Operation ROAM allowed me to grow as a person in ways that I can’t imagine I would have encountered so quickly and clearly, under different circumstances.

Facing the wilderness in a non-curated and completely ancient and extremely remote way, in Alaska, allowed me to experience a kind of wonder that I hadn’t felt since I was a child. Trusting in my abilities to carry my two hundred plus pound body and sixty plus pound pack over the tundra, exposed my own limitations and showed me that I wanted to be more fit, strong, mobile and flexible. Sitting in solitude under the midnight sun without wifi and a job to report to made me feel liberated in ways I want to feel again and I want others to be able to feel this too.

Operation ROAM awakened me to parts of myself that I had fallen out of touch with and that is worth more than any material item money could ever buy.