Over the past thirty-nine years we have had nearly 21,000 students and have had an excellent safety record. This record is the result of our strict staff selection process, our comprehensive staff training, our highly detailed protocol for conducting our trips, and our low student to staff ratios for conducting our more technical activities. Our approach and commitment to safety and risk management requires an ongoing process of re-evaluation, learning, adjusting, and improving in order to enhance safety without losing the adventure qualities of our trips. Our risk management plan has always been conservative in order to minimize potential problems. As an example, overnight individual or group solos (commonly refered to as walk outs) are not part of our cirriculum, while all of our highly technical activities such as rock climbing, mountaineering, and whitewater components are under the direction of only the finest professional sub-contractors available.

The perfect outdoor adventure program would provide a meaningful and exciting experience along with an unconditional guarantee of safety. However, safety is not something that any program, including Wilderness Ventures can guarantee. Even the best-planned outdoor activities with the most experienced and well-trained leaders include inherent risks, hazards and dangers. Students and their families need to understand that participating in adventure travel activities both domestically and abroad, involves inherent or other risks that cannot necessarily be predicted or controlled.

We teach our students to respect risk as they learn new skills. We also teach them how to evaluate and minimize risks and how to make responsible decisions so that they share in the responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others in the program.

Please give us a call if you have questions about certain programs or activites and the risks associated with them.