Sam Wright during his time at SOARGiven the current situations and constant new information and uncertainty, I’ve been thinking a lot about the most chaotic and absurd day I’ve ever had in the 10 years I worked as a guide.

It was 2013 and my first year working for SOAR, a program designed for kids 11-18 who were dealing with some form of a cognitive learning disability (i.e. ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s, autism, etc.). We were based out of Dubois, Wyoming and I was the guide for the ranch doing trips around Yellowstone and Grand Teton Nation Parks and then in Lander taking kids climbing in Sinks Canyon State Park and Wild Iris. That morning I met one of the course directors, Chris, and an older participant, Zack, at one of the parking lots in Sinks Canyon to go set up climbs at Shady Side crag. Zack had earned some merit and was coming with us away from the rest of the group to learn how we set up the climbs and whatnot.

On our walk up, about a mile from the cars, I suddenly heard Chris yell an obscenity. As I turn to him to ask why he cussed in front of the kid, I saw him backing away from me and pointing at the ground. When I looked down I realized quickly that I had walked over a coiled up, 5 foot long rattlesnake who was now very upset I had woken him up. After we got away from the snake and made our way up to the crag I emptied my bag to find I had left a bunch of equipment in my truck and had to trail run back down, past the snake, grab the gear and come back before the rest of the group showed up.

SOAR group outdoorsOn my run I noticed some smoke in the distance, and after chatting with Chris, we realized it was a wildfire on the other side of the canyon. Within an hour, we were engulfed in smoke and ash and we being evacuated from the park. I had to quickly retrieve 4 climbs worth of gear and rush 15 kids back to the vans. The fire consumed 3 square miles of land in a few hours and burnt one whole side of the canyon park by the end of it all.

We regrouped in Lander City Park to figure out what we were going to do and in the middle of planning we had to break up a fight between two kids not sharing the Frisbee and one was trying to break the other’s neck. The next few hours were spent scouting climbing locations in Wild Iris, campsites in the national forest, distracting the kids (unstructured downtime is the worst thing ever with this group) and finally setting up camp, cooking dinner and dealing with the incident from earlier. We got both kids to write letters of apology to the other and determined logical consequences for them. By the time I laid my head down in my car around 11 p.m., I was exhausted.

I think of this experience now because it was just unrelenting. Information kept changing every hour and we had to adapt and make decisions as quickly as possible while still trying to do our jobs. It taught me sometimes I have to let go of things I can’t control and just roll with the punches. It bonded our group so tightly that I still keep in touch with those folks to this day, now 7 years later. In these weird, changing and uncertain times we have to do the best we can, adapt and roll with the punches. And eating a whole jar of Nutella with my friends huddled behind the car in the dark so we don’t get caught by the kids helps a lot with coping.