Sorry for commenting on such an old post, but I know where she took her daughter. https://aspiroadventure.com I know because there is a couple of things mentioned that is unique to this particular company.

One of my closest friends works (I can't say much about him) and has worked for this company and similar companies for quite some time. And I get to hear all of his stories and I know a lot about the "culture" that actually goes on in these kind of places.

There is so much misinformation in this thread about these places and what they do. There hasn't been a sexual assault issue, or a preventable death or anything like that since the 70's. It isn't anything as hard as bootcamp or anything like that. They get similar gear to what you would get hiking the AT trail with a group. And it's mainly backpacking in national parks and forests, something people do for fun. Yes, there is also therapy involved where they make the kids write letters to thier family about stuff. But those kind of serious therapy groups like AA have been around for a long time.

There are a couple of different kind of kids that come to these camps. Most of them are rich and problem kids so thier parents send them to all kinds of camps and day facilities and stuff to keep them off thier backs. Then there are the court orders mostly for substance abuse and drugs, apparently, it works really well for these kids to detox in a "productive" environment. They have a much higher rate of success than just rehab. And then its kids like in the article, kids that fall from being the best and they typically fake most of the letters and stuff (No joke, they force you to write) and then come back "changed" and aren't a lot different.

I'm on mobile, so I probably spelled something wrong. This might get buried, but I would love to answer questions about the whole industry.

So, living out there isn't that bad. They get decent food even though its calorie dense due to the limitations of backpacking. They get a lot of downtime and it isn't that strenuous (I've been told that they get a lot of fat people and eating disorders). I could write for hours on this, no joke.