Bobby Wood - who began herding city kids up mountain peaks back in the late '70s, with little more than some borrowed camping gear and a dream - lost his battle with cancer this past Sunday.
By the time we first met Bobby in 1984, his dream had become Wilderness Trek, based a few miles from Twin Lakes, Colorado on a little hill of land that looked west to Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. By that time, hundreds of kids had been "on trek" and thousands more were to come in the years to follow. I have blogged from time-to-time about our trekking adventures in Colorado. The most detailed description is here .
Bobby was a unique and complicated individual, often suggesting that he had been born in the wrong century. He was at home in the back country, and if you were not - all the better; your mistakes were the best teacher, he felt, and he rejoiced in your learning experiences! If you pitched your tent with the flap facing uphill so rainwater would run in, not around your tent, you would learn not to do that again. If you filled your water jugs with water and lugged an extra 20 pounds up a mountain to high camp - set beside a clear babbling brook, he would let you do that.
Wilderness Trek was designed for young people. He tolerated the adults only because he knew that without a few of them along, he would have a harder time convincing parents to let him take kids into the back country. And the entire experience was a setup for the Thursday night campfire, where the kids put the week's struggles and victories into perspective. Trek was a life-changing experience. I know.
Like the rest of us, Bobby struggled. Wilderness Trek continues the dream today, but the current organization draws a very careful line of demarcation between now and then. Our friend Reg Cox put it best:
Growing up in Texas there were many things that made it a man’s world. Westerns, old guys who “initiated” us boys through hard work and the other culturally popular icons of those days. When Faith captured my heart I yearned for the man’s man model of loving Jesus. One of those men was Bobby Wood. It’s one thing to be tough when things go well but I was blessed to know both sides of his faith ride and he came out on the other side of struggle loving Jesus till the end. End…so we’ve come to that end today. It’s the end of this life for a flawed yet grace cloaked Jesus loving man of God. He was a hero to many…to me. He’s graduated now…crouched over the camp fire along the shore of the crystal sea. Hunkered down swapping stories with weathered disciples and heroes of old while singing songs and not forgetting all the words this time. It’s an honor to know fragile strength and honest faith. It’s rare to find guides to can lead one through the blustery posers of religion and into the honed heart of the long grace embrace. Thanks Bob…I am one who loves Jesus more because I knew you.Amen.
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