Gloria Santellano
When El Paso, Texas ICO (Inspiring Connections Outdoors) trip leader Richard Rheder was a boy, he lived near a small patch of woods, now a shopping mall. “That was the place to be,” he recalls. “That was where the fun happened.” But Richard’s “free-range” childhood, building forts and playing with toy soldiers in the creek, is today more an exception than a rule.
According to Richard, in an environment where most childhood entertainment comes from electronics, going on ICO trips “gives [kids] a wider view of the world.” They quickly learn that it is possible to have fun even without cell phones.
And do they ever have fun. Activities are relatively unstructured and unplanned, and bicycling is always a favorite. Richard remembers one bike ride along a canal, with a group that included some kids who had never biked before. One first-timer, after riding into a ditch, falling off his bike, and getting bitten by a turtle, later said that it was the best day of his life.
Many ICO participants come back again and again to build their skills. Richard remembers taking some kids on a fishing trip to the Gila Wilderness, and then running into one of them two weeks later in the same spot. He had liked it so much that he brought his family with him. “I love seeing that kind of thing happening,” says Richard, with obvious pride in his voice. He has seen kids bike 25 miles in two hours, and he once got a participant to ride 100 miles. “For young kids, to put out a sustained effort is profound,” says the ICO leader. “Usually they sprint and then quit for a while.”
Going on ICO trips also exposes kids to different ways of thinking and observing, away from the urbanized environment. On one memorable occasion, Richard was leading a hike up the Superstition Mountains through thickets of cactus, when a child asked him; “Who planted all these cactuses?”
Even vocabulary changes when kids grow up disconnected from the natural world. “It’s not the ground to them,” says Richard. “It’s the floor.”
Richard has volunteered for ICO since 1994, and when asked what advice he would give to people thinking about doing so, he responded “The meaning of life comes from doing stuff. I can’t imagine why anyone would hesitate to do it.”
Any Sierra Club member can volunteer with their local ICO group. Learn moreabout Inspiring Connections Outdoors, find a group near you, or start your own!
