The Interpreted Rock

By Stephen C. Schultz I was sitting in my office the other day when I received a call from a therapist at RedCliff Ascent. He mentioned that he had recently met with an international educational consultant at one of RedCliff Ascent’s wilderness treatment program graduations. This consultant had traveled from Russia to act as a translator for the family of a graduating student. He was assisting the family in placing the student in a traditional boarding school following his graduation from RedCliff. The consultant also mentioned that he might have another student to enroll in RedCliff soon. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that RedCliff has had three students from Russia in the past few months. RedCliff Ascent regularly welcomes international students. I have personally visited the backcountry at different times and spoken with students from the United Kingdom, France, Bermuda, Israel, Australia, Singapore, Italy, Russia, the Netherlands, and Brazil, to name a few. Then, j...

By Stephen C. Schultz Editors Note: This is another excerpt from some of the material that teens and young adults learn while at RedCliff Ascent . Students gain physical competency, develop emotional insight and demonstrate improved maturity. This particular segment provides a thoughtful perspective for teens and young adults who have been raised in relative comfort.     Earth Many “primitive” peoples considered the earth to be their true mother and the sky their father, and that there was a grandfather, (Creator) somewhere beyond it all.   In this you can see a basic difference between the worldview of the old ones and of our own.   They thought they belonged to the earth; we believe that the earth belongs to us.   You wouldn’t cut off your mother’s hair, or drain out her life’s blood.   You wouldn’t blow smoke in your fathers face, or poison his breath.   Yet we have no hesitation in destroying anything that is merely a possession. ...

By Stephen C. Schultz   Editors Note: This is an excerpt from some of the material that teens and young adults learn while at RedCliff Ascent . Much of the work that is done by students is to gain physical competency, develop emotional insight and demonstrate improved maturity.   Fire “In the time before this one, there was great excitement in the Sky Country . It was the Day of Giving . All of the spirit people were to receive a gift from the Creator—whatever they desired. There was much pushing and shoving (even some fighting) in the long line that led to the lodge of the Sky Father . As each spirit approached the Maker, they knelt and asked for a gift they believed would help them in the world below. Some wanted cunning; others asked for strength, keen eyes, or sharp ears. Some desired the ability to run fast, to fly high, or to dig deep. Some wished to live on the land, others under the water. To each one, a gift was given according to their need and the trut...

  By Stephen C. Schultz Did You Know? RedCliff Ascent tracks the physical effects of each student upon entering our program. We maintain a database of each student’s body mass index (BMI) and can empirically demonstrate that males lose about 5 lbs of fat and gain approximately 7 lbs of muscle mass throughout their stay. Females lose about 10 lbs of fat and gain around 5 lbs of muscle mass. Students are required to maintain a 3,500-calorie-per-day diet. Each week, their BMI is updated, and dietary adjustments are made as needed. Oh… and we have been doing this for well over a decade! This means that educational consultants, allied health professionals, and families can be assured that no other program is more sophisticated in maintaining students’ nutritional health and well-being than RedCliff Ascent. Did You Know? RedCliff Ascent leads the industry in research-informed practices and outcomes. Of the eight original OBHIC programs featured in Dr. Keith Russell’s research over a...

By Stephen C. Schultz The sky was blue and the air was dry. There was a faint smell of pinion pines and cedar in the air. The girls, in their early teens, rushed down to the water’s edge. There were the usual joyful screeches and high pitched screams as they hopped and danced into the chilly water. With life jackets secured, they swam and splashed like every normal teenage girl swimming at the local lake.   With three daughters of my own, it’s easy to see the teens at Discovery Ranch South as simply friends and neighbors that my own kids hang out with. It’s only when you gain insight into their deeply personal struggles and poignant concerns that you begin to understand just how different their life experiences have been. Having faced challenges such as adoption, self-harm, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance experimentation, these teens have found themselves in an emotional state that warrants placement in a residential treatment center like Discovery Ra...

By Stephen C. Schultz I was working in the yard yesterday fixing some sprinklers. My two youngest daughters were weeding the flower beds and raking them out. I had to dig some trenches along the sidewalk to get to the sprinkler pipe. The frustrating thing was that the water would gurgle up through a crack in the sidewalk, so I didn’t know which side I needed to start digging, or even where the leak was. So, I just started digging. Of course, I started on the wrong side. So, once I determined the leak was not from the sprinkler line on the South side of the sidewalk, I started on the North side. It didn’t take long to find the split in the pipe. The temperature had reached close to 100 degrees and I was ready for a break. I went inside and got a drink, then grabbed my keys and headed to the hardware store to get the various parts needed to make the repair. I was happy to be traveling the 15min or so in a nice air conditioned car with my cold 32oz beverage purchased from t...

By Stephen C. Schultz Throughout our lives, from the time we are infants to the transition to adulthood we are constantly moving about. As infants, we travel across the floor on our stomach. As kids we ride the bus to school. As adults we may ride the metro to work and drive our cars to the mall. As kids, we ride our bikes, long boards, skate boards, scooters and tricycles. In rural areas some kids still ride horses to school. Some of us live in the city, others the suburbs and still some out in the country. Our chores may include doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, feeding the cows or moving pipe. These activities of daily living are often simply a part of everyday life. So much so that we may not even pay attention to the patterns and structure of the life we are living. Habits are formed and our perception of our environment becomes numb as we navigate our everyday activities. I recall my mother giving me a ride to school one day. It was early in the morning and the...