My Approach
As the founder of Bear's Cairn, I bring together my passion for adventure with my background in therapeutic coaching. My journey combines a formal Masters education in Holistic Counseling, professional climbing certifications, and personal experience with the transformative power of adventure and wilderness.
I created Bear's Cairn to offer something different – a place where growth happens naturally through experience rather than just conversation, where achievements are real and confidence is earned, and where the wisdom of wilderness guides personal development.
Name Origin & Philosophy
The name "Bear's Cairn" joins my family nickname with the ancient and practical wisdom of mountain wayfinding. Cairns – those carefully stacked stone markers – have guided travelers through challenging terrain for thousands of years. They offer direction without dictating the exact path, allow for adjustments as conditions change, and stand as testaments to those who've journeyed before.
This perfectly captures my approach to personal growth. I believe in:
Providing clear guidance while honoring individual paths
Building sustainable progress one step at a time
Adjusting course as needed while maintaining direction
Creating markers of achievement that endure
My CAIRN Approach — I focus on five essential areas that support growth and navigation through life's challenges:
Connection - How you relate to others and build trust
Autonomy - Your need for choice and self-direction
Integration - How you process experiences and information
Regulation - Your emotional and behavioral management systems
Navigation - Your problem-solving and executive function skills
Like building a cairn stone by stone, we develop these areas at your pace, creating a foundation that supports your unique journey forward.
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The principles that guide my coaching are the same ones that have shaped my personal growth through adventure. Beyond the activities I offer clients, my own journey has expanded into multi-pitch traditional rock-climbing, ice climbing, backcountry skiing, and ski- mountaineering—each offering unique lessons in risk management, mindful decision-making, and embracing challenge. These experiences continually deepen my understanding of how wilderness engagement builds resilience, focus, and authentic confidence. While these advanced activities aren't currently part of Bear's Cairn offerings, I'm pursuing ongoing education and certifications with the possibility of expanding these opportunities for clients in the future.
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This personal journey naturally evolved into professional purpose. After earning my Master's in Holistic Counseling and gaining certifications through the American Mountain Guide Association (both for indoor gym and outdoor settings), I served as an Experiential and Adventure Programming Coordinator at an intensive counseling center.
There, I worked with clients aged in the preteens up to young adulthood, and with their families, helping support complex cases including autism spectrum disorder, neurodiversity, depression, anxiety, trauma, and various behavioral challenges. This experience confirmed what I had long suspected: adventure and wilderness experiences offer unique pathways to growth and healing, no matter the challenges one is facing.
Today, I bring together these personal insights and professional expertise to create experiences that guide others through their own journeys of growth and discovery. I also provide consultation and training for therapeutic programs and organizations looking to expand their experiential offerings, drawing from my clinical background and specialized expertise in adventure-based interventions.
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Three Levels of Value Every cairn we build together offers value at multiple levels:
Foundation Level: Learning and skill-building happens regardless of initial enthusiasm
Development Level: Growth opportunities are offered, not forced
Integration Level: Transformation becomes possible when readiness meets opportunity
Individualized Approach I specialize in working with teens and young adults across diverse backgrounds and challenges, adapting my approach to match how each person learns best. Whether you're navigating specific challenges or seeking to optimize existing strengths, we'll find ways to make the work meaningful and accessible to you.
The cairn stands whether or not you choose to follow every marked path – because the value lies in having the trail clearly marked when you're ready to take the next step.
My Philosophy
Core Approach
Structure with Flexibility
Like a well-built cairn that's both stable and adaptable, my approach provides clear structure while remaining flexible to individual needs and learning styles. Your unique wiring is a strength, not a deficit to fix.
Adventure as Teacher
I believe that some of the most powerful learning happens through direct experience. Adventure naturally creates opportunities for growth that engage us fully in the learning process. As I often say: 'Resistance is information, not defiance.'
Skills for Life
Every experience builds transferable skills – problem-solving, emotional regulation, social awareness – that extend far beyond any specific activity into daily life. I focus on authentic engagement over forced participation.
Nature as Healer
Our connection to natural environments offers unique restoration. Mountains, trails, and climbing walls provide contexts where we can discover strengths impossible to uncover in traditional settings. I create brave spaces where growth happens through supported challenge.
Meaningful Challenge
Growth happens when we step into uncertainty with intention. I create experiences that develop resilience through the process itself. The journey—with all its unexpected elements—becomes the most powerful teacher.
Coaching vs. Therapy
Bear's Cairn provides therapeutic coaching services, not licensed therapy. While my approach incorporates therapeutic elements and draws on my clinical background, these services focus on skill building, personal growth, and experiential learning rather than treating mental health conditions.
Many clients find Bear's Cairn services complement their ongoing therapy—serving as the experiential "arm" where they can actively practice and embody insights developed in traditional therapeutic settings. This integration creates powerful opportunities for translating awareness into action.
I maintain clear professional boundaries and provide referrals when clients' needs exceed my scope of practice.
Alexander is an expert in knowing how to make you feel comfortable and heard. I have witnessed Alexander working with complex diagnoses and family systems, and he has navigated it all with patience, ease, and grace. His knowledge around experiential and outdoor therapeutic adventures is unmatched. Anybody who gets to work with him would be lucky.
—Neurodiversity Community Leader
Your Guide
I'm Alexander Taugott, M.A., and I bring together clinical expertise with authentic adventure experience to guide your growth journey. With a Master's in Holistic Counseling and AMGA climbing certifications for both indoor and outdoor settings, I've spent close to five years developing adventure-based therapeutic approaches with teens and young adults across the neurodevelopmental spectrum.
My experience includes serving as Experiential and Adventure Programming Coordinator at an intensive counseling center, where I worked with complex cases involving autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and trauma. I've supported dozens of families through their growth journeys, developing specialized expertise in neurodivergent development and family systems.
Beyond direct service, I provide consultation and training for therapeutic programs seeking to expand their experiential offerings. My approach draws from transpersonal psychology, somatic practices, and indigenous wisdom traditions, all grounded in the practical realities of supporting young people through life's challenging terrain.
When I'm not coaching, you'll find me pursuing my own adventures through multi-pitch climbing, backcountry skiing, ski-mountaineering, paddleboarding, and hiking in the Alpine - and teaching my 3-year-old son the fundamentals. These experiences continually deepen my understanding of how challenge and nature foster authentic growth at every stage of life.
Growing up in the last generation before the digital age transformed childhood, I discovered my foundation in the natural world. From exploring woodland trails with walkie-talkies to skiing the Alps, these early adventures planted seeds of connection that would later shape my approach to therapeutic coaching.
Like many, I temporarily lost this connection during my teenage years and early college experience. It was through surfing the solitary waves of Central California, surrounded by seals and dolphins, that I rediscovered a profound truth: stepping away from the constructed world into nature offers a powerful reset for the human spirit. In those moments of "stepping off the continent," I found social anxieties and depression floating away, replaced by a state of flow, post-adventure bliss, and a deep connection with the natural world.
My journey deepened through formal education in holistic counseling, where my studies ranged from Integral Theory and contemporary philosophy to mindfulness practices and Jungian psychology. I explored indigenous wisdom traditions, eco-therapy, somatic approaches, transpersonal psychology, and authentic spiritual practices—all of which inform my integrated approach to growth and development.
But it was a chance encounter with climbing that truly crystallized my path. In that moment of finding calm confidence twenty feet up a rock face, I reconnected with the transformative power of controlled and voluntary adversity – a central and guiding force that has remained constant in my life for over twelve years.
Finding My Path
Adventures That Inform My Practice
From the Front Range trails and rock to Colorado’s alpine playgrounds, my personal adventures inform my understanding of challenge, risk management, and the transformative power of outdoor experiences.
Ready to Begin your Journey?
Every path forward begins with a conversation about possibilities. I invite you to reach out for a free consultation to discuss how Bear's Cairn might support your growth.