Lae Lae Tin Aung raises an arm to the bright blue sky when she sees a grey and white bird fluttering around the snowy parking lot at the Elfin Lakes trailhead outside Squamish. The bird immediately perches on her fingers.

But the whisky jack won't do it a second time. An onlooker encourages her to feed the bird, but teacher Tim Gale chastises them for encouraging the wild animal to beg for food.

With that, Tin Aung jokes giving the bird a handout would only encourage it to become dependent, to go on welfare.

The 19-year-old Grade 12 student knows welfare is exactly what Gale wants his students to avoid.

Gale is the co-founder of Take a Hike, an alternative secondary school program that includes therapists, an adventure-based learning specialist and youth and family workers. They hope to provide students who've been expelled or are struggling to attend classes with hands-on life skills to shape better lives.

A group of 16 Grade 11 and 12 students on the four-day excursion to Elfin Lakes meet at "the barn" behind John Oliver secondary at Fraser and 41st avenue at 8 a.m. They make sure they've packed all the food they've budgeted for and bought with their assigned tent-mate, use the bathroom one last time and climb into one of the program's vans. "It smells like a robot farted in here," remarks one female student.

As the van heads towards the snow-capped North Shore mountains, this 19-year-old Grade 12 student recalls how she previously lived in an upscale townhouse with her boyfriend until he got arrested.

At a stop in Squamish, two male students do pushups and squats for swearing and for pressing a seatbelt to the neck of a classmate. A volunteer who uses a week's vacation each year to accompany youth on this expedition notes, "It's like going on a reality TV show as an audience member."

An hour passes at the trailhead before everyone is ready to tackle the incline to Elfin Lakes in Garibaldi Provincial Park. The students will carry 30-pound packs, snowshoe five kilometres and sleep in tents tonight. They'll trek the remaining seven kilometers tomorrow.

Natasha Ram, another 19-year-old Grade 12 student, considers whether to pack her Smurf and tries to convince Tin Aung to carry her stove fuel, even though Tin Aung's already carrying her own.

One teen in stylish plaid outdoor pants says the pot and cigarette smokers in the group start to go "squirrelly" on day three of the trip, which is the day they'll dig out snow caves.

"A four-day detox from the world and marijuana," is how a male rugby player in a B.C. Lions jersey describes it.

Gale says he's concerned about one student wearing clothing made from cotton, which traps moisture to the skin. The group waits for someone to lend the protesting student synthetic layers.

"Holy shit, it's going to be a long four days," Ram mutters.

Everyone splits into small groups for the hike and the rugby player pops in his ear buds for the ascent, only to be reminded that electronic gadgets are banned.

"You guys are so gay," he complains as his MP3 player is taken away.

The Take a Hike program was born out of a frustration shared by Gale, a youth counsellor, and youth and family worker Conrad Cone over a lack of services to address their clients' needs. Youth in their charge had behaviour disorders and others were victims of sexual abuse, now abusing others.

"It was almost like a daycare. We were looking after the kids all day long, breaking up fights but really weren't improving them," Gale said. "A lot of the kids were dropping out and hitting the streets and getting themselves into trouble and they weren't contributing citizens."

Gale and Cone envisioned a classroom with an in-house therapist. They enlisted friends in the corporate world to establish a foundation to raise money to make this a reality. They also wanted a program that offered experiential learning and exercise. "Getting them out of the city away from all of the enticements of making bad choices and get them into the wilderness and exercising," Gale said.

In partnership with the Vancouver School Board, the Take a Hike Youth at Risk Foundation created the Take a Hike alternative education program 11 years ago.

Students in Grades 10 to 12 who struggle with problems that include low self-esteem, depression, substance, physical and mental abuse, criminal activity and trauma learn through adventure, experience, academics, counselling and weekly volunteer work, in classes no larger than 20. They kayak, canoe, rock climb, cross-country ski, swim, skate, run and complete day trips once a week. The Grade 10 students do a three, four and a six-day trip each year. The Grade 11 and 12 students complete two 10-day trips and one four-day excursion.

Students are pushed and held accountable, but Take a Hike is more flexible than typical schools. One Take a Hike student was expelled from Kitsilano secondary last year for "attendance and stuff." He says travelling from various foster homes to school made it difficult to be punctual. But if he's late to Take a Hike, he simply makes up the time.

Generous dollops of snow weigh down the branches of the trees that line the five-kilometre trek to the Red Heather shelter where students will erect their tents the first night. But the teens aren't marvelling at the scenery. They're wondering how they're going to complete the 24-kilometre round trip.

Tin Aung, the bird whisperer, collapses on her side, backpack and all, when she reaches the first bend. She hasn't eaten breakfast and forgot to pack a lunch.

Sweat glistens on the forehead of a male student with blue tinted sunglasses and spiky hair. This is his first overnight trip. He was kicked out of David Thompson for fighting and attended three other schools before that for "lots of reasons."

Kevin Morin, or Kevlar as he's affectionately called, scrambles 10 feet down the side of the mountain and reclines to take in the view of Howe Sound. He started Take a Hike last year in Grade 10 because his social worker gave him no choice. The shy teen dropped out of Killarney in Grade 9 to sell drugs--E, he says softly.

It didn't go well.

But Morin got addicted to endorphins when a trainer from CrossFit Vancouver school of fitness led Take a Hike students in squats and pushups two hours a week. Morin was so hooked the trainer gave him a scholarship to train for free last summer.

Morin slimmed down, felt his confidence rise and became motivated to attend school.

T.J. Traverse won scholarships to attend summer camp. He went for two weeks in 2009 and returned for two months in 2010 to be a counsellor in training. "Before, I didn't really think I could do much," the former Templeton student says. "But ever since I've been to Take a Hike, I've realized that I can do a lot."

Students shovel deep pits large enough to protect a tent or two near the Red Heather shelter.

Natasha Ram, the Smurf-lover, didn't pack cigarettes like she did last year. "I know what the consequences are," says the young woman who smokes a pack and a half a day. "I kind of fiend for it, but then I don't really fiend for it. If I'm like bored out here then I crave it, but, like, if I'm doing something, then I won't."

After attending two high schools and another alternative program, Ram calls Take a Hike her "last resort."

She ditched her first class, a raft-building session, but returned and completed Grade 10, the third time she'd enrolled in it, with Take a Hike.

The 19-year-old Grade 12 student hates the Elfin Lakes trip.

"I like kayaking. You just put all the stuff in the kayak and paddle," she says, then breaks into a smoker's hack.

Therapist Pete Prediger says the reluctant winter camper will have completed almost 70 days of expeditions when she graduates. "That's more than some people [who are] into the outdoors have done," he says.

Ram says her grades have improved and she's reduced her marijuana consumption. She says having one counsellor for 20 students rather than 200 makes a big difference. She's poised to graduate, interested in criminology and thinking she'd like to open a daycare one day.

Prediger says being present, particularly on trips where painful blisters can spark a meltdown, is integral to making meaningful connections with students.

He knew something was wrong with one student who wouldn't open up. But it was only after that student had a breakdown in the woods that Prediger was able to talk to him about what was going on. He and fellow therapist Klaus Klein praise students who have survived bleak times for their resiliency. They try to help them determine what they want to make of their lives and what behaviours they'll need to change to get there.

They've helped teens cope with pregnancy and abortions and Klein has listened to young men sob about their broken hearts. They've also increasingly drawn parents into therapy, sometimes with an entire family present for counselling.

Klein says conversations with students about how their before and after school drug use might be a sign of dependence often don't go far. But on day three of a trip when a student is irritable and craving a hit, he talks to them about what such sensations might mean.

Klein says alumni who continue to overindulge in drugs or alcohol after high school will at least have the memory of what it was like to feel clear-headed. He hopes the memory will motivate them to make future changes.

All but one of eight Take a Hike Grade 12 students completed the 2009-2010 school year. Four received Dogwood diplomas, three received a School of Leaving Certificate that allows them to advance to college and upgrade while taking first year courses, and three made the honour roll.

Twenty-four students completed drug and alcohol counselling and several quit smoking.

A member of Take a Hike's first graduating class is completing her fourth year of studies at the University of B.C.'s Sauder School of Business.

The foundation needs to raise $350,000 each year to pay the therapists and adventure-based learning specialist, cover activities, expeditions, a breakfast and lunch program and equipment.

Take a Hike got a boost last year when Olympic speed skater and cyclist Clara Hughes met with students and donated her $10,000 bronze medal prize money to the foundation.

Discussions with other school districts are underway to see a second Take a Hike location start in September 2012. The program wants to share its best practices with school districts across North America.

The foundation has raised more than $2 million since the alternative school started in 2000 and more than 250 students have participated. That's $8,000 per student. "If nothing had changed in those kids' lives, later on it would cost way more if you're talking about welfare," Prediger says. "The government has programs for everything. So if you have these kids, when they're adults, going through all those programs, that's a lot of money being pumped into them. And if you can do it now, at some point when they're an adult, they'll go 'I want to live a different life.'"

Ram and tent-mate Tin Aung snuggle up to the wood-burning stove inside the Red Heather shelter, snack on strawberries and share them with classmates, while others continue to erect their tents.

Many of the students hope to be in bed by 7 p.m.

Take a Hike veterans know only too well the trials that lay ahead. They just want to cope as best they can.

crossi@vancourier.com