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Wilderness Passage Site

Wilderness Track Options: Backpacking, Canoeing, and Rock Climbing

Your wilderness trip will take you on one of three amazing adventures to enjoy God’s creation. Your trip will provide close community, facilitate spiritual growth, and prepare you for the transition into college. Wilderness Passage is a completely technology free experience, allowing you to fully connect with your peers in creation.  Previous wilderness and camping experience are not necessary.   

During the registration process students can choose their preference for one of the three wilderness trip options: Backpacking, Canoeing, and Rock Climbing. Keep reading to learn more about your options!

Location, Accommodations, and Food for the Wilderness Track

Lake Superior shoreline Our People Variant

Location

The sites of the wilderness locations will vary day by day as students journey through The Superior National Forest’s varied wilderness environments.  

student setting up a tent

Accommodations

Students will live in backpacking tents and sleep under the stars. Leave No Trace principles will be employed to properly use the bathrooms in these pristine wilderness locations.  Wilderness Passage ends in a wilderness camp environment.

cooking in the wilderness

Food

Food will be prepared by students while on their trip. We can accommodate medically necessary dietary needs when given advance notice in your registration form!

"Passage was such a formative and amazing experience to have before starting my time here at Wheaton. The time spent in the wilderness allowed me to disconnect and reflect before having to adapt to the changes of college life." — Ethan Roth '25

Sample Schedule of Wilderness Trips

Moments on the Wilderness Tracks

Passage registration opens January 5, 2024 

 

"Passage was a great way to make new friends and really helped with the transition into college life. It was an amazing bonding experience to be backpacking with total strangers, with no technology, and living 10 days in the wilderness! It was the best way to take a step back and focus on the Lord before moving onto campus." — Kathryn Skinner '25
Passage was a fun adventure and a great way to meet new people before the transition to college. It put me in a new environment that forced me to try new things, and had a blast with the girls in my group! — Sarah Schwartz '25
The rock climbing Passage Wilderness trip I was blessed to be a part of heightened my anticipation of the next four years at Wheaton and showed me to embrace the challenge of change. My time at Passage was full of laughter, joy, excitement, tears, and learning alongside fellow classmates and amazing leaders. Throughout the trip, we made up songs while hiking, shouted encouragement from the top of the cliffs, and held life-giving conversations centered on the goodness of God and his work in our lives. — Arabela Escareño '25
Passage was one of the most formative times of my life. I was stretched in ways that I didn’t know I could handle and met some of my best friends at Wheaton. I grew in my faith and became so much more confident in myself. Wilderness Passage was an amazing way to begin college.” — Ellie Swigle '25