Has anyone’s child tried this?
Not my kid, @emsmom, but I do know two families with kids that have done it— one then did additional Outward Bound trainings and became an instructor eventually. Their kid loved that program. The other family’s student was facing some mental health challenges and it was not a good fit; the support they neded was not there… they would have been better off choosing a wilderness treatment program that focuses on those issues. Their child was unable to finish the program, and it created a lot of upset and stress for everyone involved.
I don’t know about Pathfinder, but I sent my son on an Outward Bound session in Colorado. He had a fabulous time and took a number of backpacking trips, some pretty aggressive, in college. In grad school, he has organized several trips in Yosemite, taking people without backpacking experience. It was a physically tough program and he said there were times when he (a 6’4" guy) would take some of the extra load from at least one of the young women who had no outdoor experience (he described a young woman who was a HS sprinter from inner-city LA, I think) and were actually crying with the strain. But, my sense from him is that by the end, everyone was glad they had gone.
Eons ago one of my college dorm random roommates was a rich OOS’er who had done Outward Bound the summer before. Must be nice to afford things like that. We needed summer jobs.
My S did a NOLS trip which was an amazing experience for him. I think it left a positive impact on him.