Recently, I tagged along with the Turn-About boys and a few of the staff members to hike to one of Escalante’s strangest treasures: the Cosmic Ashtray. The formation resembles a volcano at the top of a sandstone mountain, a rock island resting in the center of its “crater.” In winter, it is quite a spectacular scene. The red and yellow sandstone mixes with the white of snow, and the whole landscape looks like a giant Cold Stone tabletop filled with ice cream and crushed candy. Continue reading →

As I mentioned in my previous post, the New Year is a great time to look at setting goals to overcome addiction. I suggested that one way to work on overcoming addiction is to replace that addiction with other activities. I’m not a clinical psychologist or expert on behavioral science, but in my experience, it can be helpful to evaluate these three aspects of your life when making goals: social, physical, and mental/emotional. By looking at each of these areas, you can evaluate what you Continue reading →

New Year’s Day is my favorite holiday. It is the most self-reflective of the holidays and gives me a chance to look back on the previous year and evaluate my life. Each year, I can see clearly where I went wrong and make the necessary corrections. The New Year can be an excellent time to set goals for overcoming addiction. I am no expert in psychology or behavioral science, but I’ve had my fair share of bad habits and addictive indulgences. Whether your addiction is Continue reading →

Wilderness travel is a huge part of the experience at Turn-About Ranch and is an integral part of treatment. Sometimes a retreat into the landscape is all it takes to overcome a strong emotion like anger or sadness. Sometimes healing is about simply getting away from the everyday buzz and connectedness of daily life. Luckily, our program operates within the 2.3 million acre Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument, a perfect place for wilderness therapy. Here are five amazing places our teens may visit during their stay Continue reading →

Fall is my favorite season. The weather cools. The aspen leaves are reddening in the mountains. Farmers are harvesting their crops. Hunters are scoping out the deer for the hunt. There’s a general buzz of excitement about the air that I can’t quite explain. But I love it. Last weekend, I picked and canned my tomatoes. Over the summer, I had spent a lot of work watering, weeding, and caring for those plants, so it was rewarding to finally see it pay off. Less visible Continue reading →

Throughout history, many philosophers, explorers, scientists, and even spiritual leaders have shared one common trait—for millennia, they have immersed themselves in nature to discover the unknown. They saw the unknown as the door to education. From the Vikings, who sailed the Atlantic seas to explore new lands, to today’s botanists, who study the flora and fauna of the desert, people tend to look toward the land to learn something new. Today, we can even look at the land and its metallic ores which we have Continue reading →