Planning Curriculum
All of my trips are learning-intensive, regardless of length, location, or the group’s experience level or fitness. Learning occurs at two times:
- Beforehand, through the Planning Curriculum, detailed below; and
- In the field, detailed on the Field Curriculum page.
I’m a firm believer that the most successful trips are planned, not winged. Certainly, you can wing a trip and still be successful. But your odds of success will increase if you are willing to do some planning beforehand; with boundary-pushing trips, it’s probably a flat-out requirement.
The Planning Curriculum is designed to prepare you for your trip with us, and it can be easily replicated for personal trips afterwards. In fact, we have re-tooled this material as a standalone online course, Plan Like A Pro.
Participation in the Planning Curriculum is required. For you, it’s part of the learning process. And for us and for your group, it’s assurance that everyone is properly prepared when they arrive at the trailhead.
To share the Planning Curriculum, we primarily use Google Classroom, an online teaching platform that is used by thousands of schools and educational organizations.
Workload
The topics are spread out over ten weeks, and divided into bite-sized modules.
We estimate that your cumulative time commitment will range from six to 20 hours, depending on your existing skill set, level of engagement, and history with us. This range assumes that you join us for two video calls, each 30-40 minutes long. Alumni and advanced backpackers will usually be near the low end of this range. If you are new to backpacking and if you like rabbit holes, you will be closer to the high end.
Curriculum and schedule
The start date of the curriculum depends on the start date of your trip. The following dates are approximate and will be updated once the 2025 trip schedule if finalized.
Open this schedule in a full window for easier viewing.