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EXPERIENCE THE OUTDOOR CLASSROOM
Western New Mexico University is located in Silver City in southwestern New Mexico, on the southern edge of the world's first Wilderness Area, 3.3 million acres and the third largest National Forest in the U.S., the
Gila National Forest.
Outdoor Classroom destinations include unique and challenging natural areas such as, White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns, and locations in the extensive Gila Wilderness. Classes and trips include investigation of sites of historical significance from pre-Columbian, Spanish, Mexican, and Territorial eras of New Mexico history.
Adventure-based education
Classes and Trips designed to:
  • build and strengthen inter- and intra-personal relationships
  • develop leadership skills
  • build community
  • promote personal health
  • encourage understanding and appreciation of the natural world
  • connect students to environmental awareness and self-discovery
It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.
— Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail