The Bear Tooth MT Ascent Substance Abuse Recovery Program

Bear Tooth MT Ascent is unique in that we are a real working (with approximately 500 head/) cattle ranch. Through the real work involved in ranching we give each young man who comes to BearTooth Mt. Ascent the opportunity to learn new skills, such as driving tractors, irrigating fields, carpentry, mechanizing, introduction to semi-driving, plant identification, animal husbandry, and all aspects of caring for beef cattle. Unlike other boot camps, brat camps, military schools or wilderness therapy programs where there is not the integration of Reality Therapy into every element of the troubled young mans everyday life. Bear Tooth MT Ascent Program has a proven 81.3 percent change in most areas of the Young mans behavior patterns. Many parents report that they see a major improvement in their sons respect for authority, and in their respectful and loving manner of relating with their family members.

The Bear Tooth MT Ascent Job Skills

On Bear Tooth MT Ascent, the at risk young men learn animal husbandry (the practice of breeding and raising livestock) from daily practice, as part of the frontier chores including gathering eggs and feeding chickens, pigs and calves and dogs. Other seasonal chores consist of irrigating hay and grain fields during the summer, and feeding cattle during the winter (they are on pasture from spring to fall). Ranch work follows three overlapping paths: (1) routine chores that make the ranch yield the food, clothing and shelter, (2) raising the calves that are the ranch’s main cash crop and provide consecutive seasonal jobs throughout the year, and (3) filling the rest of the time with work to improve conditions and ranch productivity. Meat is plentiful; beef, pork and chicken and the vegetables are grown in a garden planted and cared for by the students.

Calf production presents an annual work cycle for the troubled teens, even though the calf crop is marketed during the late fall. The work begins in February or March with the births, followed by plowing in April and May. May also brings branding and moving herds off the spring range to mountain pastures as well as irrigating, which continues through the summer. Haying begins in July followed by harvesting garden produce in September, returning the herds from mountain pastures in October and ends with shipping the calves in addition to beginning winter feeding in December.

Bear Tooth MT Ascent- A Life Changing Experience for struggling young men, parents and the entire family.