{"id":6263,"date":"2013-05-21T19:31:14","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T19:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=6263"},"modified":"2013-05-21T19:31:14","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T19:31:14","slug":"high-mountain-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2013\/05\/high-mountain-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"High Mountain Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Academics\u2002+\u2002Wilderness\u2002+\u2002Intentional Community\u2002=\u2002High Mountain Institute<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"23a\"<\/a>Take one human on the cusp of childhood and adulthood. Add plenty of mountain air, surround with caring and knowledgeable adults, stir in thought-provoking academics and sweat-inducing exertion, and nurture and challenge for a few weeks to four months. Yield: One young adult confident about his\/her place in the world.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the recipe that High Mountain Institute has been creating for 15 years, ever since Molly and Christopher Barnes \u201989<\/b> embarked on a dream to share their love for the outdoors with young people.<\/p>\n

The young man from Massachusetts and the young woman from Michigan met as wilderness instructors for Deer Hill Expeditions of Mancos, in southwestern Colorado.<\/p>\n

Christopher, now 45, graduated with a degree in physics with a Norwegian Studies minor. Any Norwegian heritage? No, he just likes the lifestyle, he said, laughing in their shared office.<\/p>\n

While at CC, he spent a month leading outdoor expeditions in Norway. After graduation, he returned to Norway as an instructor at the school he\u2019d attended; he came back to the U.S. even more fired up about outdoor experiential education.<\/p>\n

After graduating from Colgate, Molly, now 43, headed to Wyoming to work as a wilderness instructor at a residential treatment center and lead courses for the National Outdoor Leadership School; Christopher also was a NOLS instructor.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t content to follow others\u2019 dreams, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of us had this frustration that, during the school year, there wasn\u2019t enough of that intentionality of small-group expeditions working together,\u201d Christopher said. \u201cWe were also missing the intellectual rigor. We liked the classroom, we liked teaching, but we wanted to sort of merge the two things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1994, they started talking with people they respected about founding a school
\nthat would challenge teens with experiences that would expand their self-reliance and skills. Christopher and Molly asked if they should go to graduate school; should they gain more experience by continuing to work for independent schools? No, they were told; do it while you\u2019re young.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you come to the table with a well-founded and considered idea, the passion and the energy to push it forward, people appear out of the woodwork who are interested in joining you to make that dream a reality,\u201d Christopher said.<\/p>\n

The next year, they made it official \u2014 filing for 501(c)(3) status with the IRS and getting married. Their wedding invitations included a request for donations to their new school, to be called High Mountain Institute.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Molly began recruiting member schools that would funnel students to HMI. Later that year, the couple purchased 120 acres west of Leadville in Colorado\u2019s Lake County, then donated 40 acres for the campus.<\/p>\n

Why Leadville? It was far from impulsive, Christopher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted it to be in the mountains. It had to be a day\u2019s drive from Canyon Country in Utah because we go backpacking in February. We wanted to be near some major population centers so we could run short-term programs. There are three to four million people within a four-hour drive of Leadville. We needed land under $2,000 an acre. We drew those circles on a map and we didn\u2019t end up anywhere else. We had a few friends here, and I\u2019d lived here a couple of months, so we weren\u2019t totally unfamiliar with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They stuck their shovels into the soil in fall 1997, preparing to build the Main Building; Christopher was the general contractor. It has \u201ca little bit of everything in it,\u201d he said, including Who\u2019s Hall, the dining\/gathering space.<\/p>\n\n\t\t