Being a Forest Therapy Guide is amazing. I love every walk that I get to guide. I even love all the planning, scouting, communicating, and paper work leading up to a walk. There is one thing that makes being a Guide, as well as my job as a Naturalist Educator, difficult and disappointing. Weather. Specifically, unpredictable weather, which Minnesota is infamous for. Don't get me wrong, weather is part of the beauty of this living Earth: I love rain, snow, heat, and all the in-betweens, and I try to nudge others toward an appreciation for being out in all weather as well. However, there is some weather that threatens the safety of participants in any outdoor program—lightning, high winds, unhealthy air quality, dangerous wind chills. In summer these can be especially unpredictable.
Tonight I had to send a group of 10 people home right as we were supposed to begin a walk. I had special iced tea, snacks, and some lovely invitations ready to go. Storms had been in the forecast that morning, but as the day continued the chance of rain dissipated to nearly nothing...until 15 minutes before our walk, when the sun quickly disappeared. Five minutes before go-time, the wind picked up and the lightning started. Would it pass over fast? Or would it get worse? What did the forecast say? But the forecast clearly couldn't be relied on. So with the walk organizer on the phone, and everyone gathered around, we decided that it was best to go home and reschedule for another date. Spoiler: the storm lasted about 30 minutes and then cleared up. Unfortunately, it could have just as easily gone the other way. We like to think that radars and weather apps can tell us what will happen, but in the end there's always a chance for things to go wrong very quickly, especially in the woods. Being a guide and outdoor educator means we have to make the difficult (read: heartbreaking) decision to cancel walks and classes in the interest of safety, and sometimes those decisions are forced at the last minute. We don't take this lightly, and speaking for myself, I'm a mess of back-and-forth and second-guessing (coulda shoulda woulda). In the end, we have to trust a combination of our training and our intuition, and when it means disappointing participants who have set aside time for our walks, it's extra hard. Luckily, most people (especially those good, hardy Minnesotans!) are without fail very understanding. But I still go to sleep feeling awful that I couldn't control the weather and give everyone the beautiful evening they were expecting. I can only hope that once everyone is safely home they go outside to let the rain kiss their face, open their window to relish the suddenly-cool breeze, or gaze outside and watch the pink sunset against leftover storm clouds.
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