Photography courtesy of Roam Wild.
Adam Flores was a middle schooler in Minneapolis when his mom announced she’d signed him up for a 10-day YMCA wilderness camp.
“I said ‘No, I’m not going,’ and I didn’t talk to her for like a week,” Flores says. “She dropped me off at the bus stop anyway. I was pissed.”
But when the 10 days were up, Flores returned home with just one question.
“When can I go back?”
Now, almost 30 years later, Flores lives in Oak Cliff, works for Dallas ISD, and spends his springs and summers giving North Texas teens the same exposure to the outdoors that he says impacted him for the better.
The founder of the nonprofit organization Roam Wild, Flores leads groups of students aged 12 to 18 on trips to Mineral Wells State Park, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Trips last anywhere from a day to 10, and the groups embark on river rafting, hiking, rock climbing and canoeing excursions.
Since their first trip in 2021, Roam Wild has led 151 students on expeditions, and Flores says 15-20% of students return for a second trip.
“We are realizing more and more kids are enjoying this, especially kids who have not had this experience,” Flores says.
From the early days of his career in education — he started out working in a “Hippie Dippie” Colorado school that took an outdoors-heavy approach to learning — Flores knew he wanted to work with traditionally underserved students.
When he came to Dallas in 2014, he tried to “figure out what he wanted to do as a member of the Dallas community,” and realized there was a need for outdoor education for many Dallas students.
To remain accessible for any student, Roam Wild requires a small registration fee for each trip, and operates on a “pay what you can” tuition scale. With groups like Bridge Lacrosse and Uplift Luna Preparatory, who partner with Roam Wild and cover the group’s costs, some families never even see a tuition invoice.
David Higbee, executive director of Bridge Lacrosse, said he’d been looking for an organization like Roam Wild to partner with “for years.”
An organization that aims to “close the opportunity gap” for students interested in playing lacrosse, Higbee says the majority of his young athletes do not have any wilderness or outdoor experience prior to a Roam Wild trip.
“A lot of our kids who come from Southern Dallas, you know, that’s their sole environment they’ve had a lot of interaction with,” Higbee says. “Adam does a really good job of making these areas and the space very digestible and very accessible to them.”
Bridge Lacrosse has partnered with Roam Wild for seven trips so far. Six were rock climbing day trips to Mineral Wells, which Higbee chaperoned.
On a Mineral Wells trip, the students meet Flores and his team early in the morning to load up gear and drive to the state park nearly 80 miles west of Dallas. The group has a quick team-building session before jumping into two to three hours of intensive rock climbing.
After a lunch break, more team building activities and a hike, swim or canoe opportunity, everyone piles back into the vans to return home.
For some parents, especially those who didn’t grow up attending a camp and haven’t sent away their children before, even a day trip can bring nerves. Fifteen-year-old Alexis Salgado learned about the Roam Wild trips through his school, Uplift Luna, and has now been on trips to three states and Mineral Wells.
But when he first asked to join, his mother, Claudia Salgado, hesitated.
“I was really, really nervous. I let him go because he was so interested. It was the first time he’d ever asked to do something like this,” Claudia says. “When he came back, he was so excited. He was so happy. I could see in his behavior, he was more confident.”
Four trips later — three of which were multiple nights backpacking through state parks hours from home — Claudia says the impact she has seen in Alexis has been entirely positive. Where he was shy before, he is now sure of himself. She says watching her son’s independence and responsibility grow after each trip has been an unexpected reward.
It’s something Flores has believed in since he went through it himself.
Outdoor education has social, emotional, physical and intellectual benefits, studies show. Flores points to Roam Wild challenges such as rock climbing as major growth opportunities for young adults.
Outside of public speaking, a fear of heights is one of the most common fears people have, he says.
“(We’re) showing you can do hard things,” Flores says. “You can overcome difficult challenges.”
Alexis’ stories are a series of “I had never done that before.”
His first time visiting New Mexico, Arkansas and Oklahoma. His first time whitewater rafting. His first time catching and cooking a fish. His first time hiking all day and setting up camp.
During his first time rock climbing, learning to trust himself, his equipment and the person belaying him was key to overcoming his nerves.
“It was really scary at first, especially some of the other courses because we’d started on the easier ones,” Alexis says. “Whenever I got on the harder ones, it looked taller and harder to climb. And it was scary, but it was so fun.”
His “funniest” story ever is the time he was in Arkansas and got stuck in a thunderstorm after canoeing “all day” to camp. He remembers standing in the unexpected pouring rain, laughing and enjoying the sensation of being washed clean.
The organization has given him a new role model, too.
“I am very surprised how (Adam) can stay calm in most situations, especially like on the bigger trips,” Alexis says. “He’s really funny. He’s able to lighten the mood whenever the atmosphere seems heavy.”
In 2024, Flores expects to lead 135 kids into the wild. Programming should increase by 20% each year, he says, with the goal of serving 400 young adults a year.
Every now and then, Flores says he arrives to a trip’s morning load-up and can pick out the kid whose mom told them they were coming.
And, just like he once did, they arrive home saying “that wasn’t so bad.”
“That’s all I can ask for,” he says.
