Elements Traverse offers a specialized outdoor treatment program tailored to young adults facing mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, neurodiversity, technology overuse, and substance use. Intentionally small and mixed-gender, our nature-based therapy program provides a safe environment where young adults can develop essential skills to overcome obstacles hindering their personal, academic, and professional goals.
At Traverse, we combine the healing elements of nature, physical activity, fresh air, and sunshine with individual and group therapy to maximize treatment outcomes for our young adult clients. Our holistic approach leverages the therapeutic benefits of outdoor experiences to promote stress reduction, physical health, and emotional resilience, complementing the insights and support gained through individual and group therapy. This unique combination provides a dynamic and effective framework for clients to experience lasting positive change and well-being through outdoor experiential therapy.
About Elements Traverse
Traverse has been successfully serving young adult clients since 2017. We are owner-operated and focused on offering the most effective and engaging treatment program for young adults in the outdoors.
Traverse is led by one of the owners, Eric Fawson, LCSW, which exemplifies Elements’ owner-operated approach. Eric has 20 years of experience working as a therapist and over 10 years of treating young people through outdoor experiential therapy.
Our Approach
At Traverse, we believe in the transformative power of adventure therapy for young adults. Our experiential adventure program provides weekly activities that are intentionally designed to align with both group and individual therapeutic goals. By utilizing a “Choose Your Challenge” adventure model, we empower clients to step outside their comfort zones and experience personal growth in a supportive and nurturing setting.
Our holistic wellness approach addresses the mind, body, and spirit, with a focus on restoring the circadian rhythm through physical activity, fresh air, sunshine, and the majestic beauty of the Utah landscape.
By integrating trauma-informed therapeutic techniques and evidence-based practices into our program, we ensure that our young adult clients and their families receive personalized care that meets their unique needs. Whether it’s through outdoor activities, group therapy sessions, individual counseling, or family programs, we strive to empower our young adult clients to cultivate emotional strength and well-being.
Why Choose Traverse?
Small, Intimate Setting: Our intentionally small program size creates a safe and supportive environment for young adults to heal and grow. Our group size ranges from 4 – 10 young adult clients. We utilize a high staff to client ratio providing our young adult clients with a great deal of individualized support.
Adventure Activities: Weekly outdoor activities such as rock climbing, rappelling, mountain biking, stand up paddleboarding, and other team-building activities are integrated with therapeutic goals to promote personal development and skill-building. No prior experience is necessary with any activity. All adventure activities are tailored to all skill levels.
Holistic Wellness: We prioritize the well-being of the whole person, addressing mental, physical, and spiritual needs. We move our bodies every day whether that is hiking, participating in an adventure activity, practicing yoga, or playing games. We teach mindfulness practices such as meditation and journaling as part of our curriculum. Our menu includes a wide array of fruits and vegetables with a diversity of meal options. Clients consistently say they eat better here than they do at home!
Restorative Environment: The natural beauty of south-central Utah provides a serene backdrop for healing and renewal. We are in the midst of red-rock country during the winter months, and then we transition up to the cool alpine mountains in the summer months.
Experienced Professionals: Our team consists of experienced clinicians and outdoor specialists dedicated to supporting each young adult’s journey towards wellness.
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Treatment Modalities
Outdoor Living
Three to five days a week, our young adult clients backpack from campsite to campsite. Every week, there is a day of adventure activity. Regardless of the week’s hiking or adventure schedule, there is personal time built in for clients to work on therapeutic assignments, letter writing, reading, as well as time for games, conversations, and group processing of different therapeutic topics.
Two days a week, the therapist visits the young adult group wherever they are in the field area. Individual and group therapy sessions happen on these days. The therapist also brings out mail for clients from family and friends.
Elements Traverse incorporates adventure therapy in order to complement our strong therapeutic foundation. We believe adventure activities provide a unique experience for our young adult clients during their outdoor therapy experience.
The challenge of adventure (including rock climbing, rappelling, canyoneering, stand-up paddleboarding, rafting, fly-fishing and low ropes course initiatives) can provide a host of powerful teaching opportunities. Positive outcomes include increases in self confidence, self-efficacy, problem-solving skills, effective communication, self-awareness, trust, and developing healthy coping strategies.
In keeping with our commitment to provide the highest quality programming, Elements is aligned with American Mountain Guide Association’s (AMGA) standards and training to facilitate our adventure-based experiences. AMGA is established as an international industry leader in training and certification for climbing and mountaineering.
Adventure activities offer our clients an alternative view to challenges in life, and how to negotiate them with a sense of empowerment. We believe outdoor experiential therapy through adventure accelerates the therapeutic process while building confidence to make healthier overall decisions.
Our outdoor therapy program uses every opportunity available to incorporate the entire family system wherever possible. As such, each family will have a host of opportunities to engage with their family members in the program, be it via therapeutically driven letters and phone calls, embedded in the group for one or more visits, or immersed in a 3-day Family Focus. Most of our parents engage in all aspects of family communication and visits, including bringing siblings or other close family members out for the Family Focus.
Change happens when one feels safe, inspired, and confident to make one’s life their own. We believe it’s our responsibility to create this environment while empowering our young adult clients through open and honest dialogue, and concrete evidence-based resources. We provide extraordinary nature-based therapy to our clients that results in life-long memories, clarity on who they are and who they want to be, better relationships with their families, and tools to create the life they really want to live.
Academic Credits
For our young adult clients still needing high school academic credits, we can offer up to 3.0 credits for clients who complete the Traverse outdoor therapy program.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t clients bring their own gear and equipment from home?
We have used our 15 years in operation to constantly work towards finding the best gear we can provide for life in the outdoors, which is always found somewhere in the be balance between light weight and durability. Some tech gear is perfect for what we do, and some might be top shelf, but is only designed for short stints in the outdoors (folks commonly called “weekend warriors”) or for folks who go exercise outside but who never sit around a campfire for warmth and camaraderie. Over the years we have constantly been evaluating, reevaluating, and tweaking our gear offerings to continue to provide the best gear possible for the specific needs of our clients and staff.
When we provide the gear, we know what we are working with and what it can handle. We also can replace it should it be damaged or lost.
When our clients are out in their group, all the external signifiers of their identity are no longer important. They are who they are, and no matter how they dressed at home or what cliques they belonged to, all our clients get to show their authentic self from inside out, not based on how they appear on the outside.
Do you use deprivation of food to punish clients?
No. We never withhold food or use it, or any of their direct needs, as a consequence.
Does your program philosophy or approach ever ascribe to or attempt to “break clients down”?
No. Not only has the concept of “breaking clients down in order to build them back up” been thoroughly debunked in all clinical research studies as harmful and ineffective, none of us or our program staff would work at a place that was designed to force its will on others. There is unfortunately still evidence of “boot camp” “tough love” or “scared straight” programs out there, but we unequivocally condemn that approach as harmless and completely ineffective. We believe that clients need to feel psychologically, emotionally, and physically safe in order to affect internalized change. They need buy in, not pressure or force. The outdoors is a place to gain perspective, empowerment, and buy in.
Do you ever force clients to hike?
No. Hiking is of course a part of the program and the only way to get from one gorgeous side of our field to another. There are all kinds of beautiful spots for adventure along the way, but we encourage our clients to get there under their own power. We believe in exercise and movement, we believe that our clients are capable of far more than they think, and we believe that nature is the best place to find oneself. That said, we never hike faster than the capability of our slowest hiker, and we never force clients to hike. On average, our hikes are only 2-3 miles in length and hikes happen 2-5 days a week, with a typical week having 3 hikes.
Do you have any external oversight into your practices?
Yes. Both by The Utah State Department of Health and Human Services (Licensing) and the Association of Experiential Education (Accreditation). The state of Utah is well known for its history of outdoor therapeutic programming, some of which in decades past was unfortunately proven to not be very therapeutic. As a result of mistakes made by programs that bear almost no resemblance to our own, Utah has the most robust laws that we know around outdoor treatment. These laws regulate nearly every detail of outdoor life, the qualifications for staff positions, grievance processes, confidential communication with parents and guardians, and much more. We at Elements welcome any and all state oversight as we have nothing to hide. Our state licensing representatives have the right to (and frequently do) arrive unannounced and interview our clients privately to ensure they are being treated with dignity and respect.
AEE has written “best practice” standards for outdoor therapeutic treatment that are equally robust, and meet or exceed (usually far exceed) what is required by the state of Utah. They, in conjunction with the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council (OBH), created an accreditation process that thoroughly reviews all policies and practices by accredited programs. Elements is proud to have been the 3rd program to achieve such accreditation and has maintained good standing since then.
Does Elements force or encourage families to have their children transported to treatment?
No. Elements has no direct or indirect, legal or financial connection to any transportation service provider, and the decision to use such a service is solely the decision of the family itself. Elements encourages its families to bring their loved one in person, yet parents are the only parties who could know how to safely get their loved one engaged in the treatment process. Regardless of how any client enters treatment, family work is a key component of therapy at Elements, and families are involved in multiple entry points weekly; and asked to visit in person at least once during the process.
In its ideal form, the transportation process is done with and through the family members, with as much transparency as possible without compromising individual safety. Transportation to treatment is no substitute for up front and transparent communication within the family, at the very least in the moment if safety precludes any other options.
Experience Traverse
Join us at Elements Traverse and embark on a therapeutic journey towards healing, growth, and self-discovery. To learn more about our outdoor therapy program for young adults or to inquire about enrollment, please contact us today. We look forward to working with you on your path to wellness and transformation.
(866) 542-2252 
