A New Path Forward for Colorado Young Adults
Legacy Outdoor Adventures is a licensed residential treatment center in Utah that offers adventure therapy for Colorado residents looking for a new path to recovery. Serving residents from Denver, Colorado Springs, and other major cities, we offer a unique, transformative experience that utilizes the healing power of nature. We don’t just offer comprehensive addiction and mental health treatment; we also work to improve your overall well-being for lasting and joyful recovery.
Why Colorado Residents Seek Treatment Outside Their Home State
When it comes to mental health and addiction treatment, the quality and variety of care can vary greatly depending on where you live. Some areas lack sufficient resources or services, or may have long wait times. Seeking treatment locally can come with several challenges, such as exposure to specific triggers or people that can increase the likelihood of relapse. Others may not have access to the support network or aftercare services needed for long-term recovery after treatment.
These issues often necessitate seeking treatments outside your hometown or even your home state so you can access the specialized mental health programs and safe environment needed for healing. As Utah neighbors Colorado, seeking treatment here offers the space needed for healing, while remaining familiar enough in its environment to evoke comfort.
Why Utah and Why Our Adventure Therapy Model?
Legacy Outdoor Adventures is an accredited, licensed residential treatment center with a team of licensed clinicians waiting to help you or your loved one overcome their mental health challenges.
Our Utah location offers a wide range of terrains ideal for multiple types of adventure therapy experiences, such as rock climbing, backpacking, and fishing. Cabins at Base are situated in the wilderness, allowing for an immersive experience.
Clients choose us because we offer small enrollment sizes (max 24 people), accreditations from the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council (OBH) and the Joint Commission, and an on-site nursing team. This enables us to provide a safe, empowering, and quality experience for all of our clients.
Adventure Therapy vs. Wilderness Therapy
When people think of wilderness therapy, they often think of struggling teens being sent to an isolated boot camp wilderness as a punishment. Legacy does not use a punitive model of treatment and does not use outdated wilderness models. We use modern wilderness therapy in conjunction with adventure therapy as a means of helping individuals reconnect with nature to promote personal introspection and growth.
Legacy mainly focuses on adventure therapy, which uses challenging activities that require clients to work with each other and overcome their personal fears. All activities are supervised and led by licensed guides. On-site nurses and transparent accountability make these activities as safe as possible.
Clients live in cabins at Base, where part of the week is spent in therapeutic outdoor activities and the rest indoors for clinical therapy. This hybrid approach takes our adventure therapy program to the next level, providing comprehensive care that addresses a wide variety of needs.
How a Change of Environment Supports Healing
Mental health challenges, such as trauma, mental health disorders, and/or addiction, can be immensely overwhelming to deal with. Modern society is full of triggers that can make it difficult for someone to recover in peace. With so many distractions, it can be easy to get lost in your pain. That’s why it’s sometimes best for someone to choose a different location to recover in that’s free from these distractions and triggers, especially when specialized care is not readily available.
Leaving your comfort zone opens up new doors for growth and transformation. A new environment with structured clinical care and trauma-informed adventure therapy can accelerate desired change and help you reconnect with yourself. This life-saving care offers not just an opportunity to heal, but to reconnect with yourself who has been buried under trauma and pain.
Legacy Outdoor Adventures is here to help as a licensed, evidence-based residential treatment program in Utah. We are experienced in helping families from Colorado and other states find compassionate, high-quality care that utilizes our unique natural environment to facilitate change. Accredited and trusted by the Joint Commission, you can trust that our outdoor rehab program is safe and effective.
Heal in the wild.Begin your recovery adventure now.
What Makes Our Wilderness Therapy Program Unique
Legacy is licensed by the state of Utah to provide mental health and addiction treatment. This includes accreditation from the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council (OBH) and the Joint Commission, which ensures that our outdoor therapy program is safe and effective.
We take a personalized approach to treatment, with a maximum capacity of 24 clients separated in a men’s and women’s program. This allows us to address the unique needs of each client while providing a truly life-changing experience.
Legacy offers comprehensive mental and behavioral health care that blends evidence-based clinical and holistic modalities to promote personal growth and healing with outcome and research-backed results. We don’t just say our therapeutic program is effective; we have the data to prove it.
Who We Serve
Legacy serves young adults between the ages of 18 and 35+ who are struggling with addiction, trauma, and/or co-occurring mental health challenges. Clients must be motivated, willing to seek meaningful life changes, and prepared to stick with treatment.
As we utilize adventure therapy and the wilderness as part of our treatment program, clients must be physically and mentally capable enough to participate in these activities safely. Colorado families seeking care with us must have strong out-of-network insurance.
What We Treat
Legacy is prepared to help clients struggling with a wide variety of mental health challenges. This includes substance abuse, substance use disorder (SUD), addiction, and other co-occurring mental health disorders. Some examples of other mental health challenges we can also treat include:
- Eating disorders
- Self-harm
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Low self-esteem
- Trauma
- Depression
- Behavioral issues
- Anxiety
- Lack of motivation
- Fear of failure, trust, and social connections
- Lack of motivation
Having two or more mental health challenges occurring at the same time is known as a dual diagnosis. Substance use issues rarely occur alone. As such, Legacy is fully equipped to provide specialized dual diagnosis treatment as needed for each client.
What Colorado Families Can Expect
We understand how difficult it can be for families to navigate mental health challenges when seeking treatment. As such, we strive to provide a comforting and personalized experience to make recovery a journey of discovery, not a punishment. We offer a family program to better help families and their loved ones find mutual healing and support.
Our Treatment Services
Legacy takes a holistic approach to treatment that combines clinical and holistic modalities for a personalized treatment plan. Comprehensive assessments are the first step in recovery at Legacy, as they help our clinicians identify your personal needs. Our treatment programs are specially designed to treat substance use, mental health, and dual diagnosis.
We focus on nature-based therapy approaches, such as adventure therapy, equine therapy, and positive outdoor experiences, to take full advantage of Utah’s unique wilderness. This experiential education approach directly helps clients who may have struggled with typical addiction treatment methodologies.
Clients also participate in clinical therapy while at Base, and can have individual and group therapy. Clinical modalities such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) are used when appropriate. Psychiatric support is available for clients needing medication management as part of their treatment plan.
We extensively plan for post-treatment care for our clients, which includes aftercare planning and coordinated support. While in treatment, clients learn essential life skills, such as emotional regulation, communication, coping skills, and wellness, as part of relapse prevention training. We maintain close communication with alumni, with some choosing to return as guides. Once you are a part of Legacy, you become part of our sober community.
Ready for an adventure in healing?Discover our unique wilderness therapy programs.
The Therapeutic Impact of Outdoor Experiences
Therapeutically, harnessing the power of nature can significantly improve an individual’s mental health. Engaging in outdoor experiences can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, enhancing mood and cognitive function. Directly engaging with nature promotes emotional regulation and self-confidence. Sometimes, being out in nature can put our problems into perspective and teach us that healing is a natural process.
That’s why Legacy Outdoor Adventures believes in the effectiveness of our adventure therapy program for Colorado residents. It’s a change of scenery that promotes peace and self-reflection, all of which are needed to inspire change from within.
Base Camp: Stability + Growth
Our residential treatment home base consists of our residential treatment center and comfortable, modern resident cabins situated right in the wilderness for a private escape away from city life. Clients are separated by sex, with a men’s program and a sister program for women.
We utilize consistent routines and predictable schedules to promote accountability and inspire participation. This schedule consists of outdoor work and indoor therapy sessions, along with daily clinical involvement. Clients who need additional medical services, such as medication management, are assisted during this time. Daily chores, helping with meal preparation, and cleaning up are important to teach life skills needed for daily life post-treatment.
Of course, clients are given time to simply enjoy nature for recreation and self-reflection. Having downtime prevents burnout and encourages clients to internalize the lessons they have learned in treatment.
Life After Treatment
Completing treatment is not the end of a person’s recovery journey. Legacy Outdoor Adventures has a bustling sober community. For Colorado residents who graduate from Legacy, you also become part of this community. We plan for post-treatment aftercare and support services to keep you in recovery and on the path to continued growth. Once you achieve sobriety and address your mental health needs, you’ll find a life full of joy. Getting started only takes a single phone call.
FAQs
We only offer wilderness therapy alongside our adventure therapy program in Utah, though we do accept clients from Colorado.
Adventure and wilderness therapy are both experiential therapies that utilize outdoor settings to promote healing and personal growth. However, there are some key differences.
Adventure therapy employs a base camp model for clients to live in for most of their time in therapy. Clients will utilize physically challenging activities with a higher perceived element of risk that require them to rely on each other, such as rope courses, rock climbing, and ziplining. This is done to help clients overcome their fears, work as a team, build inner courage, trust each other, and develop communication skills. Adventure therapy uses a variety of outdoor activities as a way to promote personal growth and development.
Wilderness therapy uses the natural world as a therapeutic tool to promote personal growth, self-awareness, and emotional healing. Activities used in wilderness therapy focus more on an individual’s personal connection with the wilderness itself, such as hiking, camping, and developing survival skills. Wilderness therapy uses the wilderness environment as the primary tool for therapy.
Whether one therapy will be used over the other depends on the individual’s physical and cognitive abilities. Wilderness therapy and adventure therapy can be used in conjunction to give comprehensive treatment.
Families seeking wilderness therapy from Colorado often don’t fit well in a typical treatment program. There may be long wait lists, or local treatment centers simply don’t offer what they are looking for. Sometimes, seeking a new environment away from local triggers can give a person the space they need to heal.
The many national parks in Utah make it an attractive place to seek outdoor therapy, which makes it a popular choice for out-of-state residents. Since Utah is a neighboring state to Colorado, travel to and from Legacy takes less time compared to non-neighboring states.
Yes, Legacy Outdoor Adventures can treat adolescents who are at least 18 years old. This is to ensure that each client has the cognitive and physical ability to participate in our treatment programs.
Our adventure therapy program typically lasts for 90 days, but this time can be adjusted based on the individual client’s needs.
Legacy Outdoor Adventures accepts most insurance plans. Our friendly, experienced admissions team can guide you through verifying your insurance coverage. We work with insurance providers to see if your plan includes us as in-network. Clients from states outside of Utah must have strong out-of-network, out-of-state insurance benefits.
There is always some risk to participating in outdoor activities. Clients are screened to make sure they are mentally and physically able to safely participate in these activities. Guides are highly trained to lead clients through outdoor activities, and on-site nurses are on standby in case of accidents.
Legacy is committed to transparency and, as such, participates in industry-level data reporting of all injuries required of OBH Council programs. Though there is risk, we make sure all activities are as safe as possible.
Yes, Legacy Outdoor Adventures treats substance abuse, addiction, and co-occurring mental health disorders. We also assist clients with mental health challenges such as low self-esteem or self-sabotage. Each client will receive a personalized treatment plan designed to address all these issues for full, comprehensive care.
Clients at Legacy stay in modern cabins at our treatment center, which we call Base. They stay at Base for a few days a week for individual and group therapy. In some cases, clients will receive weekly evaluations from a psychiatrist at Base. Clients participate in normal activities, such as doing laundry or eating meals prepared by our in-house chef.
Because Base is situated in the wilderness, it makes it easy for clients to immediately go off into therapeutic outdoor activities and therapies. Clients may simply relax at Base when not engaged in therapy or chores for a transformative wilderness experience.
Our admissions team will help navigate you through the logistics of travel for yourself or your loved one. We understand that traveling out of state can be difficult, so we will work with you to coordinate travel and make necessary arrangements.
