In an era when more people than ever are venturing into outdoor spaces, Inspired Summit Adventures founder Shaun Raskin, aims to make guided outdoor experiences about mentorship, education and connection.
“We teach people not just how to adventure, but how to pay attention to their footprint,” she said.
Inspired Summit Adventures embeds education and mentorship into its guiding programs. Whether guests are learning how to pack out waste, read terrain for avalanche risk or hiking through fragile meadows in high alpine wilderness, Raskin said they’re also being instructed on how to see themselves as part of the ecosystem they’re moving through.
She began developing a hut-to-hut network in the Western Uintas during the pandemic that was designed to give people safe access to remote terrain while consolidating use in a way that protects the landscape. The flagship Castle Peak Yurt opened in 2021, and was joined by the Smith and Morehouse Yurt in December for year-round access.
The yurts serve as both basecamps and classrooms, said Raskin. Guests learn how to reduce impact by reusing existing trails, dismantling illegal fire rings, and choosing appropriate campsite locations. On group trips, cleanup challenges and stewardship rituals are common — like collecting trash along the trail or packing out old gear left behind.
The guiding company hosted a cleanup day of the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir shoreline on May 31, where family and friends of Inspired Summit and more than 30 unwitting day hikers joined together to contribute. The group spread out across the shoreline and on paddle boards, filling six large trash bags with everything from tangled fishing line and bait containers to soda cans and other forgotten debris.
“It was a good reminder that we should stop and take assessment of the place we just were before moving on,” said Raskin.
The community event, held in partnership with the South Summit Trails Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service, has paved the way for more upcoming cleanup days, including a June 29 event at Slate Creek Trailhead followed by a community bike ride and additional trailhead cleanups along Mirror Lake Highway later this season.
For Raskin, access does not conflict with conservation or sustainability. With more people getting outside, she said, more people have the capacity to educate themselves and others about how to be good stewards of the land.
“The explosion [of outdoor recreation] post-COVID has really set into motion this overuse of all of our trail networks,” Raskin said. “So I see it as a responsibility of guide institutions to do the best they can to think about how to be a human in the woods, dilute our presence and promote good practices.”
By leading trips that spread use across lesser-known areas, teaching low-impact travel techniques, and reinforcing Leave No Trace principles, Inspired Summit Adventures and Raskin are promoting sustainable access of public lands, where good mentors make it possible to continue outdoor adventures across generations. Raskin calls it generational stewardship: the idea that education in the outdoors should extend beyond individual experiences, equipping people to model respectful land use for future generations.
“When you’re looking at the stars, or at your kids around a campfire, and you’re tapping into that calm place … that’s not just outdoor recreation. It’s like meditation,” she said. “And when we help people internalize that, they take it home. They share it with their kids. Their kids share it with friends. Eventually, those kids may become the mentors.”
Raskin draws from her own formative years as a teen living in New York City, whose foray into the outdoors came from youth programs led by slightly older teenagers in the Uintas.
“I could see a little bit of me in all of them, or what I aspired to be in all of them. And having that younger but more mature group leader in motion this mentor figure as somebody that I aspired to be, but was enough on my level where I didn’t feel intimidated,” she said.
Raskin’s youth experiences extended beyond education and outdoor adventure. The guides were accessible to her as people, making them mentors who have sustained her passion for outdoor connection for decades.
“A guide becomes kind of more like a mentor,” she said. “It starts with the individual who walks in the door and it’s our job to see where they’re coming in at, listen to where they want to go, and then provide the tools, the methodology and the experiences to foster that.”
This approach is now foundational to Inspired Summit Adventures, where guides are valued not only for technical proficiency but for their emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills.
“Soft skills are what make this team,” she said. “How do you engage with someone who’s anxious? Or someone who has completely different views than you? That’s where we start.”
Inspired Summit Adventures’ programs range from technical rock climbing and canyoneering instruction to wilderness backpacking trips along the Highline Trail. Guests can also join guided day hikes, mountain bike outings, and catered yurt-based adventures.
“Access is sustainability. If we don’t use it, we will lose it. So it’s really important that we are stretching our arms and our legs out completely on our public lands, otherwise we are very much at risk of losing them,” said Raskin.
Find more opportunities for community cleanup or outdoor adventure here.