TOAD Talk: Brett Bearrows

Hi Everyone! 

For those of you who I haven’t met yet, I’m Ms. Bearrows, and I am new to Thacher this year. I work in admissions, live in Middle School, and will coach girls’ lacrosse this spring. I am your TOAD this week alongside Ms. Henderson. 

Since moving across the country in August, I have been asked one question more than any other: “What brought you to Thacher?” 

There are a number of obvious reasons why I made the decision to come here. The incredible setting and this wonderful community were huge factors. But ultimately, it was Thacher’s commitment to the outdoors– specifically the tradition of doing hard things in the backcountry– that resonated with me the most. 

I wasn’t raised in a family that went camping, and growing up in the Chicago suburbs, there weren’t ample opportunities nearby to do things like that anyway. My first experience with backcountry travel occurred by chance, and I’m convinced it was the first stepping stone on a path that led me to this incredible place. 

When I was 10, I attended a presentation at my local library for a summer camp in Northern Wisconsin. I was completely sold on the idea of staying in a cabin, making friendship bracelets, and swimming in the lake. When I got there, it was all of those things. However, there was a catch: the wilderness trip that all campers were required to go on, called “Trail.” For my age group, that meant a two-night canoe trip on Boulder Lake and its surrounding rivers. 

Let me tell you: that first trail trip was miserable.

It poured rain the entire first night, and as many of you experienced on your EDT’s this fall, waking up in a puddle inside a tent is demoralizing, to say the least. To make matters worse, we spent hours in “lightning stance” - crouched on our life jackets to avoid being struck. The final day was spent walking our boats through swamps and paddling aimlessly against whitecaps and high winds.

Paddling a canoe at that age was not easy, either. I didn’t have the strength to make significant headway with my paddle, and even if I had, I didn’t particularly care to. 

By the end of the 48-hour excursion, I’m not sure whether I was more dehydrated from refusing to drink purified lake water, or from the amount of tears I had shed. 

As uncomfortable as I was for the entirety of that trip, the feeling I had afterward –knowing I had survived a challenge that truly felt impossible– is something I will never forget. Yes, the distance we traveled back then could be covered in an afternoon and with little difficulty now, but Trail opened my eyes to how rewarding it feels to do something unimaginable and come out on the other side, something we spend a lot of time doing and talking about here at Thacher.  

My leader that year compared the benefits of Trail to filling up a water bottle: when you’re facing challenges, the bottle fills up with confidence and the belief that you can do hard things. When you’re not in the backcountry, you slowly drink from that water bottle until at some point, you run out– and hopefully return to camp just when you need it most. 

I kept chasing that feeling, and wanted to fill my metaphorical water bottle again and again. Before I knew it, I was the counselor leading the same 10-year-olds whose shoes I once filled. I had a new level of understanding for their struggle (and more realistic expectations for their ability to use a canoe paddle).

Experiencing that sense of accomplishment was so important to me that I continued to return to camp even when there were plenty of other more “serious” and “productive” things I could have been doing with my summers, and eventually, I was leading the more extensive trips in the wilderness leadership division at my camp. First, it was leading a 25-day trip in Wyoming; then a month-long canoeing trip in Canada; and most recently, 45 days backpacking in Alaska, which marked my 14th summer with the same camp I started at all those years ago. 

Each of those trips certainly included a handful of moments reminiscent of my first canoe trip when I was 10– moments where I cursed my decision to spend the summer cold, wet, and hungry. Asking myself “WHY did I do this?” WHY did I willingly agree to spend weeks at a time being mauled by mosquitoes, enduring trench foot, going without showers and toilet paper, and scrambling for binoculars to play the age-old game: rock or grizzly bear? It was overcoming these moments of true misery that allowed me to feel the greatest sense of gratitude, confidence, and humility. Indeed the most meaningful trips were the ones where, for at least one moment, I was so incredibly uncomfortable that I deeply regretted going on the trip altogether.

I suspect many of you have had moments at Thacher where you have had to ask yourself, “Why did I do this again?” Whether it is learning to ride, camping in the rain, or picking up a lacrosse stick for the first time (which I hope some of you will do this spring), you all face challenges on a daily basis. While I certainly hope not every day feels impossible, I hope you, too, feel the sense of accomplishment that keeps you coming back for more. Not only am I still chasing that feeling myself, but I feel extremely proud and blessed to work at a place that is essentially built around encountering these types of challenges.  

Wilderness trips have given me some of the most transformative experiences of my life, and my best friends, and the opportunity to work at a place like Thacher – and I owe it all to a few very miserable days in a canoe.

Ms. Bearrows is the Associate Director of Admission at Thacher. She also coaches girls' lacrosse and is an avid outdoorswoman and adventurer.