Wilderness Therapy -Frontier Program for Troubled Youth - Mount Carmel Youth Ranch

The Wilderness therapy-Frontier Program is a Teen Boot camp Brat Camp alternative program organized around Christian ideals and an 1880’s frontier outdoor lifestyle. It is a nintey day program that runs year-round. Situated right next to the Rocky Mountains in the greater Yellowstone Park ecology system, the troubled teen wilderness camp has a rich variety of activities aimed at improving negative behavior. It is an integral part of a working ranch encompassing 40,000 acres; all aspects of ranch life and mountain life are fully explored. Wyoming is a vast land with breath-taking mountains, short growing season and long winter. Self-reliance and a strong spirit were needed here to survive in the last 1800’s.

The area surrounding Mount Carmel is a region beyond a settled area and is largely undeveloped. Mt. Carmel Youth Ranch lies about 40 miles from Cody and Powell, Wyoming. The troubled teens that come here soon learn that the land is rough-hewn, populated by rattlers and sagebrush, punctuated by irrigated areas where cattle roam and alfalfa or corn grows. Procrastination punctuated by hurried efforts doesn’t work on a ranch. This troubled teen wilderness-frontier camp teaches them that animals have to be cared for daily. Other things are done in season, according to their natural cycles. Natural consequences follow violations, in spite of good intentions. Gardens not watered die. Animals not cared for get sick. Farmers and ranchers alike are subject to these natural laws and governing principles. The law of the ranch endures over time. The troubled teens soon learn the laws of nature and the wilderness through this immersion in a frontier lifestyle. As they are taken out of their comfort zones they experience all that nature has to each them, animals not feed, or proopely cared for will die.

The troubled youth develop in character through the conditions met in our Wilderness Therapy- Frontier Program. So much of ranching is outside the rancher’s control, subject to natural cycles, acts of God, divine intervention, which teaches the rancher to do the very best he can. The struggling teen comes to understand that natural cycles continue, regardless of inconvenience. They learn the wisdom of submitting to life’s natural flow and to God, instead of trying to manipulate and change. Every violation will bring a consequence in the short, medium and long term. Only that which is true remains.

On Mount Carmel Youth ranch, the at risk teens learn animal husbandry (the practice of breeding and raising livestock) from daily practice, as part of the frontier chores including gathering eggs and feeding chickens, pigs and calves and dogs. Other seasonal chores consist of irrigating hay and grain fields during the summer, and feeding cattle during the winter (they are on pasture from spring to fall). Ranch work follows three overlapping paths: (1) routine chores that make the ranch yield the food, clothing and shelter, (2) raising the calves that are the ranch’s main cash crop and provide consecutive seasonal jobs throughout the year, and (3) filling the rest of the time with work to improve conditions and ranch productivity. Meat is plentiful; beef, pork and chicken and the vegetables are grown in a garden planted and cared for by the students.

Calf production presents an annual work cycle for the troubled teens, even though the calf crop is marketed during the late fall. The work begins in February or March with the births, followed by plowing in April and May. May also brings branding and moving herds off the spring range to mountain pastures as well as irrigating, which continues through the summer. Haying begins in July followed by harvesting garden produce in September, returning the herds from mountain pastures in October and ends with shipping the calves in addition to beginning winter feeding in December.

The Wilderness Therapy -Frontier Program commences in a lodge without plumbing. There is a cook house where the troubled teens take their turns making the daily bread, an outhouse, and a washhouse, where they bathe and do their wash. There is no television, nor is there radio. The day is filled with prayer, chores, homework they receive from our schools for troubled teens, work projects and quiet time to reflect. Uniforms of western jeans and western red shirts with work boots are worn. To move on to the “Long term” level of the operation, the students must cultivate “cowboy” qualities involving self-motivation in both work and study, cleanliness in their bunk area, cabin, kitchen, animal pens, etc., a uniform dress appearance, respect for staff, peers and animals, a strong work ethic, and a cumulative wilderness frontier grade of a “C+.”

Once at the bunkhouse, the at-risk youth have some of the luxuries, like indoor toilets and bathing; washers and dryers. They wear various cowboy print “snappy” shirts and have more choices of boots. They continue their studies, and get opportunities to work the ranch with adult staff, where they can develop and express self-reliance, dependability and trustworthiness. These traits are necessary for the boys to go to cow camp in the summers, which is a mountain wilderness camp for troubled teens where the cattle feed during the spring through fall. This is a privilege all the young men come to realy desire.

The ranch operation represents an instructional “scaffolding” model of behavior improvement. There are plenty of resources to do jobs, and examples/guides of what needs done. There are ranch staff guiding the students in the development of their thinking and social skills. The task is compelling, as it is life affirming and life supporting. Students do tasks until they develop their own skills and knowledge. A job done poorly or not at all leads to natural consequences, like a flooded road, a dead animal, or a lost crop. These mistakes are easy to see, understand, and go about correcting. And doing so leads to increased confidence and self-reliance in the troubled youth.