In the afternoon heat, the air seemed to hover above the dirt road, making the Chilean mountains in the background appear like a mirage.
Carrying the entire heft of their possessions and gear, the Patagonia Wharton Leadership Expedition kicked up clouds of dust, with boots crushing rough gravel into fine powder. Beyond heavy breathing and the occasional squeak of a backpack frame, the world seemed quiet, stuck in a dreamy haze.
Thousands of kilometers away, the Ecuador Wharton Leadership Expedition set up camp underneath the powder-white Antisana glacier, returning after an exhausting day of trekking through the dense Ecuadorian grasslands. In the distance loomed the stratovolcano Cotopaxi and Sinchalagua, its rockier, less volatile mountain cousin.
Every break, Wharton Leadership Ventures (WLV) sends students on expeditions to some of the most remote and pristine environments on Earth. Led and facilitated by undergraduate venture fellows, participants practice leadership skills in the wilderness: determining how far to trek each day, which routes to take, when to wake up, and perhaps most importantly, what to eat first in the group food supply.
Venture fellows have many responsibilities on expeditions. We plan logistics, set the tone for how participants approach upcoming experiences, and help them identify their leadership strengths and weaknesses, using our training to suggest ways for them to grow and challenge themselves.
Is there really that much to learn from climbing up a mountain?
The answer is yes. Take second-year Radhika Pant, W’28, and her first challenge as a Patagonia fellow, for example.
At some point, the dirt road had turned into a dirt path, and then into a rocky trail. The heat, unfortunately, was still the same. The pre-venture excitement had long dissipated. Reality was here in the form of a loaded pack and six kilometers of straight elevation gain.
“One of the participants had tears in her eyes and said that she wasn’t going to make it,” Pant remembers.
As the group stopped, lest they leave her too far behind, the local guides gathered round the participant, encouraging her to continue to no avail. Pant, who was struggling herself while simultaneously taking note of the chaos, stepped in.
Pulling the participant off to the side of the trail, taking a moment to soak in the nature that had been sailing by unacknowledged, Pant looked her in the eyes. Training for venture fellows doesn’t specifically cover soothing emotional distress, but it does prepare us to look out for others, such as how much they eat, how they walk, and how often they speak to others.
“This is really hard,” Pant admits. “But you have to do hard things in your life. These expeditions are supposed to be hard, and they will hurt for a bit — but that’s because there’s something good coming at the end of it.”
Coming from a peer, the advice rang true. After a couple sips from her water bottle and some time in the shade, the participant rejoined the group and continued the trek to base camp.
“Part of the efficacy comes from being their same age,” Pant says. “You’re one of them, so they listen to you, and you can have big impacts on their mindset because the mental distance is smaller.”
That’s not to say that the role of a venture fellow is to always step in. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true.
In Ecuador, we were in the forest for a time, with the team confidently venturing off in one direction, only to double back in hurried confusion as it became evident that some landmarks appearing in the distance were, in fact, not supposed to be there.
Cotopaxi loomed in the background, standing sentinel over our team as we huddled around a crumpled, indecipherable waterproof map. Rows and rows of dying pine trees, remnants of a failed business venture, stood at attention, leaving the sky visible in small, blue pockets in the canopy.
“It’s … probably this way,” someone said.
As venture fellows, we’re taught basic navigation skills from the first training. We’re often tossed in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a compass and a map, asked to find objectives hidden deep in canyons or high on summits.
The urge to take over and get going when light is waning and food is waiting is strong.
But our training also stresses that we learn the most when we try and fail. If I had not navigated confidently to the wrong state during spring training last year, I would not now know to double-check my way markers and check in with my teammates at every junction.
Being a venture fellow means allowing mistakes to happen. This can mean we end up on the wrong side of the mountain, or water runs out while washing the dishes, or we’re two hours later than anticipated arriving at camp. As venture fellows, we relish watching these moments unfold because we know that — at the end of our expedition, when our groups set up their tents in the blink of an eye and dish out hot meals at the light of a stove — the moments of flawless execution will be that much sweeter. In that way, conquering miles of hostile terrain that once stood in our way and reaching the summit as a group on the last day of the expedition is more than just completing an objective.
As a newbie venture fellow, I once believed that ventures were just multi-day walks in a park. And that may be true. They take place in beautiful destinations and certainly involve plenty of walking. But to call an expedition just a walk is to call a graduation just a formality or a funeral just a gathering.
There is a greater meaning to these proceedings that take place deep in the wilderness, isolated from the rest of the world. As venture fellows, we dedicate our work to what happens after these moments: the reflections that enable learning and, by extension, transformation.
Students leave expeditions more proactive because, during the after-action review, they reflect on what it takes to set up camp and cook for their entire team. Some leave more empathetic, reflecting on the reality that a team can only be as fast as its slowest member. Others realize halfway up a mountain pass that they have spent a life distracted by far too many shiny lights, and that an existence dedicated to simply achieving one’s goals day by day, step by step, can be fulfilling. In all these instances, a venture fellow has observed and prodded, pulling moments that might have passed by unseen into the realm of the visible.
As venture fellows, our duty is to create an environment that provides the conditions for students to grow long after the trip ends. In that way, the role is both special and intimate. Over the course of a week, deep in the middle of nowhere, we have the privilege of shaping moments whose impact unfolds long after we’ve left.
On top of ancient glaciers and deep in carved red-rock canyons, I have seen how that growth is inevitable: as certain as the trees growing one more ring each year, the leaves unfurling every spring, and the wildflowers blooming at the start of every Ecuadorian summer.
By Alan Li, W’28
Posted: May 11, 2026
