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Making a living playing outdoors
Orange County High School grad Ben Morton, an outdoor education major, is spending the summer teaching kids about the outdoors.
Date published: 8/3/2006 By CATHY JETT By CATHY JETT Ben Morton has an easy way to help youngsters learn the importance of holding a canoe paddle correctly. The T-shaped grip, he told the 12 students crowded around a canoe at the Virginia Outdoor Center, can easily knock out someone's teeth if mishandled. "Just remember that if you swing the paddle by the shaft, you can get 'some here teeth.' You know, some are here, some are there," he said, checking for smiles to make sure they understood. "I always want to see your hand on the T-grip." Morton, a 2004 Orange County High School graduate enrolled in the adventure sports program at Garrett College in Garrett County, Md., is teaching whitewater paddling and rock climbing adventure classes for 9- to 15-year-olds this summer. He's hoping the experience at the Virginia Outdoor Center, located on a leafy drive off Fall Hill Avenue near the Rappahannock River, will eventually lead to a career in the emerging outdoor adventure field. "I took a whitewater kayaking class here in 2004 and decided this is what I wanted to do," said Morton. His timing couldn't be better, according to Mike Logstan, executive director of Adventuresports Institute, part of Garrett College and Frostburg State University. It began offering the first adventure sports degree program of its kind in the country in 1992. Adventure sports businesses, such as companies that offer white-water rafting trips, are starting to diversify so they can stay competitive and be open year round, he said. They're also facing a demand from the public for more professionally trained staff. "When I was a guide in the '70s, it wasn't unusual to get clients who wanted all the adrenalin rush they could get," Logstan said. "Then word started to spread of accidents and fatalities in adventure sports. Now training guides has become a more important aspect of the industry." The Adventuresports Institute offers a one-year certificate and a two-year associate's degree that are designed to train students not only how to do such things as canoeing, mountain biking and rock climbing safely, but to know how to exercise good judgment. "Our fun doesn't come from taunting nature," Logstan said. "We learn how to work with nature and learn the forces and action of nature to maximize enjoyment and minimize risk."
Date published: 8/3/2006
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