Forty miles away from any reliable cell service, a group of teenagers squat around a campfire. Aside from the waivers signed and a safety talk at the start of the evening, you’d be hard-pressed to tell we were in the midst of a pandemic—and that’s the point. Skate Wild has brought this small bubble of high schoolers together for a slice of far-from-the-norm normalcy during a chaotic summer, and to teach them wilderness survival skills. And skateboarding.
It may seem an odd pairing, outdoor education and skateboarding, until you recognize that both require a similar set of personal traits: confidence, self-reliance, and the urge to push oneself beyond fear. I’ve joined them here at my own behest—somewhat selfishly as means to get into the woods and escape a pandemic-surging Los Angeles, but mostly because everyone on this trip is looking for those same things. An escape. Camaraderie. Discovery.