Left Hand Outdoor Challenge

Mission: To inspire youth engagement and connectivity through various challenging experiences in the outdoor adventure, environmental education, stewardship, and leadership. As participants explore natural resource careers, build concrete outdoor and leadership skills, they’ll never miss an opportunity to celebrate their resilience and individuality.

Vision: Create personal connections to the outdoors for Boulder County youth, ages 14-18, to cultivate a sense of belonging, passion and commitment to nature and conservation in their lives.

History: In 2012, The Boulder County Resource Protection Park Rangers, were successful with establishing the Left Hand Outdoor Challenge (LHOC) youth program. The purpose of the program is to create innovative monthly challenges that are hosted by Boulder County Parks & Open Space Rangers and volunteer program leaders to expose participants to a variety of outdoor careers and resource management issues. The Left Hand Outdoor Challenge is named in remembrance of Chief Niwot (Left Hand) (-ed) (c. 1825-1864). Chief Niwot was a tribal leader of the Southern Arapaho people who played an important part in the history of Colorado.

This free program is designed for Boulder County-area teens ages 14-18 and seeks to teach about various careers in natural resources as well as to develop new outdoor skills. Adult volunteer positions, mentors, were created to support and help guide our LHOC teens during monthly programs.

Since its establishment, the Left Hand Outdoor Challenge program successfully engages 20-30 young adults September-May and encourages them to become stewards of our public lands.

We offer free monthly Wednesday Basecamps (meetings) and Saturday Challenges (programs) that focus on service learning, environmental education, leadership development and challenging outdoor activities. We cross-collaborate with many Boulder County Parks and Open Space work teams, external outdoor agencies and non-profits to provide fun and meaningful programs.

Boulder County Park Rangers and the LHOC Adult Volunteers (mentors) work side by side to build strong involvement in a variety of natural and cultural resource management topics relating to Boulder County Parks & Open Space.

How to Get Involved: 

We have Twenty-four (24) available spots for our 9-month program. LHOC teen members have the opportunity to coordinate and lead within their group squads. This year we are challenging our LHOC teen members to lead an outdoor activity for other youth as their final project. We three (3) adult volunteer for new mentors and would like them to create a robust mentor program within their assigned LHOC teen squad.