Wikifest Video Reflections

Here are the video reflections that participants of the Wikifest 2008 at Outward Bound Singapore shot on the last day.

Part One: Meet the 'Wikis'


Part Two: What we learned, and how it will benefit our schools


Part Three: Next steps and outtakes


These videos were shot with RCA Small Wonder video cameras which were thoughtfully donated to the project. My apologies that some of the footage shot by participants does not appear above.

Although the video cameras are quite easy to use they do have some limitations. The mic is fairly limited and does not pick up audio from a moderate distance. As you can see from the videos, the audio also doesn't start recording until a half second after the video. The cameras like PC's more than Macs and save files as .avi. I used the free iSquint program to convert them to a Mac friendly format.

That being said these are a great low cost way to shoot video, they are quick and intuitive to use, shoot good quality within their optimum range and have a handy built in USB jack so you don't need to worry about bringing a cable with you.

Wikifest Pictures

I've posted an album of pictures from Wikifest! They are posted over at Flickr. Enjoy!

Back Home & Outline for Reflection

Back home at last! Above is a picture of Harmony and Symphony, the two OBS boats that run from Singapore mainland to the island base. Although I'm completely beat I logged into Skype and found a couple of folks online, one in Colorado and the other in Indonesia. How cool is that.

I worked on the ride home both on the video reflection, but also on my own personal reflection on take aways. So here's an outline of things I'll be posting on as I have a chance.

1. Web 2.0 trends that relate to experiential learning and education
2. Decision making around personal and institutional engagement with social networks
3. Understanding goals and ROI of engagement
4. Institutional risk assessment of engagement vs. no engagement
5. Social networking roles
6. Digital divide
7. Direct transfer to EL and traditional classrooms
   
8. My to do's

Here's a picture I took of one little part of the wiki that I'd like to help work on.

Great to be home - missing everyone from Singapore too!

Basically done

Can't believe it - it's Friday afternoon here, we're basically done. Heading over to the OB Singapore sea base to get away from our computers for a while. I'm going to have to crank tonight to get some things done before leaving Saturday.

Real reflection, communication of learning will have to wait - if only I had a 24 hour chunk of time when I am sitting on my butt doing nothing.

Oh, wait . . . .

Yesterday?

I'm having a hard time with time related posts like yesterday. That was Thursday for me, but it's still Thursday in the States. So when was it? Not sure, any way - the previous day we worked through some key wiki things.

We discussed needed resources and available resources at some length, including barriers to uploading, proprietary concerns and various 'jobs' or roles in the project.

I'm going to post a list of roles at some point when I can figure them all out again.

Here we are later in the day having a discussion about language divide and digital divide. Some functions are available in wiki such as language settings, other problems were more thorny for us. Like how to translate certain pages, and how to enable non English speaking users to engage.
Here is a picture of the ships backing into Singapore harbor - reminds me of my thoughts from the last days, backing up!

Slipping into Reporter Mode

I'm slipping a bit into reporter mode this morning, I don't have mental space to reflect right now. I'm going to take another look at Tom and Noelle's presentations from yesterday to recapture some of the aha moments for me and share that back when I have some space.

For now I wanted to report on yesterday, here's the basic agenda.
We looked at overview of the project, overview of network building tools, then specific tool sessions. I learned Skype and started a LinkedIn profile. We wrapped with a vision session and a brainstorm of tangible benefits. Here's our vision of what OB will look like in 5 years with these new globally focused technologies.
We needed an energizer about 3/4 of the way through the day!


After the session we went to China Town for dinner and sight seeing.

Outward Bound Mogulus Stream

During Wikifest we broadcast several sessions live on Mogulus. Now we're rebroadcasting the reflection videos and some other content on the stream.

Update: I'm taking the stream off the blog because I find it annoying when it auto starts when people are reading a more recent post. The stream is currently broadcasting videos from Wikifest, and I'll let you know if it goes live again.

Wiki Metaphors

We did three great activities before climbing on Tuesday. I often feel high challenge activities are a bit of a let down after good processing from group initiatives. It was a good progression though. The whole time we were drawing connections back to the work we will do going forward during the conference.
First we did the helium hoop. We struggled with this one, our facilitator asked folks who had done it before to be less active. I'm really glad that I did because although it was hard for us it was great to see new solutions and ideas come out. Ultimately we couldn't do it although we made progress.

Here's the amazing part, after talking it through we tried it again and totally did it! I've never seen a short conversation lead to such quick action in this initiative. The essence of the conversation was quite simple - that we should let go, trust our teammates and let the hoop come to us. It doesn't make much sense to hear me write it. Take away: Ideas have power, shifting focus can lead to results.

Next we piled on a platform, our task to sail our boat to the other shore. At first it seemed impossible as we tried to look beneath our own feet to see what we had to work with. Slowly a solution emerged, or rather a half dozen small independent solutions that evolved with out direct leadership. Take away: Figure out what you have to work with, take many small steps forward, eventually you reach the shore.

Next: artificial caving. This was the only activity today that was completely new to me. We climbed through a series of transport containers with obstacles inside, all while collecting clues that would give us the pass code to unlock the door at the far side. We had one faint blinking LED type light. We rushed ahead to the end of the first container, no way to continue! What did we do wrong? Turns out we had to retrace our steps back on a higher level, then go up again and at last move forward to the next 'cave.' Take away: Going backwards isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes its the way forward.

Finally we climbed the ropes course. There were two sections, either a three part self belayed traverse of a hanging net, a burma type bridge and then an hanging platform. For me this was the least group engaged I felt all day. I think though, this was a better metaphor of how we will work together going forward, disjointed, disconnected and self directed. I belayed, went to the bathroom, climbed, chatted, climbed again. Take away: Filling different roles at different times is OK. Stepping up and stepping back are good for the whole process to move forward.

First Day

We had a great first day at OB Singapore! Here's a shot of us having lunch in a big open pavilion.

The base that we are at is only one of their campuses, this one is mostly right in the city. But there is still a great view from our dormitory.

The goal for the day was to do a series of high and low challenges to bond us as a wiki-team and to draw lessons from the activities as metaphors for our future work both together. This will be even more important once we leave Singapore and continue to network from home.

We did an course element I had never seen before - a simulated caving trip inside these containers in groups of four. Very dark, very twisty and a great puzzle too that went through the whole course.

It's been in the 80's and muggy. Right after we broke for the day it started to downpour. That lasted for about an hour and now it's clear again. These are the bunk houses for the kids when they come. They sleep up above through the green door, but you can notice that underneath there is a covered space for rainy times. Great design, each group has their own rain space and classroom.

Tomorrow we will get into the web part of the training, but we're off to a great start!

Tokyo!

Free wireless, outlets that take US plugs, primary coverage, did I leave the states? No wait, it's okay - free Sake and beverages of multiple exciting colors. It is Japan :)

The plan is to stay awake as long as I can, then sleep on the plane and when I get to OB Singapore, that way when I wake up I won't be jet lagged and I'll be ready to go. That's the plan anyway!

So far so good

Waiting in Manchester for the flight to DC. Here we go! Not going to mention that previous problem so as not to jinx anything.

While I'm waiting I thought I would answer some questions that one of the organizers of the conference, Tom, posed in a welcome email.

What do you hope to gain from this conference?
I think my main goals are as follows.

• Learn about new tools and deepen my skills with tools I already know about
• Explore how new technology can be used in both management of EL programs, as well as as course elements of EL programs
• Meet, share and be inspired by like minded professionals
• Spread the word about New Hampton School as doing some good work in both education in general and EL/tech in particular
• Become a more valuable member of the OB Wiki team so I can be more productive to the project
• Identify specific things I can bring back to NHS

I realize many folks reading this blog perhaps for the first time may not be totally up on all the language I'm throwing around. Here's a little primer and some links to help.

• EL as in Experiential Learning, here's how we define this at New Hampton School
• NHS or New Hampton School, the independent high school where I work
• Wiki a collaborative website built by many for mutual benefit, examples include Wikipedia, the Outward Bound World Resources Project or my own wiki
  

Here's an idea, in the same line of thinking as Beth's Open Thread, if you have questions, ideas or thoughts that might be addressed by Wikifest please leave a comment on this post and I'll see what I can do to find out!

Passport update

I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone from American Passport Express, but here's a really weird coincidence. Sarah was out last night with her mom's group from NHS and one of the moms, Destiny, works for American Passport Express!

So I sheepishly called her this morning, apologizing profusely for bothering her at home with a work question. She told me it wouldn't be any problem at all to travel with the passport with this slight misprint! I'm very relieved! I'll get a free reprint when I'm back.

I'm going to bring my old passport with just in case and of course my drivers license. Here's a picture of the misprint. Notice that the last letter of Mundahl is actually an "I" not an "L." Very slight - in fact Sarah, Ilana, Russ and I all missed it the first times we looked at the it.

Seems like we're okay, I'll keep you posted!

Uhoh

Just noticed a misspelling on my name in my new passport. This should make things fun.

The last 10%

A former colleague of mine Miles told me once that the last 10% of any project takes 90% of the work. That seems to be the case for Wikifest. In this case, the work isn't so much the actual conference as it is taking care of everything else on this end with work before I go!

Two big projects that launched today were the summer web page at NHS and the online registration information system behind it. Then there is some board information that keeps dragging on, and the wrap up from the JUA that thankfully Ilana is taking care of. Thank you Ilana!

But I did find a small suitcase I can use for the plane and not check anything which seems wise. Note: if you are traveling overseas TSA requires that you put all your toiletries into a quart size plastic bag and you can't have anything larger than 3oz! Do these people travel? Have they ever put toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, gel, shampoo, soap and sun screen into a quart bag? I don't really think I need a lot of items in this department, but that's pretty hard to do!

Good news, bad news

Some recent news (at least to me) that I though folks might be interested in. First of all my good friend Vonk let me know that John Edwards wears his son's Outward Bound pin on his lapel. His son died shortly after taking an OB course when he was 16. Didn't know that.

On the bad news side the Alpinist Newswire covered the death today of Sir Edmund Hillary who along with Tenzing Norgay first climbed Mt. Everest.

Finally a former student has started blogging her international travels thanks to her experience with the Junior Urban Adventure. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about her adventures.

Any other news I'm missing? Let me know!

Got the passport!

Looks like I'm set to go! I was kind of stressing about this.

Just 40 million things to do for work before Sunday morning!

I've already learned something from this conference actually - check it out it's a web service that lets you broadcast live video feeds. It has a very professional feel although I've only tried it out with my webcam in the mac. We'll be broadcasting some of the sessions from the conference live.

The service is called Mogulus and the channel for the live OB broadcasts is here. I'll try to give you a heads up when we go live with it or embed the feed here on this blog.

Passport is on the way

I just got the email that my new passport shipped today and I should have it tomorrow! It was kind of a weird thing to buy a plane ticket without a valid passport. I went with one of these ultra fast, we can get you your passport in a day places.

I was talking with my friend Joe about this and he scoffed (being the biggest world traveler that I know, meaning he travels a lot, though he is a big guy too) claiming these types were scam artists. "Just take your plane ticket down to Boston to the consulate and you'll have your passport that same day," he says. Exactly my point - I'm going to freaking Singapore on a week's notice sure I have time to go to Boston and wrangle with this. Well he's probably true, I could have saved myself some money, but in this case I'm happy to trade time for money.

After having a passport for years I unwisely let it lapse. I guess it didn't look like I was going to be doing much traveling for a while what with kids and work and all. Little did I know I would wanting to go to Singapore, duh!

I'm going to Wikifest!

Hi folks - a couple of posts ago I mentioned that Outward Bound had started a wiki to build a global knowledge base to promote the development of that organization. I've been working with them off and on in my spare time as a way to give back to this organization that gave me a great deal when I was starting my career.

Outward Bound International is hosting a conference to discuss web 2.0, experiential learning in general and the World Resources Project in particular. I was pretty excited to be invited to participate a few weeks ago - but I'm even more excited to be able to attend!

The conference is taking place at the Outward Bound school in Singapore! That's here in case you're like me and have to look it up:


View Larger Map


So I'm heading out this Sunday - I have a ticket and I really hope I'll have my passport by then!

I'm planning on posting pictures, video and key learnings to this blog so stay tuned for more!

Educator downloads are back

I've added a new section to the sidebar of downloads. I had posted about this a while back but I thought they should have their own section. Not all of them will appeal to all readers, but I hope you will find something you like.

The write ups of activities we've created over the years might be the most interesting to the most number of folks. These are activities and things that we've either created out of whole cloth or modified enough I think we can call them our own.

On the other hand, if you've ever climbed in Lyme, maybe the little topo will be helpful - it contains routes not found in other guidebooks.

BurleighMt YouTube channel top 15 today!

Okay I won't lie, I'm pretty excited this morning. I just got back from the Junior Urban Adventure and this morning I check into YouTube and find out we've made the top 15 viewed channels today in the non-profit category!

I'm so excited that you all like the videos and enjoy watching them enough for this! Thank you very much!

There have been a couple of videos I've really enjoyed making so it's particularly fun when you all have enjoyed them as well. Two of my personal favorites are the Chicken Bowl 1.5 and the Bad Mountain Movie (even though that's not strictly about work, it's still pretty funny).

I'm most proud and excited about the Education is Linear? teaser for this year's JUA. It's had more than 800 views and is a succinct statement about my views on experiential learning.

So thank you very much for your views, your subscriptions and your interest! Visit our YouTube channel here - or click the big YouTube button to the right!

Outward Bound World Resources

Outward Bound has started a Wiki to share resources and build a knowledge base. In their words:

"Exchange of knowledge can promote more effective dialog, sharing of ideas and ultimately facilitate the global development of Outward Bound."

It looks like there are 17 different sections and lots of interesting resources and downloads. My former colleague Noelle has been working with OB on this and it looks like it's pretty cool.

Check out the wiki and follow the link to join so you can edit and view content.

Alpinist Magazine Fire

Alpinist Magazine recently had a huge fire in their warehouse that resulted in a total loss of their holiday inventory. This is a serious loss for what has become the gold standard in alpine publications. They are also incredibly generous with their online content and frequently updated full feed rss news.

I would encourage you to check out their website and consider getting a subscription. Hey, if Reinhold Mesner thinks this is a good magazine then who am I to argue.

PSU students shadow tower programs

I had the great opportunity to teach a Challenge Course Fundamentals class last year at Plymouth State University. Although I didn't teach the course this fall I did stay in touch with Amy who did.

She had students shadowing ropes course programs as a part of the class. I thought this was a great idea because it filled two big goals of education. Not only did students see how programs operated in different locations, but they also met practitioners valuable for future networking.

For three of the community service Saturdays we had PSU students visiting our adventure clinic. Amy was kind enough to send along some of the reflective essays from her students and I would like to share some of their thoughts with you here.

"From the very first people were welcoming and I was introduced. From there it was down to business, the kids went right ahead and started getting the challenge course ready for it's first visitors. Even though this was only their second day of using the course . . . . they set up belays efficiently and correctly."

"The students of the high school did most of the facilitating with Hans just helping where needed. They put on this program for the local public schools and anyone that wants to can come. Things ran really smoothly and everyone knew what their job was."

"I got to see how a program actually runs. I liked how the students had to set everything up and work with the little kids first hand one on one. Working with the little kids showed me how fulfilling this job really is just by seeing the smiling faces on the little kids."

It was great to have the students visit us on the mountain and great for me to give back to a field that has given me so much - I look forward to future collaborations!

Welcome & Great Work

Welcome to Brian Faenza our fall intern from Plymouth State University.

Brian has jumped right in and although he has only been here a week he has already made some great progress.

This is all the stuff that has come out of the old paint ball course.

He's also been making great headway on the ski hill. Brian tells me he plans to come back and work up the side with the saplings (in the left of this picture) as soon as I get the chainsaw back.

Here are two pictures of Brian and the stone steps he's been working on down to the high wall.

Future projects include renovations to the low ropes course including the spiders web and walk of life. Great to have you with us!

Fall Happenings

Lots of things going on up on the mountain!

The Community Connections clinics have been going like mad - great kids and lots of returners. They've been climbing, learning the knots and even learning to belay. Nice job also to the NHS students teaching them, working with them and playing with them.

We have been partnering with Plymouth State University quite a lot over the years and this year is no exception. We have students from Challenge Course Fundamentals shadowing our clinics this fall to get experience on different kinds of courses and programs.

We also have a fall intern this year. In years past we've had spring interns but this year we've added a new intern in the fall as well. His name is Brian and he'll be largely working on Burleigh doing some long postponed maintenance projects and critical repairs.

What a great fall so far!

Fall Programs!

I'm really excited to start our fall team building season! Any NHS group of adults or young people is welcome to schedule a program on Burleigh Mountain!

Let me know if you would like to set something up!

More Conversations

I've just received the conference brochure for Conversations in a Changing World taking place this October at Sant Bani. It looks like quite an amazing line up of speakers including the key note by former US Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun.

Also a featured speaker is Ruth McDonough (NHS ' 04) who spent a year studying abroad in Jordan and Syria and who's blog we all followed during the Junior Urban Adventure.

Looks like a great gathering.

Start of year programs!

Well the start of the year is officially here. First day of classes down on campus are going on right now. Last week we also saw some great team building programs with some of our neighbors. NHTI now joins both Cardigan Mountain School and the Sant Bani School in choosing Burleigh for start of the year activities with student leadership.

These are very satisfying programs because they are not only great students but it is also nice to be partnering with our neighbor schools.

Unfortunately I was unable to work the last two programs due to commitments down on campus! So I hired Dave and a new facilitator for us Steve to come up and work the programs.

Thanks guys!

Conversations in a Changing World

Our neighbors over in Sanbornton at the Sant Bani School are hosting a conference this fall that looks to be pretty interesting.

I'm going to check in with Heidi in the morning and see what I can find out - I'll let you know what I discover.

Update: I spoke with Heidi yesterday. Spots are filling up and they haven't even published the list of workshops yet! If you are interested in signing up it would be best to email conference@santbani.org right away.

Educational Homestead

I was sorting through old emails today getting ready for the start of school (!) and found a great message from Tracy, the mom of a student who graduated this past year.

She turned me on to D Acres, an educational farm and homestead.

Tracy writes, "They host school groups and have some interesting workshops regarding sustainable living. The setting is absolutely beautiful. Staff are informative & friendly."

Thanks for that, Tracy! I'd be curious to find out more about this interesting looking organization.

Blogs are buzzing - but do they work?

I've noticed recently that outdoor organizations are hitting web 2.0 like it's going out of style.

This probably was inevitable given the number of unofficial groups, blogs, sites and videos from our alumni. At some point a communication director somewhere woke up and said, hey - we'd better get on board with this otherwise we'll loose control of our message.

What I'm wondering is does this work and if so what are the strategies to help make it work well? Or more fundamentally what metrics can we use to even begin to ask and measure that question?

Here's a short list of some official and unofficial web 2.0 sites for big outdoor organizations.
Official NOLS blog
Official (?) NOLS YouTube channel
Big unofficial Facebook NOLS group (sorry must have Facebook account to see this)
Official Thompson Island MySpace profile
Unofficial Outward Bound instructor group on Facebook
Official North Carolina Outward Bound YouTube channel
Boy Scouts of America "Cub Cast"

I know there are many more, but that's just a sample to get started with. I'm not the first person to ask this question, Li and Bernoff asked about the ROI of blogging, and Hallett has posted about best practices for blogging events.

Momentum Video Magazine

If the Alpinist video archives and dozens of vids on YouTube (see links to the right) isn't enough for you then check out this collection of mostly bouldering and sport climb videos over at Momentum Video Magazine. Great production values and nice routes.

I only wish they would have some videos on longer more alpine style climbs.

Without proper equipment and training?

A recent article in Alpinist makes our local climbing fall in Rumney look like small potatoes when they report this to be the deadliest summer season in the Alps in the last 10 years.

I know that there are different ethics in the Alps, especially as it relates to rescue and in particular helicopter assistance, but come on this is getting ridiculous. Especially when the chief of the Zermatt rescue service says many of the climbers entering the mountains this summer did so without proper equipment or training! The article goes on to say that many of the rescues took place because climbers either "couldn't or wouldn't climb further."

I used to make fun of my friend and former colleague Adam for spending so much money on NOLS courses. My argument went that if he spent all that money on his own trips he could stay out twice as long, wouldn't have to deal with being part of a large essentially guided group and would have learned twice as much. I admit that I was probably at least to some degree wrong - and I'm sure he learned a great deal and was able to go to some amazing locations.

My fundamental principle of mountaineering, the reason I love it so much, is that I am self sufficient. If I'm by myself or with a group, I / we have what we need with us both in terms of food and gear but also in terms of mental and emotional reserves.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and then it's amazing to have people willing to help. But when people enter the mountains with the implied understanding that they don't need to be prepared, or responsible for their choices, that's not cool.

I would disagree that lack of equipment and training was to blame in many of the Alps accidents listed above. I would value experience more as a risk management tool than either expensive clothes or courses. As a young outdoors person I can recall many bad calls I made on 3000' peaks or dirty granite quarries that only bruised my ego.

I never would have had the chance to make these mistakes on a course, but they have served me well on later trips where the stakes were higher.

Expedition Behavior

So Ilana thinks she's pretty cool because she just completed a NOLS educator course. Actually, come to think of it, she is pretty cool because of that. But that's beside the point. She stopped by the office today to share with me some things she's learned.

For example tussocks are our friends. And tallus slopes are not. No actually she did have some words of wisdom that she quoted from Howard Tomb entitled, "Expedition Behavior: The Finer Points."

I'll sum up the key learnings for you here, but you should also check out the full details at Tomb's website.

1. Get the hell out of bed
2. Do not be cheerful before breakfast
3. Do not complain
4. Learn to cook at least one thing right
5. Either A) shampoo or B) do not remove your hat for any reason
6. Do not ask if anyone has seen your stuff
7. Never ask where you are
8. Always carry more than your fair share
9. Do not get sunburned
10. Do not get killed

Thank you visitors!

I thought I would take a moment and thank all of our readers here at the Burleigh Blog!! I appreciate your interest, comments and feedback! The summer has been busy for me and I haven't been on Burleigh (Mountain or blog) as much as I have wanted, but that hasn't slowed you down from visiting!

Here is a map of where you are visiting from courtesy of StatCounter.


According to our stats visitors from the UK are narrowly beating out Korean guests after the US!

Thanks again for your visits!

Summer camper falls 50 feet in Rumney

According to this article a 12 year old from a Rhode Island summer camp fell 40-50 feet but suffered only minor injuries.

This article is particularly interesting for me from two points of view - both as an adventure activity and because she was a participant in a summer camp.

Strangely the Fish and Game representative said the safety systems seemed to be working and they had a belayer and a back up. So if everything was working so nicely, what happened?

As Bill brought up in the previous post, this incident will get a lot of attention (as it should) but is that attention in proportion to the actual risk of rock climbing? For example according to this web site, in the 30 minutes that it took the climbers to walk back to the trail head there were 2.18 fatal car crashes in the United States. How well reported were those accidents?

Update: the story has now been picked up by the Boston Globe with some more details.

Further Update: the story has also been picked up by the Manchester Union Leader along with a picture of the litter carry. Now they are saying they suspect the climber unclipped her own rope.

British Risk Management Stats

Bill Stephen over at Bill's Outdoor Learning Blog turned me on to a nice article of stats from our colleagues in the UK. Interesting comparison between adventure activities and auto accidents.

I particularly was interested by this idea:

"Once this is clear, it becomes apparent that much of our work on health and safety is misdirected. Worse, we discover that by avoiding certain activities on the grounds that they are ‘dangerous’ we are inadvertently exposing our young people to much greater risks elsewhere, albeit ones which get less attention from the media."

Risk Management

I was getting ready for our Risk Management Committee and received this reply from Steve at PSU.

"There is always risk, risk in trying, risk in failing, risk in succeeding, the question lies in what risk is educationally just, and which is folly. Which risk could lead toward breakthrough, and which risk only opens up chaos to dance too close?

At the end of the day a dead child lies at our feet can we justify this risk to ourselves and to his or her parents? As the risk takers/educators I believe we are better suited for this job now more than ever and that is simply because we have kids of our own. Outside of our own ego, decision calculations must be made on a daily basis. This critical analysis of the everyday I believe sets us aside from the typical single, no strings attached, adventure person. Why would anyone want someone making critical decisions when they are not attached? Query that, Skywalker."

Great perspective and a humbling one as well.

Adventure Clinic #3

Last saturday was the third Adventure Clinic on Burleigh (look, no snow!). We had a great turn out including many parents. This guy loved to climb but was mostly in it for the big swing!

I was very pleased at the work our students did to make the event run smoothly and Ms. Freeborn is learning 'the ropes' quite nicely!
My only complaint is that it is a pretty short program, only three hours or so. Next summer we're hoping to start our adventure day camp so that would give us some time to really teach some skills and explore some more difficult challenges.

The advantage for me personally as a practitioner of these short programs is that I feel I have the belay school and warm up activities down pretty well. Here we are testing the belay device. Yeah - I think it will hold one person if it can hold all these folks!

Nice job everyone! If you would like to sign up for next time here's the link to the TTCC. There is also a nice gallery of pictures from the Adventure Clinic and actually all the projects that NHS students did on this past Saturday over at the NHS website.

Dave and Russ and their crew also busted a move and are relocating the fire ring to a flat dry section of Burleigh. What a concept. Here they are moving a log to retain the gravel.

counting the days

As everyone is counting the days to SophX, I am counting the days to graduate college (19 more to go!). I wish I could participate in the expedition and I wish even more so that my high school had done a sophx trip, instead of the one night overnight retreats we got to take where we discussed our feelings about religion (not that I have anything against that, it just would have been nice to have gone backpacking).

I am also finishing my days here at New Hampton. So, now I can say what I officially did with my time. I created a potential summer program for an adventure day camp that could run on Burleigh. I walked back and forth to the gear room and helped get all the gear together for the expedition. I also spent time working on a paper about experiential learning.

In the next few days I am here I will be conquering my fear of public speaking by quickly speaking at a faculty meeting and I will be finishing up everything I have started. I've had a great time, worked with some great people and definitely have a much better perspective into what I want to do in the future now with a degree in Adventure Education.

Second Community Service Saturday

We couldn't climb the tower this past service due to a freak April snowstorm so we planned on playing games and going for a hike. Somewhat surprisingly we had a record turn out!

Tag in the snow is definately fun to play and it's extra fun to whipe out!

Daisy was thrilled and made friends easily.

Danny and his crew worked hard to get the fires going to keep us warm and toasty.
Finally we headed up to the ski trail for the view and a group photo!

The two Morgan(ne)'s taught knots in the yurt while waiting for the summit crew to return.

Overall a very nice service day, perhaps a little bit too much snow considering the time of year - but it's all good. Nice job everyone - we'll be on the Alpine Tower this weekend!

Google Earth

I'll admit it - I'm addicted to Google Earth - it's fun, free and I get the same simple pleasure out of flying through the Grand Canyon as I do looking at the house where I grew up.

Anyway the quality of the images for our neck of the woods have improved a great deal. Here's the route I took on the hike on Saturday as near as I can figure. (Click on the picture to see it bigger).Notice that big S-curve south of Mud Pond. I didn't have to do that but I hiked down the length of the pond before finding a connector trail that brought me up to the skidoo trail. According to this it was about a four mile hike, but it could have been shorter if I had cut out that loop and if I knew better where I was going.

Morning Hike

Ever since Katka and Adam hiked back over Burleigh in the days before the summit trail I've been wanting to do it too.
I'd hiked a couple of times as far as Mud Pond but never had time to go further. This morning I busted a move and made it past that point to the summit of what I think is Hershey Mountain.
I love the south side of Burleigh - it really feels different. It has much more of a northern Maine feel, lots of signs of wild life and logging and skidoo trails.

On the hike in I saw signs of moose, deer, beaver, chipmunks, grouse and fox.

Mud Pond doesn't have much of a name but I actually find it quite lovely. It's obviously been a stop over spot for loggers, campers, hunters and hooligans of all sorts.

From there it was a relatively simple matter to find a side trail that hooked up with a skidoo trail. I was making for the next high point south from Burleigh so I figured there would be some kind of trail at least part of the way.
From there it was some off trail bushwacking uphill looking for the easiest path. About halfway up the hill I saw some orange flagging tape that looked like it might be a trail.
Sure enough after loosing the trail a few times I followed it up to the summit.

Check it out - just like Katka and Adam had reported back in the day there was a little cabin up there!


Sarah was coming back into town so I beat feet back half running and half sliding back down.

Great hike to an amazing and isolated spot - amazing views to Ragged Mountain, Cardigan Mountain, Lafayette and Flume. Remarkable and just what I needed after this lousy week.

I felt tired, happy, renewed and inspired.