Detroit Outdoors

Detroit Outdoors training, gear, and programming support for meaningful youth experiences in nature

For information about our BOLD & GOLD program or to register please visit: https://ymcadetroit.org/camp/bold-gold/

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech H...
08/24/2026

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech High School and a now retired park ranger from Yosemite National Park. Shelton’s career is nothing short of incredible, an interpreter of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, critically acclaimed author Gloryland, and a Park Service career that spanned over thirty years. Shelton is a brilliant orator, storyteller, and historian, who we have been so fortunate to get to know and spend time with for the past three years that we’ve done this trip. These pictures fail to capture the wisdom and inspiration that Shelton offers to all of the students (and adults for that matter) that have taken the trip from Detroit to Gloryland.

Thank you so much Shelton taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us, help us learn about the park, and allowing us to see Yosemite from your point of view. The Detroit Outdoors team, the students, teachers and friends from each year wish you an incredible retirement full of new opportunities and adventures!

This trip would not be possible without help from sponsors like Gilbert Family Foundation and The Walters Family Foundation. Thank you so much for helping us continue to make this trip a reality.

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech High School and a now retired park ranger from Yosemite National Park. Shelton’s career is nothing short of incredible, an interpreter of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, critically acclaimed author Gloryland, and a Park Service career that spanned over thirty years. Shelton is a brilliant orator, storyteller, and historian, who we have been so fortunate to get to know and spend time with for the past three years that we’ve done this trip. These pictures fail to capture the wisdom and inspiration that Shelton offers to all of the students (and adults for that matter) that have taken the trip from Detroit to Gloryland.

Thank you so much Shelton taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us, help us learn about the park, and allowing us to see Yosemite from your point

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech H...
08/24/2026

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech High School and a now retired park ranger from Yosemite National Park. Shelton’s career is nothing short of incredible, an interpreter of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, critically acclaimed author Gloryland, and a Park Service career that spanned over
thirty years. Shelton is a brilliant orator, storyteller, and historian, who we have been so fortunate to get to know and spend time with for the past three years that we’ve done this trip. These pictures fail to capture the wisdom and inspiration that Shelton offers to all of the students (and adults for that matter) that have taken the trip from Detroit to Gloryland.

Thank you so much Shelton taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us, help us learn about the park, and allowing us to see Yosemite from your point of view. The Detroit Outdoors team, the students, teachers and friends from each year wish you an incredible retirement full of new opportunities and adventures!

This trip would not be possible without help from sponsors like Gilbert Family Foundation and The Walters Family Foundation. Thank you so much for helping us continue to make this trip a reality.

We’d like to dedicate this post to Shelton Johnson, who is the entire reason this trip exists. A graduate of Cass Tech High School and a now retired park ranger from Yosemite National Park. Shelton’s career is nothing short of incredible, an interpreter of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, critically acclaimed author Gloryland, and a Park Service career that spanned over
thirty years. Shelton is a brilliant orator, storyteller, and historian, who we have been so fortunate to get to know and spend time with for the past three years that we’ve done this trip. These pictures fail to capture the wisdom and inspiration that Shelton offers to all of the students (and adults for that matter) that have taken the trip from Detroit to Gloryland.

Thank you so much Shelton taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us, help us learn about the park, and allowing us to see Yosemite from your poi

This year we continued to embrace weaving art into our adventure! We started off by giving the students watercolor sets...
08/20/2026

This year we continued to embrace weaving art into our adventure!

We started off by giving the students watercolor sets and journals (that doubled for writing and painting) to encourage them to capture whatever was coming to the surface for them. Whether that be recreating the beautiful landscapes they were seeing or reflecting on the emotions they were feeling as they immersed themselves into the valley.

The addition of the watercolor sets were inspired by the our trip overlapping with the 6th annual Obata Art Weekend held in the park. We wanted to share with the students about Chiura Obata’s legacy and do some painting in honor of him.

Many of the photographs that the students painted were ones that they took on our photography walk with Robel Fessehatzion . He gave us a number of photo challenges around the park and encouraged us to replicate the photo with our own individual touch. We captured black and white photos, photos trying to isolate a specific landmark, and photos where we played with the lighting and shadows that the sun provided. Thank you again Robel for a second year of such an incredible lens to explore the valley under!

Please enjoy writing, watercolor, and photography from the students captured on this year’s trip :)

This trip would not be possible without help from sponsors like Gilbert Family Foundation & The Walters Family Foundation. Thank you so much for helping us continue to make this trip a reality.

It’s been about a month since we’ve gotten back from Yosemite and this year’s trip was again, such a beautiful experienc...
08/18/2026

It’s been about a month since we’ve gotten back from Yosemite and this year’s trip was again, such a beautiful experience full of so much adventure and creativity.

The students who continue to come across the country with us to Gloryland to visit, now retired, Park Ranger Shelton Johnson are all coming for different reasons. Some are interested in the scenic views of the valley, others interested in the rock climbing on the granite peaks, though all of them have this shared sense of curiosity and itch to try something new. The eight students who came with us this year were no different. They came with such positive attitudes and willingness to try! Whether it was time for reflection, photography, to hike the Mist Trail, or cook breakfast these students and their shared sense of adventure and camaraderie transferred over to every part of the trip. For this, I would like to say thank you to all of them, because they are why we do this trip, to connect them, Cass Tech and Pershing students with Shelton, a National Park Service legend. A special thank you also to their teachers Kelsey and Anthony! Having you both on this journey with us was incredible, we cannot thank you both enough for everything you do inside and outside of the classroom for your students!

I would also like to thank our friends Phil, Isaiah, and Allison. This trip truly would not have been the same without the three of you. The wisdom, joy, and conversations that we shared were nothing short of special. Thank you so so much for showing up in the way that you all do and being apart of our Detroit Outdoors crew.

Lastly, thank you once again to Robel Fessehatzion for facilitating such a meaningful photography workshop for the students to be apart of. Sharing your knowledge of the park and landscape photography with them along the way. Thank you to Connie, for sharing your story with students to becoming a Park Ranger, more about Chiura and Haruko Obata and other historical figures within National Parks Service history.

This trip would not be possible without help from sponsors like The Walters Family Foundation. Thank you so much for helping us continue to make this trip a reality.

Day 1,

We’ve been so busy this summer with incredibly fun trips! Welcome to Part 1 of What has Detroit Outdoors been up to? Thi...
07/29/2026

We’ve been so busy this summer with incredibly fun trips! Welcome to Part 1 of What has Detroit Outdoors been up to?

This past June we helped support with Detroit Bird Alliance and Audubon Great Lakes: Wild Indigo’s trip to Harsens Island (camping at Algonac State Park)! Huge shout out to Eriu Martinez and Ava Landgraf for making this trip come to like and bringing such joy and fun to research!

The trips focus was on the Black Tern. A shorebird that nests in the St. Clair Flats of Harsens Island for only a little over 3 months! The students that went on this trip did water sampling, observed the Black Tern nesting environment, and got to see nest cameras that were installed to keep track of the fledgling rates.

Thank you to the DNR, specifically John Darling & Aja Edwards who talked to the students about career pathways and opportunities! To the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge staff, Lisa Bryant, Alexa B. and Megan H. for coming out while we were observing the Black Terns and talking about the wildlife biology fields, Arc GIS and birding with us!

Stay tuned for the other trips we went on this summer in Part 2 of this series :)

Our crew + friends from the DNR :)

Researches on the move to see Black Terns!

A view from where we took macro-invertebrate samples

Zavier our resident Arc GIS expert!

Renato, our resident observer and inquirer about all things environmental! Bringing us back to reality with real world applications.

Janiyah, the fearless member who is open to try all the things from paddle boarding to walking in waters to nesting sites!

Autumn, our plant life extraordinaire, interested in the why behind how things got the way they are.

Our crew + friends for USFWS + Mark (the best host)

A view from Little Muscamoot Bay

Looking to see what shore birds we might see👀

Seeing some shore birds!

We ❤️ Black Terns
They nest in the St. Clair Flats for about 4-6 weeks before continuing their journey onward to migrate south.

The beauty of the kitchen crew!

Watercolor drawings + microscopic samples = a wonderful night at camp

Concentration at is finish when making the Italian Sausage for dinner (which was 12/10)

Riding to t

This story from one of our former Outdoor Adventure Club students, Nazma, is a beautiful piece about the power of the ou...
04/30/2026

This story from one of our former Outdoor Adventure Club students, Nazma, is a beautiful piece about the power of the outdoors and the impact that it can have on someone’s life! We are so incredibly proud of you Nazma!!
The piece is truly an amazing read, so we encourage you to check it out!

Happy Earth Day 💚🌎One of our favorite ways to connect with the earth is camping; and these past two weekends we gained o...
04/22/2026

Happy Earth Day 💚🌎

One of our favorite ways to connect with the earth is camping; and these past two weekends we gained over 20 new CLIC Leaders, who camped with us at Historic Fort Wayne - Detroit as apart of our CLIC training. After completing our Camping Leadership Immersion Course, these individuals, who come from youth serving organizations across the City of Detroit, have access to our gear library to take their youth camping!

Thank you to everyone that came out and participated in our training! We greatly appreciate it and look forward to seeing the places you go with the youth that you serve.

If you’re interested in joining next year’s training or learning more about the course in general, please visit the 2026 CLIC page on our website (linked in our bio) for more information!

This week we had a Yosemite Art Showcase to celebrate all of the art made during and inspired by our trip to Yosemite Na...
04/18/2026

This week we had a Yosemite Art Showcase to celebrate all of the art made during and inspired by our trip to Yosemite National Park! This showcase acted as a reunion of sorts, bringing together participants from both 2024 and 2025. It was so wonderful to have everyone in the same space to reminisce on our memories made in the valley and celebrate the creativity of the students who went on the trip. The showcase included a poetry reading, a presentation of a beautiful tapestry made by one of the participants, as well as a visual poem created by one of the students!

As apart of the showcase and as a reflection of our time spent in Gloryland, a zine was made by the incredibly talented filled with poems written by the students during the writing workshops that she facilitated on the trip. In addition, our phenomenal photographer friend , who facilitated a photography workshop during our trip last summer, came out from California to be apart of the showcase and gift some of his art to the participants.

Thank you to everyone who came out to our showcase and especially to and for all of the creativity, artistry, and mentorship that you offer to the students. We also want to thank the participants who contributed to the showcase, the zine, and those who came to spend time with us. We so appreciated seeing all of you and hearing you share what the trip meant to you.
A special thank you again to the Walters Family Foundation for helping to make this trip possible.

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1313 W Seven Mile
Detroit, MI
48203

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