Time under the pines
Walks and hikes run daily, with staff, in the mountains above the valley. Time outdoors is part of the treatment week here.
How the setting is used
Alongside the daily walks and hikes are forest-based activities, outings, and time in the local community, so a stay takes you out of the house regularly.
The house sits among the pines above Idyllwild. That is the setting, and where you are while you do difficult work matters.
The mountains around the house
- Idyllwild
- A small mountain town at around 5,400 feet in the San Jacinto Mountains, surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest.
- Mount San Jacinto State Park
- Adjoins the town, and its peak rises to nearly 11,000 feet.
- Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail
- A gentle trail through the pines above town, about 2.6 miles each way, named for a local newspaper editor who campaigned to protect these mountains.
- The seasons
- Four distinct ones: dry summers, cold winters with snow most years between December and March, and the change of season in between.
Forest bathing, and what researchers study
The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, usually translated as forest bathing, simply means spending unhurried time among trees. Japan’s Forestry Agency introduced it as a national program in 1982, in response to rising stress among workers.
Researchers have since studied time in nature for its links with stress and attention. That research describes people in studies, not a promise about any one person, so the walks here are not offered as a treatment on their own. They are part of the week, alongside therapy and psychiatric care.
Environmental psychologists have a name for part of what they are studying: soft fascination, the gentle, effortless kind of attention that leaves, water and light draw from you, which lets the effortful kind rest. It belongs to a theory called Attention Restoration Theory, and it is offered here as an idea worth knowing, not as a claim.
If you are not a hiker
You do not need to be. A few practical things help:
- Bring comfortable shoes you can walk on dirt trails in, and layers: mountain mornings are cool even in summer.
- The first few days at around 5,400 feet can leave you more out of breath than you expect. Tell staff if it is catching up with you.
- Walks are about being outside, not covering distance. If a day is hard, say so.
Why distance helps
Enough distance from everyday life for the noise to quiet down and for deeper work to come forward. Close enough that you stay connected to the world you are going back to.
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