Outdoors

For eighty years, outdoor education and challenging adventure have been a key part of the Orme experience. The School is surrounded by open public land and is close by some of most stunning canyon, desert, and mountain country in the world. For many students, getting out and exploring is an ideal balance to the rigors of the academic day.

The outdoors are integrated into afternoon activities, weekend trips, classroom instruction, field trips, and the eight-day Caravan trips in May.

Our goals are for students to learn leadership and personal responsibility, build confidence, master wilderness skills, gain an intimate knowledge of the remarkable natural features of our region, and develop an environmental ethic and appreciation for the land. We believe it is valuable for teenagers:

• To develop a sense of place.
• To challenge themselves physically and mentally.
• To do things they never thought they could do in magnificent places they never knew existed.
• To appreciate the rewards of hard work and the dignity of labor.
• To experience firsthand where their food, water, wood, energy, and minerals come from.
• To get cold, wet, hot, tired, and dirty.
• To find their way through trackless country in the dark.
• To spend a night alone in the wild.