Adventure is for everyone

Sleeping in a tent among the Douglas firs at Larrabee.

Swooping along an undulating mountain bike path on Galbraith.

Sharing eye contact with a sea lion while kayaking calm waters in Bellingham Bay.

They’re iconic PNW experiences that some would argue are almost essential to the communities and culture of the Pacific Northwest. 

But getting out there is much easier for some families than others. 

Financial, logistical and language barriers can prevent kids in under-resourced communities from getting outside to try adventure sports, so they often miss that shared experience—not to mention the healthy, healing activities kids need to build resilience. 

That’s where the non-profit Vamos Outdoors Project comes in, offering outdoor recreation and academic opportunities to Latine youth who are adjusting to a new country, culture and language—and may have experienced traumas like family separation.

“Research shows outdoor activities and healthy habits build positive childhood experiences that mitigate the effects of trauma,” says Andy Basabe, ’12, B.A., and ’21, M.A., who founded Vamos about six years ago. 

“Bellingham and Whatcom County have a lot of these outdoor enrichment resources and programs for youth, but there were barriers, and programs weren’t connecting to the Latino community,” says Basabe, who earned two degrees from the College of the Environment, as well as a certificate in teaching English to speakers of other languages. 

Before Vamos, Basabe was leading bilingual backpacking trips for English- and Spanish-speaking youth. Watching all those kids stand giddy and agog at the awesome mountain views they had earned, Basabe began to see the irony: In a community that prides itself on being outdoorsy, barriers to getting outdoors can keep people from feeling like they’re part of the community.

Today, Vamos has helped thousands of kids and teens in Whatcom and Skagit County try out mountain biking, rock climbing, boating, backpacking, snowboarding and swimming. 

All Vamos programs are free of charge, including gear, food and transportation, to Latine, migrant, newcomer and multilingual youth. 

Kids in some migrant families have a particularly tough time getting out to experience these activities, Basabe says. Parents are working long hours and are unable to take their kids out for a day of biking, and they’re reluctant to send them on excursions with strangers, he says. 

Most of the Vamos staff speak Spanish or have a shared cultural background with the families, which helps build trust. And that trust enables Vamos to act as a bridge between migrant families and other community outdoor sports organizations like the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition, Mount Baker Ski Area, the Bellingham Community Boating Center and the YMCA, who all partner with Vamos. 

One recent state grant funded an eight-week biking program, teaching middle- and high-schoolers how to bike safely on roads and on mountain trails. “They did an eight-week course and got a brand-new bike at the end of the program, when they graduated,” says Alan Alatorre-Barajas, ’17, B.A., and ’22, M.Ed., a member of the Vamos leadership team, which is made up of mostly WWU alumni. 

Vamos also runs academic enrichment programs, including summer and after-school programs with school districts in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Staff member Meriel Kaminsky, ’20, B.S. and B.A., for example, works with WWU grad students in geology and chemistry to provide science enrichment activities at Burlington-Edison High School in Skagit County, including field trips to the geology labs at WWU in Bellingham and the marine science labs at Shannon Point in Anacortes. 

The first students Kaminsky started working with several years ago are now graduating from high school. One was recently accepted to an environmental science program at the University of Washington. It’s immensely rewarding, she says, “getting to be a part of student’s experience as they grow up and go on to the next step.”

For younger kids, Vamos also hosts afterschool book parties featuring books in Spanish to reinforce and celebrate kids’ bilingual reading skills. 

These book parties are what first drew Alatorre-Barajas to Vamos. After completing his master’s degree in adult and higher education he wanted to use his curriculum-building skills to help with the book parties. 

But soon he was out leading kids on adventures, too, including indoor climbing at the YMCA and the Vital Climbing Gym. It was a little daunting at first, he says. While he had learned about backpacking with the North Cascades Institute while growing up in Burlington, he’s no risk-taker. 

“Climbing, I think, is the most intimidating and scary,” he says. “I’m terrified of heights.” 

But he channeled his fear into becoming belay-certified to give kids more chances to climb. And he shares his own fears—and his progress—with the kids who get a stomachache at just the thought of climbing all the way to the top of the wall.

“It’s helped me connect with them a little more,” he says. “It’s a matter of trying it out and finding strategies to avoid that little voice in their head.”