YLA 2026: Growing Together in the North Cascades

Every summer, as the snow melts and makes its way down the Skagit River, high school students make their way upstream on Youth Leadership Adventures trips. They start their journey by boarding a van with the other students that they’ll be spending five or eight days in the wilderness with.

Many YLA students sign up because they want to go camping, backpacking, or just see the shimmering blue water of Ross Lake; they wind up leaving for their downstream journey with so much more.

On the first night of a trip this summer, we had an especially multilingual crew. Students and staff were swapping vocab and common phrases in Ukrainian, French, and Spanish. It’s not on every backpacking trip that you’re making new friends in so many different languages!

Over the course of the trips, students opened up to their trip mates. One student who was initially quiet and withdrawn from the group, opened up more and more as the trip went on.

At Community Day, they shared that they’d love to help other students have experiences like this in nature. “I learned that I can actually work with people I only knew for a couple of days and not be as anxious as I usually am. It makes me want to meet new people and go out into the world more!”

In addition to new friends, YLA students gained new appreciation for the environment. One student shared that “after experiencing the beauty on this trip, I think that I now have a deeper connection to nature and have more gratitude for the natural world.”

YLA students also supported and explored their public lands over the course of the trip. On every eight day trip, students and instructors did service work in North Cascades National Park and Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. This often looked like clearing trails, clipping back bushes, and cleaning up litter.

Service helped students see what goes into keeping these special places accessible and give back. “Being a part of the group, helping out my friends, and the Park Service showed me that I can be helpful.”

This summer YLA hosted several indigenous students who had lots of experience canoeing in traditional Coast Salish canoes. Including one student who joined their YLA trip right after they completed a Canoe Journey with other youth from their tribe. Of their experience on the trip, they said: “I felt most inspired while being on the canoe. I felt close to how my ancestors did.”

While these trips were just a week away from students’ regular lives, our 2026 participants experienced deep reflection, quiet in nature, and grew as leaders. Thank you to all of our YLA students for your curiosity, bravery, and tenacity. You inspire us all to take more action in our communities!

Thank you to the YLA Team! YLA Program Managers Kate Little and Neal Smeltzer, YLA Program Coordinators Kéan Schutte and Colleen Roberts; and Instructors Jenny Garcia-Barrera, Megan Paluska, Bella Lucente, Mykey Pazen, and Lydia Yates.

Written by Kate Little, photos by program staff. See all YLA 2026 trip photo albums at flickr.com/ncascades.