fbpx

Summit Adventure Students Wearing Masks During Covid

COVID-19 Updates

Our first priority is the health and safety of our community, students and staff. We are closely monitoring the situation, and will continue to assess and alter our operations in accordance with what is best for our staff and students.

Currently, we are still planning on running courses this summer! If any program can practice social distancing, proper hygiene, and safe, effective risk management, it would be a wilderness program like Summit Adventure. That said, we are not taking COVID19 lightly. We will be refining various program components to help ensure everyone’s safety. This will include:

1.) A thorough vetting of participants’ medical history prior to arrival on course
2.) All program staff and participants will be checked for a fever before the course begins. Anyone with a fever will not be allowed to participate. If other symptoms of the virus such as a cough, shortness of breath or fever appear (including a fever while on course), those participants will not be allowed to complete the course.
3.) Everyone will be required to bring hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes and strongly encouraged, or mandated, to use these on a daily, regular basis, especially when cooking, cleaning, and as always, when using the bathroom.
4.) Participants and staff will adhere to the 6-foot social distancing requirement established by the CDC. This distance is feasible out in the field for most activities. However, if any activities do require participants be within 6-ft of each other we will require you to wear a mask.

– An example of a situation where a mask might be required is during support school for our climbing elements, in which students have to be within 6ft of each other

– Family members or individuals who live in the same household can be exempt from the 6-ft rule.

– Summit Adventure will not be facilitating any group activities or team building exercises which require physical contact between students

5). The way we prepare and serve meals in the backcountry will look a little different this year. Groups will be separated by households/family members when possible. All snacks will be pre-packaged individually. Furthermore, when applicable instructors will do all the food preparation and serving (particularly when handling items which will not be cooked) to minimize the number of people in contact with food.

That being said, we are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to re-evaluate periodically as events related to COVID19 unfold. If you have any questions, please send me an email at tom@summitadventure.comPraying you and your family are safe and healthy!

Tom Smith
Executive Director

Regular Updates on Programs & Courses

[accordion title=’March 18 – Spring Semester Program’]Semester Program students who were in Ecuador have returned to the United States. The students will return home to their families within the next week and we will finish up the semester virtually.[/accordion]

[accordion title=’April 14 – Yosemite National Park, Summer Courses’]Yosemite National Park is not giving out commercial permits until, at the earliest June 1st.

The Leadership Training Expedition has been moved from May 20-31 to June 3-14th. [/accordion]

[accordion title=’May 1 Update’]

There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding this summer and what things are going to look like with COVID-19 still being a big concern. We are working on plans specific to each of our courses to align with social distancing and proper hygiene guidelines laid out by the CDC. 
Both the National Park and Sierra National Forest are unable to tell us when they will be issuing permits, which makes planning difficult. All the camps in the area have closed/cancelled for the entire summer. What we do is very different from the camps, but even the other organization similar to Summit in the area has cancelled trips up until July.
The Leadership Training Expedition which was last re-scheduled for June 3-14th has been moved to June 28-July 9th. 
The Adventures in Fatherhood course will be run at the same dates, provided the stay-at-home order has been lifted by then. [/accordion]
[accordion title=’June 5 Update’] – Yosemite National Park is opening this week with restrictions. Currently we are limited to 10 people per course instead of our normal cap of 15. [/accordion]
[accordion title=’January 2021 Update’] – We made the difficult decision to cancel both our Fall and Spring College Study Abroad Semesters due to restrictions on traveling internationally.
– We anticipate being able to run a fall 2021 semester program, including the international portion
– Our summer schedule is live! Check out our open enrollment courses, or contact us about a custom course! [/accordion]