“The mountains are calling and I must go”
-John Muir
Sonlight was founded in 1979, as a backpack program for high school students. 34 years later Sonlight still has a vibrant backpack program, The program has a base at Sonlight, on the north side of the road, separate from the resident camp. Our season starts at the end of June, when typically the snow pack in the high country is melted enough for trails to be accessible. Some weeks we guide organized church groups, other weeks are Sonlight camps for individual kids. TJ Aguilera and Ashley Shoemaker are the 2012 guides, Nick Kohn is backup to the program as Quartermaster.
TJ Aguilera has spent summers at Sonlight since 2008. 2012 will be his second summer as backpack guide. He is from Tucson, Arizona studying English at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He guides for the University of Arizona Outdoor Program when he’s not in the Colorado high country in the summer.
Ashley Shoemaker hails from Michigan, and is an avid outdoors gal. She has logged trail miles on the Appalachian Trail, and instructed students both in the US and in the Dominican Republic.
She joins Sonlight for her first summer in 2012.
Still space in some of the Sonlight backpack trips: It’s not too late to join a trip for an adventure you won’t forget.