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ASPEN ACHIEVEMENT ACADEMY

In utah

To View Video Clips of Abuse at Aspen Achievement Academy, Click Here & Here!

(Video Clips may require Real Player or compatible software)

Aspen Achievement Academy uses the SAME "Positive Control Systems" program used by abusive and cult-like Eagle Ranch Academy and WWASPS!

SURVIVOR TESTIMONIAL

By M.S. (contact thru: heal@heal-online.org)

I am 26 years old and was held prisoner at Aspen Achievement Academy for 2 and a half months in the winter of 1994.  I had no idea that this program was still operating, as I had heard while at another program that a child had died there, but apparently that is not the case.

While at Aspen, I was forcibly deprived of food and made to hike long distances for the first 72 hours of my stay.  At one point, I threw myself in a ditch and tried to cut my wrists with a mildly sharp rock that I found, during which time I was laughed at by my "counselors."  Also, during this period I was suffering from extreme heroin and cocaine withdrawal, that had left me at a weight of only 130 lbs, and was never allowed to see a doctor, or provided with any medical treatment for my extreme pain and nausea; I collapsed almost unconscious on the second day, and was dragged by my "pack" strap for almost a mile, while being constantly derided by my "counselors."  We were made to carry packs weighing up to 100lbs, which were made of only a camping tarp tied together with a seatbelt strap. After my two months without drugs, I had gained no weight whatsoever due to the lack of nourishing food.

The horror that I and my fellow captives suffered over that hellish period is more deserving of a treatment by Solzhenitsyn than by me, but for the sake of brevity I will tell anyone thinking of sending their child to this program to consider that I still, 10 years later have nightmares of Aspen, and what they put us through.  My childhood effectively ended that day in my fifteenth year, when I arrived at Aspen Achievement Academy.

Survivor Statement # 2

By H. E.  (contact thru: heal@heal-online.org)

Everything in my statement is true, I give HEAL permission to use my statement.  I ask that any parent thinking about enrolling their child in The Aspen Achievement Academy, to please reconsider.  As a former student of the program myself, I did not see any of the literature provided to my parents until after my return from Utah.  After the initial review of a videotape, and several pamphlets provided by the program, I was disgusted.  Aspen did not accurately portray itself. My parents were shocked when I came home and they saw the evidence in my backpack, and heard my stories.  They had no idea what they had really signed me up for.

According to advertisements for the Aspen Achievement Academy, the program resembled a rugged, yet therapeutic summer camp experience.  In reality, this could not have been farther from the truth. 

It has been nearly twelve years since I spent those two months in the Utah wilderness, and my experience there still haunts me to this day.  The extensive neglect that my fellow students and I experienced was unacceptable.

I’ll never forget the morning of May 11^th, 1994.  It’s a date that will haunt me for the rest of my life.  Two strangers awaked me at 5 am.  They ordered me to get up and get dressed because I was going to Utah for a long time.  I told them I couldn’t go to Utah; I had to go to school that day!  It turned out I had no choice.  After a lengthy struggle I found myself forced onto a second rate airplane (who’s ever heard of “Morrissey” airlines anyway) bound for Salt Lake City.  That day remains in my memory as one of the most emotionally devastating and difficult things I have ever been through.

I remember before the program even started, they took us to a consular, or maybe he was a psychiatrist, in Provo Utah.  It was his job to be sure we were evaluated before being sent out into the desert.  One of the worst moments in my life was when he looked me in the eye and told me that he did NOT believe that I was a very good candidate for the program.  He said he I seemed like a relatively normal and stable teenager, but that he was going to recommend that I attend despite this.  Then he validated this by saying that he thought the program would be good for anyone, even himself.  He also told me that my parents had agreed to pay $23,000 for my time in the desert.  I don’t know where that money went; because it certainly did not go to proper care and feeding of my fellow students and I. Sometimes I suspect that that psychiatrist in Provo saw a fair amount of it for his recommendation.

We were starving in Utah; I lost over 20 pounds, and I wasn’t overweight to begin with.  We simply were not provided with adequate amounts of food.  Often times we were given no food at all, or forced to hike, exhausted for many miles before any food was provided.  On a good day, in the mornings we were able to eat half a cup of cold uncooked oatmeal, and then at night if we were lucky we could eat the same amount of cooked potatoes and rice.  If we could not start a fire this food was sometimes consumed raw. I still eat to fast, and too much as a result of this, and struggle with my weight.  Before Utah it wasn’t ever an issue for me.

Furthermore, the healthcare was unacceptable.  There were three specific instances that come to mind concerning this subject.  The first concerns my knees.  I was born with knee problems (a tendency for my kneecaps to dislocate).  During my time with Aspen my knees dislocated twice.  This was a preexisting condition, and in no way created by Aspen. However, after each incident I was allowed to rest for a few minutes and then was soon forced to hike on the injury.  As a result I have had persistent problems to this day.  In fact, a couple of months ago I finally opted for surgery.  The surgeon found extensive scar tissue and damage.  For the last month in Utah, I also walked on what felt to be a broken toe.  It was like they never really believed us when we were hurt. I was never examined, so I can’t be sure if it was broken, but the pain was excruciating for many weeks.

At one point I contracted the stomach flu during the program.  One of the counselors came in sick with it once, and I caught it.  She go to go back home immediately. I spent three days hiking and vomiting.  Eventually after I had finally fainted and collapsed several times from the exhaustion, medical help was brought in.  They waited until I was lying helpless in the dirt, unable to continue. This was not an acceptable response.

During my two months there, I was allowed to bathe only twice, both times in the same mud and cow filled streams that we drank from.  I tried to do the best I could to stay clean, and splash my face with water daily, but it was difficult.  Several of the girls got bladder infections.  The second bath I took came at the end of the program, right before our parents came.  We had to stand in the mucky bottom of an icy stream and wash as best we could. If we didn’t then we couldn’t eat. Before our parents saw us, we had to wash and change into fresh clothes, even though we argued that we wanted them to see us as we really were.  My Mom didn’t see the tattered truth of what I really wore until we were back home.  I remember her crying when she did.

As a student I had no rights, I was not even treated like a human.  I was a prisoner.  Sometimes I couldn’t even pee behind a bush without the rest of the group having to stand guard.

Often times we drank from streams with high sulfur content that made us very sick.  More often than not the water in my jug was brown.  Sometimes there was even brine shrimp swimming around in it.  I’ll never forget the feeling of them squirming on my tongue as I tried to swallow the gritty water, always to the sound of a counselor saying “come on SUCK IT DOWN!” We had to drink it; we had no choice.

As a member of Aspen Group 211, I saw a thirteen year old girl turn purple and then blue as the staff sat by waiting for her to get herself up off the ground and keep walking.  We walked in circles, up and down mountains, in the heat, in the cold and in the dark. We were always lost.  For most of the time we carried a pack made of a blue tarp with seat belt material for straps.  It was painful and awkward. 

At home people watched OJ Simpson’s white bronco racing down Los Angeles highways.  Meanwhile, we walked, completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world.  I got the feeling that a war could have broken out, and they wouldn’t have told us anything. We knew absolutely nothing of the outside world for those two months. My Mom was surprised that I got home and had no knowledge of the OJ incident. We could not know where we were or how long we would be there. 

I knew that I was somewhere in Utah, but that was all. There were “no future questions” allowed.  We couldn’t even ask when we would get to stop and rest, or be allowed a drink of water, because that concerned the future.

My hiking boots were brand new at the start of the program. However, by the end, the tread on the bottoms had worn down completely. They were basically flat bottom boots. That’s how much hiking we did. 

All that money my parents spent, for me to just walk. I walked in a line over cow patties and large rocks, through a desert wasteland, day after day.  I remember walking along sheer cliffs with no safety ropes or harnesses, eating from dirty and rancid dishes, and having to use our bare hands to dig up and relocate human "waste" on several occasions. 

On my high school transcripts there are credits for classes from “Wayne County High School”.  I never went to such a school. They are really from my time at Aspen.  These “classes” consisted of the completion a series of “curriculum” packets.  They were really just confusing worksheets stapled together. The worksheets had obviously been typed out by one of the Aspen staff members. The physical education credits however, I had earned tenfold!

There was a wonderful older man by the name of “Levoy” who was supposed to be the teacher.  He would come and visit rarely, and when he did it was never for an actual academic lesson that I can remember.  I do remember that never the less, that his visits were one of the few pleasant things about the whole experience. 

Actually, the academic instruction was a responsibility delegated to one of the older students and me.  We, of course did not understand anything included in the curriculum anymore than the other kids did, yet were the ones expected to “teach”.  At the time I had no idea what, or how to teach. They told us it was a reward, because we were always the first ones packed up and crushing the coals from the fire every morning.  It seemed like a strange reward to me.

Aspen markets itself as a “therapeutic” environment.  I find that strange. There was very little actual “therapy” involved.  Once a week, for half and hour a “therapist” would come speak with us.  This was an occasion we looked forward to because for one, the therapist would bring each of us an apple to eat, and for two, it got us out of having to hike for a couple of hours.  Other than that they were of no consequence. These therapy sessions were to brief and far between to be of any help. 

The only other mention of something resembling therapy came each morning when one of the 19 to 21 year old staff members would ask us to use a single word to describe how we felt for that day.  We’d go around the circle saying things like “sad”, “mad” or “depressed”. The consular would nod. Then we’d all put on our packs and spend the next eleven hours walking. The “therapy” was a joke.

Apparently the “therapist” had periodic phone conversations with my parents.  I don’t know what they could have talked about; the therapist knew little of me, or my daily experiences in the program.  My main connection to my parents was the letters that we wrote back and forth.  The staff had to sensor them all.  I never sent or received a sealed envelope.  I had to be careful about what I wrote.  I tried to tell my parents what was happening, but it was hard.  When I got home I found out that they warned our parents that we would exaggerate and not to believe our first hand descriptions of the program.  I even heard that my parents had to actually sign over custody of me to the program, and couldn’t have taken me out if they wanted to. I don’t know if that was true, or just another scare tactic used by the Aspen staff.

To this day my parents and I rarely (if ever) talk about Utah.  About once every few years I casually bring up the subject.  They never do.  I still have a hard time finding the ability to forgive them in my heart.  I hated them like never before during the entire program.  I was not happy when they arrived in Utah for the last 2 days of the program, nor did our relationship improve once we got home.  It got worse for a while, and to this day I still hold a grudge because of the experience.

Before I went to Utah, I was a relatively good kid.  I was seventeen years old.  Sure, I wasn’t perfect. I had tried smoking cigarettes, tried smoking pot (and hated it) and had sex with two people.  When compared to my peers I was fairly normal.  Aspen didn’t care; they’ll take anyone whose parents will pay. 

After I came back from the program I had lost all sense of self worth and self-respect.  I decided I didn’t care; it no longer mattered if I continued to resist the bad things in life, because I had already been punished.  Within a month of my return I had tried hard-core drugs such as hallucinogens and Crystal Meth, I spent time in crack houses, with homeless drug addicts, and became a heavy smoker. I also had a lot of casual unprotected sex with different partners, had essentially decided to drop out of high school, and even had an affair with a much older man.  Before Aspen I wouldn’t have done any of this. But because of the fact that I’d been punished already whether I was good or not, I didn’t care anymore.  Also, after hearing about some of the things the other kids in Aspen had done in their lives I felt like a prude. Actually in comparison to some of them, I STILL wasn’t very out of control.

For many years after the experience I was tormented by nightmares about Utah and my time there.  I’ve been back to the state, and even out into the desert where the program was held, all in an effort to make peace with the memories.  Slowly, over time I did recover.

I only dream about it ever few months now, and I’m rarely kept up at night by the memories anymore. I think my parents are still paying off the loan they took out to pay for Aspen.  I wish they had used the money to help me in school, or something like that instead.

Eventually I recovered, and got on a good track.  But, I feel that had I not been sent to Aspen, I would have become a healthy productive adult much sooner. 

In recent years I have heard that the program has been altered slightly.  Apparently students now progress through the program at their own rate.  It is no longer an issue to wait for everyone in the group to complete a task.  Maybe this helps to control the animosity and resentment that existed in my group.  We hated each other much of the time. Still, no matter how many changes are made in the program, or how many favorable accounts they post on their web site, I would NEVER recommend this program to anyone. 

Now, despite the “Aspen Experience” twelve years later I have been able to successfully graduate from college, find a healthy love relationship, a job as a teacher, and even quit smoking.  I have become the person my parents had hoped I would be.  But, I still have nightmares of Utah.

I remember Aspen T-shirts that read, “You’ll go to Hell and Back”.  They were half right, I went there, but it took nearly a decade for me to make it back.

SURVIVOR STATEMENT #3

By Willow G.

Everything in my statement is true. I give HEAL permission to use my statement.  I went to aspen achievement academy in 1991. I read 2 of the survivors stories and that is exactly what happened to me while I was there. EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!! it makes me think they had to have been written by two of the kids I was there with. the people at aspen are insane. I was starved for the 1st 3 days. starved as punishment. I was there in December and January. the clothes I was given did not fit me. the 'hiking boots" they gave me had totally bald soles from the 1st day I had them. I was not allowed to bathe in any way shape or form for 60 days. 8 pairs of underwear were doled out to over the 60 days when the "counselors" or whatever they were felt we needed clean ones. thank god I never got my period while I was there. I never once menstruated while in Utah, I always figured that I was so malnourished that there was no way I could have afforded to loose any blood. the adults that were there with us were horrendous. two them from the first group we had were getting married and I remember hearing them having sex at night. the woman gave me I knife when I told her I wanted to kill myself so I could get out of Utah. our "therapist" Robert was a joke. he enjoyed seeing ho w angry we would get.he would verbally abuse me to the point of hysteria every time, no matter how determined I would be to not freak out during "therapy", I almost pushed him off a cliff once and didn't give it a second thought. there are a few people that I have to mention because if they would not have been there I can't even imagine how bad it would have been. levoy the teacher, was the nicest, kindest, sweetest teacher I could have asked for. he would bring us bananas and sneak them to us behind the "counselors" backs. he told us that the reason he worked for aspen was because he knew how they treated us and he wanted to be there to make it even a tiny bit better for us if he could. I love that man. I would call him a saint and our "counselors" demons. except for "Sept" his real name was mike but he told us it was sept, short for September, AND I still have no idea why. he actually showed us how adjust the backpacks that we got for about 2 weeks. they were given to us without sizing considerations and with no instructions on how to wear it properly so that our lower backs weren't getting the entire weight of the pack. he also stood up to the other "counselors" when they would want to punish us in some insane way for anything they felt like. I remember having to walk around a hill for hours and hours in a circle. starting it during daylight and not being able to stop until the sun started coming up the next morn. I don't know how many times I collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition. we drank water that came from streams with cow feces I n it. while we watched the "counselors" drink bottled water they brought from home. we ate raw sticks of butter, raw oatmeal, and raw potatoes while they ate the meat that they had taken away from us as punishment. the other girl there once tried to fight me and OUR punishment was having our wrists tied together every minute if every day and night fir 2 weeks while we were hiking, sleeping, going to the bathroom, climbing mountains everything. and there was also the hand cart, it is a huge wheelbarrow that takes at least 4 people to push. one on each wheel, manually turning the spokes with your raw un gloved hands. and two behind the bar in front pushing it forward basically with our abdomens. me and the other girl had huge swollen bruises across our whole stomach region that we had to keep pushing against every day pushing the hand cart, the only time we ever slept in any kind of enclosure was when we pushing the hand cart. it was filled with a huge 3 room tent made of canvas with all the poles and stakes, all the "counselors" backpacks, tons of huge heavy iron skillets and the most food we ever saw out there. one of the guys punched the wheel of the handcart and broke his hand. he never got medical treatment. he had his poor broken shattered hand wrapped in dirty rags for weeks. if your wondering why he punched the wheel, it was because one of the "counselors" had tackled him and broke his glasses . they never got replaced and he has half blind for the last 3 weeks we were there. we also were made to bathe before our parents saw as . the 2 guys and the 2 girls each had to share a cannibal pot of warmed water to wash off 59 days of filth. I spent Christmas in solitude confinement eating raw potatoes and sticks of butter while everyone else ate the biggest meal we were given. I had to join the group during dinner and watch h them eat their dinner while I ate butter. this was my punishment for crying the day before, x mas eve, when I read the letters my family sent me. I could go on and on. everything that I read from the other 2 stories is absolutely true!!! everything from being tackled in the middle of the night in your room and getting taken to Utah, to the bullshit they told our parents when they were signing us up, and having to sign over custody of us to aspen achievement academy is also absolutely TRUE!!!!!!!!!!! I vowed to someday go back there are save some kids from this. but even to this day, 13 years later I can not find where I was on a map,on google earth, anything. I’ve driven through the north part of the state 4 times and I cry the whole way through. I don't stop for anything, and I pray the entire time that I don';t get captured and taken back to the high desert mountains of , I think, southern Utah, where we were considered devil children that were brought there to be tortured as punishment for being teenagers that were not mormons, I was 14 when I went there. smoked pot twice, had gotten drunk a handful of times and I didn't even know things like meth and heroin existed until I learned all about them from the other kids there. I got out and couldn’t wait to do speed and acid. I’m going to look on the internet right now and try to find out where I was in Utah, cuz after writing this I know I need to go there and save anyone I can from there, either that or sit outside their offices begging everyone that walks through t their doors ready to enroll their children to not do it. I have never felt so hopeless, helpless and scared as I did for those 60 days of my life. I will do anything I can do to stop a parent from enrolling their child into aspen achievement academy. you just let me know and I’m there.