Today Julie Perry, a wilderness guide, oversees the line of hikers. Unlike the young adults she’s leading, Perry wears a dark green jacket. Her long ponytail hangs down the center of her back. At the moment, the group has stopped because one of the teens has fallen down for no apparent reason. "Ouch, my back," Carrie* says, giggling as she hits the trail. "My back and my neck." She looks up for assistance, but everyone just waits. Face down in the snow, Carrie takes a deep breath. "Come on. You can do it," Perry says with a slight southern accent. She grasps a strap on Carrie’s large black backpack, and after a few motionless seconds Carrie awkwardly gets to her feet. Soon the group is back on the trail, slogging toward its next food ration. For the last eight days, these teenagers have trudged through the Waldo Lake Wilderness Area in central Oregon as participants of a three week wilderness therapy program run by Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy Expeditions (CFWT). Based in Albany, Oregon, this organization takes approximately 325 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 into wilderness areas in Oregon and Northern California each year. CFWT is one of approximately 40 wilderness therapy programs operating across the United States. Ranging in length from three weeks to several months, the programs attempt to bridge the gap between outpatient services and inpatient programs and try to help adolescents overcome psychological problems, drug addiction and emotional issues. By removing them from their comfortable world and immersing them in nature, the programs hope that each teen will be able to see the consequences of rebellious behavior more clearly. Chris Elgin (center) is one of the few licensed therapists in the nation to be sent on such treks. Accompanied by two guides and a licensed therapist, the teens hike at least 3 miles each day, cook their own food, set up their own camps and participate in group therapy sessions every evening. Parents choose to send most of the program participants, but CFWT also handles teens sentenced by the court or referred by other care facilities such as boarding schools or residential treatment centers. According to Chris Elgin, the licensed therapist on the trek, trust is the key component that makes wilderness programs successful. By working together in uncomfortable circumstances, the staff and the teens build an essential relationship. "Out here, the [teenagers] are out of balance and must rely on someone else," he says. Slowly each teen starts to realize that certain actions have specific consequences. Although this is only Perry’s second trek with CFWT, she can relate to the troubled teens in her charge. "I was a Freer kid; I just didn’t get sent," she says. "I got involved in drugs and alcohol real quick. I wasn’t into sororities like my sisters. Sometimes I’d just disappear. Once I slept out on the railroad tracks. It was real tragic. I woke up naked, covered in vomit." Born in Jackson, Mississippi, to a seventh generation Mississippian family, Perry left the state five years ago. "I was walking this weird line. All my friends and I were shooting heroin and doing coke. One day, I just decided it was time to leave." Perry ended up in Oregon and quickly fell in love with the Northwest. She started spending a lot of time outdoors and pursued a degree in psychology at Reed College. After graduating, she saw wilderness therapy as a way to integrate both interests. "I thought if I could do both, all the better," she says. This morning before the hiking started, Perry stood talking with Elgin and Rob Voss, the lead wilderness guide. Underneath a blue tarp strung between trees for shelter, the staff discussed what to do about Megan, one of the seven teens on the CFWT trek. Whether it’s because of her recent drug use or severe depression, she just wouldn’t budge this morning. Elgin, the therapist for the trek, referred to Megan’s condition as "zero state." Two weeks ago, Megan had no idea she would be 20 miles from civilization. She had run away from an all-girls boarding school in central Oregon and immediately shifted back into her drug habit, a crank addiction that has lasted for two years. The school caught up with Megan and sent her to CFWT, but she had been struggling to adjust to the outdoors. Perry got Megan out of her green and yellow striped tent and brought her into the conversation. With an encouraging tone, Voss started talking to Megan. "What I hear you saying is that you have nothing to feel good about, right?" Voss asked. "Yeah," she said with her head lowered. "Well, if you get up and, with a little help, you pack up your stuff and hike in the snow and then set up camp somewhere else, then you can look back on today and say ‘I did something that was not easy today.’ And that’s something to feel good about," Voss said. His words clearly inspired Megan, who decided, with help from Perry, to at least try to hike. After spending an hour packing up her campsite, the group finally got moving — a full three hours behind schedule. For a long time, these kids have gotten away with not following rules, from either the law or their parents," Elgin says. "Out here they have to do it. They have to hike. They have to cook and set up their [tents]. Here, if you don’t start a fire, you don’t eat food. There, if you don’t study for a test, you don’t get an A. Who cares about an A? Out here, life is tangible. They build self-esteem, and when it’s all over, there is a sense of pride." * The names of the teens in this article have been changed to protect their anonymity. These photographs are from a different trek with Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy Expeditions.