience is spending time living and learning in community with other educators and youth workers who want to get youth outdoors. Each participant brings their own unique skills, knowledge, and experiences to enrich each other's learning process, and BAWT offers continued opportunities to be in community after your course ends.
Past WLT course locations have included Tahoe National Forest and Henry Coe State Park.
Location: BAWT Headquarters Agenda: Meet your instructors, get to know fellow participants, create community agreements, discuss carpool logistics, prep meals, begin leadership role plays, overview the course agenda and learn about the gear you will use, check out gear to use on your course Sample Schedule: Saturday, 9am to 4pm
Sample Location: Henry Coe State Park, Gilroy, CA Sample Schedule: Your day will be jam-packed with experiential education! The sample schedule has just an idea of what your course might look like:
Last Day of Course: You may be required to return to BAWT Headquarters with your fellow participants to clean, return, and put away course gear. We'll model some ways you can approach end-of-trip tasks with your youth when you return to your school site or organizational home base. After Your Course: As a freshly minted WLT graduate, you'll have access to our 9,000+ item outdoor gear library. After you make a myTurn account, BAWT staff will assign WLT memberships to course graduates and you can start reserving gear for your next trip with youth! You'll have access to all the items you learned about on your course, such as:
