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Summer School: How to Make Tent?

Writers at work. Jackson Lake sunset Grand Teton National Park Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Writers at work.
Jackson Lake sunset
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Years ago, when I taught at Mount Logan Middle School in northern Utah, we ran two-week outdoor-based summer school programs. The model, “Bringing Literature to Life,” was the mastermind of two now-retired teachers, Dave Anderson and Bryce Passey.

Students on the move. High Creek Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Students on the move.
High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

On the Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer On the Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Trail Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

A student reads a book during a trail break Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer A student reads a book during a trail break
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Writing on the trail Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Writing on the trail
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

How to Make Tent Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer How to Make Tent
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

High Creek Lake Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer High Creek Lake
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Crossing the High Creek Mount Naomi Wilderness Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Crossing the High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Sunset Moonrise Grand Teton National Park Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Sunset Moonrise
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Wes, the 6th grader who reshaped what I believed was possible Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Wes, the 6th grader who reshaped
what I believed was possible
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Teachers offered a variety of summer courses around this theme—all were funded by grants. Each session was based on a book. The idea was to bring the book to life. For example, a couple of technology teachers read October Sky with students and built and launched rockets on the soccer field. PE teachers offered a course called Extreme Sports. They read Maniac Magee and played all the sports Maniac plays in the book. Other courses, like “Say it with Puppets,” were offered based on teachers’ expertise and interests.

These summer school programs were offered to incoming sixth graders as a way to build their confidence, boost their reading skills, familiarize them with the middle school, foster friendships with peers, and build trust with teachers. Learning was fun and engaging and over the years, thousands of students fears and anxiety of transitioning to the middle school were dissolved.

Dave, Bryce, John Gregory, and I offered a course called “River Rats.” The first week students learned to canoe, hike, and spent two days backpacking up High Creek to Naomi Peak. This is a brutally hard trail for first time eleven and twelve-year-old backpackers, but we had a system. We’d walk until they were tired. Then we’d sit down in the shade, pass out snacks, and read a chapter or two of a book. When kids began to fidget, we’d shoulder our packs and hike again. We repeated the pattern for about eight hours until we arrived at our campsite. By the end of the day, kids didn’t realize how far they had traveled, they just knew they were tired. We also taught writing throughout the session—a favorite aspect of the curriculum for me.

The second week of “River Rats,” we camped in Grand Teton National Park for three days, paddling canoes on String Lake, hiking to Taggart Lake, and rafting mild sections of the Snake River. Weaving in our literacy theme all the while.

We ran two to four sessions of River Rats each summer for thirteen consecutive years. Memories abound of students who had major breakthroughs, of wildlife encounters, of learning moments, of rocks stashed in packs, and connections with people and the land.

A half dozen Cambodian refugees signed up for River Rats one summer. They spoke hardly a word of English and didn’t have any idea what they had actually signed up for. But they showed up every day and smiled and laughed and learned and made friends. I still remember their names and their faces. One, who I encountered years later, was completing her degree to become a teacher.

Another summer, three Chinese boys (whose parents were teaching Engineering courses at USU for a year), stood around a tangled mess of tent poles and tent parts in a high mountain meadow. Perplexed, one of them said to me, “How to…..make tent?” All of us burst out in laughter and I helped them “make” their tent in the yellow-orange alpenglow as a Cache Valley summer sunset lit up the sky.

We have stories of accommodating kids in wheelchairs, of kids building friendships across cultural barriers of all kinds. There were kids in tears who wanted to give up, kids who were terrified of water, kids who had never camped—but each found the strength to rise up and complete the journeys.

One summer a parent reached out to me before a session and said that his son had a prosthetic leg. I explained that his son should be able to do everything except for the overnight backpack.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” the father said, “Just treat him like any other kid.” And we did. The boy didn’t mutter a single complaint the whole way, over ten miles of trail and 4,500 feet of elevation gain—with a full pack on his back.

I gained a new hero that week.

I became an educator because I hoped to have an impact on future generations—but I did not anticipate the profound impact my students would have on my own life.

I’m Eric Newell and I’m wild about Utah and the power of outdoor programs in public schools to change lives.

Team Work Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Team Work
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin as well as Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Spinelli, Jerry, Maniac Magee, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, November 1999, https://www.amazon.com/Maniac-Magee-Jerry-Spinelli/dp/0316809063

Hickham, Homer, October Sky, Dell, February 16, 1999, https://www.amazon.com/October-Sky-Coalwood-Homer-Hickam/dp/0440235502

Mount Logan Discovery Google Site: http://MountLoganDiscovery.org/

Mount Logan Discovery on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountlogan.discovery/

Mt Naomi Wilderness is part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/uinta-wasatch-cache

Grand Teton National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/index.htm

How to Set Up a Tent, Expert Advice, REI Co-op, https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/tent-set-up.html

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I’d Like to Report a Murder

Pixabay - The American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), Courtesy Pixabay, Alexas Photos, Contributor
The American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), Courtesy Pixabay, Alexas Photos, Contributor
Driving the return road from our family’s trip to Goblin Valley, I scoured the lonely San Rafael landscape, searching for something to keep me alert.

Suddenly, a shadow peeled off the ground and drifted into the sky. Was that an eagle?

A second later, I sighed. That was no eagle. It was a blasted crow.

You should know two things about this moment: first, as I would discover later, considering its size, solitary nature, and rural location, I was more than likely seeing a raven, not a crow. The other thing you should know is that at this time in my life I had a festering contempt for any bird of the corvid variety—corvid meaning crows, ravens, magpies … Our troubled past has its roots in walking to my work at Sky View high school and feeling personally targeted by the local murder, the term for a grouping of crows (tell me that your species is despised by the human race without actually telling me).

This murder lounged on the roof above my classroom and cackled at me in a way that seemed like obvious derision. I reciprocated anytime we went outside and we would heckle back and forth. I’d try to scare them off with some weakly tossed pebbles and sticks.

It should be no surprise then, that the Raven outside Goblin Valley brought disappointment verging upon abhorrence. Whether on roofs, bare trees in the winter, or even in the middle of nowhere deserts, crows are freaking everywhere I go!

And that is when it hit me. The only two animal species in this desolate landscape at this moment were humans … and corvids. Perhaps crows, ravens, magpies are so ubiquitous because they are intrinsically connected to one other species: humans.

Perhaps, just as crows followed humans to a wide-range of environments, they also adopted some of our best and most regrettable traits along the way.

In spite of those human-like faults, like greed, bickering and pestering, they also reflected some of our better qualities of ingenuity, community, and interspecies regard.

I begrudgingly saluted the raven, now a speck in the rear view mirror, and decided to reset my views of corvids. I reasoned that if I could not show crows respect, then how could I respect my own human race?

I decided to track down an expert. Dr. Becky Williams from the Utah State University biology department in the Uintah Basin extension, was kind enough to allow some amateur questions from me.

First, Dr. Williams assured me that crows are “aggressive territorial predators.” One could see how they might see a rooftop on the school and surrounding area as their own domain, and defend it aggressively against intruders! Hard to criticize a bird for that, when there could not be a more territorial predator than our own species.

When I spoke to Dr. Williams about the versatility of crows—their habitat reaches nearly as wide range of locations and climates as humans—she talked about a big reason being their intelligence. Corvid birds are smart, and that means that they don’t need as perfect an environment because they can come up with clever ways to survive.

Crows have bigger brains than their fellow fowl. They can remember thousands of different cache locations for seeds or other foods. They can even remember faces. Dr. Williams directed me to a study where crows recognized a unique human mask that researchers used in their interactions with a particular murder. When she told me this, I had no problem confirming what seemed to me a very targeted pestering from the same crows over several years.

This intelligence, Dr. Williams explained, tended to show itself in social animals: Crows, dolphins, humans … all spend a majority of their time in communities. The complex relationships of those communities causes them to need to remember who is a cooperator and who is a cheater. In other words, they make an in-group of those who work together, and they hold a grudge. What’s more human than that!

Once this information shifted my views on crows, I knew that I lacked much needed reconciliation. The south Smithfield murder of crows and I had nursed our historic differences, and it was time that I made things right.

When the murder showed up at their regular spot above my classroom, I tried meeting the crows outside. I wanted them to see my face as I gave them a snack. As soon as I reached into my pocket for a gift snack, they flapped off into the distance. My action of reaching for an object must have seemed familiar to them, as pulling things off the ground or out of my pocket was how I used to scare them off from before. They remembered the old me, and—as I had shamefully trained them—they retreated.

Just a couple of days ago, after weeks of non-aggressive attempted interactions, one of the more daring crows overcame reticence and dropped to the ground to investigate the unsalted peanut I dropped for them. He looked at it, looked at me, snatched it and withdrew back to the tree.

I am happy to report that now more of them are feeling comfortable picking up snacks I leave for them.

Am I looking to create a utopian bond between these crows and me? No. Perhaps dropping an occasional peanut and not yelling at each other will be the best that we can get. But I feel an immense satisfaction in seeing these remarkable animals respond to my overtures and believing that we have mended a divide between us and possibly even cultivated respect.

One of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed lately, is that when I step outside for my daily walk, no longer am I looking down to queue up the latest podcast with people cackling about political strife, or to take in media designed to ruffle the feathers of indignation of one group against another. Instead, as soon as I step outside, I look up. I’m looking for my new corvid friends—humbled, hopeful, grateful.

This is Marty Reeder, and I am Wild About Utah

Credits:

Image: Courtesy Pixabay, Alexas Photos, Contributor
Featured Audio: Courtesy Freesound.org): 210701 American Crows, caws calling, sparrows, robin, urban residential, TORONTO, 7am.wav by TRP, Thomas Ryder Payne. Sound designer, composer, musician. Based in Toronto. — https://freesound.org/s/616975/
License: Creative Commons 0
Text: Marty Reeder, https://skyview.ccsdut.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Marty Reeder

Strand, Holly, Crow vs. Raven, Wild About Utah, September 15, 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/crow-vs-raven/

Kelly, Patrick, Greetings puny earthlings, Wild About Utah, September 28, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/greetings-puny-earthlings/

Boling, Josh, Josh’s Raven Encounter, Wild About Utah, June 11, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/joshs-raven-encounter/

Kolowski, Joseph, Outdoor Experiences in High-Def, Wild About Utah, June 10, 2024, https://wildaboututah.org/outdoor-experiences-in-high-def/

Boling, Josh, The Language of Ravens, Wild About Utah, February 19, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/language-of-ravens/

How to Tell Crows and Ravens Apart by Sight and Sound, All About Birds, Oct 22, 2024, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/similar-species-crows-and-ravens/

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Working sheep dogs are a joy to watch

Ewe with a lamb, Likely a Border Cheviot Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Ewe with a lamb, Likely a Border Cheviot
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
I just got back from a voyage across the North Sea and couldn’t wait to tell everyone about the stunning landscape – Huge blocks of black basalt rock rising out of the sea. No trees in sight. But always a scattering of sheep grazing wherever grass has been able to grow. It being Spring, there were also quite a few baby lambs that seemed to prefer bouncing to walking.

Once, when our ship dropped anchor, a local hiking guide offered to show us how he and his Border Collie worked together to gather the scattered sheep and bring them down to his farm in the fall. He gave the dog a command in Finnish and the dog raced up the hill away from us. Another command and the dog stopped immediately and lay down. More commands – and the dog did it all. It was very impressive. Best of all, the dog seemed to be really enjoying the work-out.

Now, here in northern Utah we don’t get to see very many sheep grazing on our hillsides. But we can see plenty of working sheep dogs at the International Sheep Dog Competition held every Memorial Day at Soldier Hollow outside Midway, Utah.

It’s been going on for years, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I checked this year’s program and was delighted to see that one of the teams came from Cache Valley. Some of the dogs come from as far away as New Zealand, South Africa, and Scotland.

After three days of qualifying rounds, the top dogs were ready to go.

The first handler and their dog step up to the starting post. The big red digital clock started the countdown from 45 minutes. The dog is sent racing and over the hill where 10 sheep are waiting. These are not your ordinary farm sheep, but big rangy sheep brought in from the desert. They’ve never been herded before. The dog circles around behind the sheep. By now the handler is blowing his whistle and shouting as the dog maneuvers the sheep through a gate and back down to the starting post.

The next step is a return trip up the hill to bring back 10 more burly sheep, These sheep are all wearing bright red collars. The real excitement begins for me when all 20 sheep are standing inside a large circle marked out on the grass. The handler and the dog now enter the circle with the sheep. Their job is to separate 5 of the red-collared sheep and keep them inside the circle – while pushing all the other sheep out.

The sheep do not want to be separated. By now the handler is mostly shouting “Lie down!” Too much pressure from the dog and ALL the sheep will bolt out of the circle. Meanwhile, the big red digital clock is ticking down. I find myself holding my breath.

For many teams, the clock runs out.

The ones that are successful now move on to the final challenge. They must move the 5 red-collared sheep into a very small pen with an even smaller tiny gate. Often the dog will lock eyes in a stare down with a burly stubborn sheep. It’s another cliff-hanger.

Win or lose, these hard working sheep dogs are a joy to watch.

You might want to join me at Soldier Hollow next Memorial Day, come rain or shine.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:

Images Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Courtesy & Copyright © Anderson, Howe, Wakeman
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Mary Heers

Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Championship & Festival, https://soldierhollowclassic.com/

The History of the Soldier Hollow Classic with Mark Peterson, Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Championship, 2025, https://yout-ube.com/watch?v=OqtiBsMLTPY

Please Sheep Go in the Pen, Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Championship, 2025, https://yout-ube.com/watch?v=BwF-BqzB4mY

Sheep Dog Guiding Sheep into Pen at Soldier Hollow Classic Sheep Dog Championship & Festival, Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer, https://yout-ube.com/watch?v=60P7itSOl8g

Posted on

A Washington County Big Day

Roadrunner in a Tree, Courtesy Pixabay, Mike-RJA1988 Contributor
Roadrunner in a Tree
Courtesy Pixabay, Mike-RJA1988 Contributor
As dawn breaks, I find myself with a fellow birder at Lytle Ranch on the Beaver Dam slope, elevation approximately 2000 feet. With the binoculars and cell phones, birding apps in hand, we begin our search. By nightfall, we will be at Kolob Reservoir elevation, a bit over 8000 feet.

Lytle Ranch Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer
Lytle Ranch
Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Courtesy & Hell-Hole Canyon in the Rain Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer Courtesy & Hell-Hole Canyon in the Rain
Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Birding Students from UTU Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer Birding Students from UTU
Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

My Family Birding Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer My Family Birding
Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Fishhook Cactus Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer Fishhook Cactus
Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Ephemeral Pool Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer Ephemeral Pool
Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Marshall Birding Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer Marshall Birding
Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer

Our list of birds observed for the day will exceed 100 different species. This day, we will have passed through numerous life zones, beginning in the Sonoran life zone of the Mojave Desert and ending up in the alpine forests of the Canadian life zone.

In birder’s language, we call this a big day.

There are 924 bird species known to be in the United States. The average county in Utah has approximately 295 species, but Washington County, Utah, boasts 400 species.

The incredible diversity of bird life is due to several factors. Probably the most important is the convergence of three different geophysical features. The Great Basin Desert invades Washington County from the north, the Mojave Desert from the south, and the Colorado Plateau comes in from the east. Each different geophysical feature brings with it its own distinct complement of plants and animals, and therefore birds. In addition to the merging of geophysical features, Washington County is incredibly diverse topography. The elevation changes from 2000 feet to over 10,000 feet at the top of Pine Mountain, which locals refer to as Pine Valley Mountain.

The numerous different life zones provide opportunity to observe many different species of birds. Erosion has also played a part in the diversity of life here. What was once the bottom of washes that filled with magma from ancient volcanoes are now the tops of ridges capped with basalt or lava. This inverse topography is not common elsewhere in a state, and it provides unique microhabitats, such as north-south slopes, which retain different amounts of moisture due to their orientation to the winter sun. The difference in soil moisture content produces different plants and attracts different birds.

There is also the fact that we are near the convergence of two different migration flight ways, the Pacific Flyway on the west and the central flyway to the east. Birds from both these flyways can find their way into the county.

Soil types should also be included in the list, from basalt to sandstone and limestone, and various different soils found in the area contribute to the diversity of plant life, and therefore bird life, as well. Sandstone is known to create both ephemeral pools after rainstorms on the surface and absorb water like a sponge, which slowly leaks out at the base, creating life-sustaining water seeps.

Surprisingly, Utah ranks only 45th out of 50 states in the United States with regard to the number of people who consider themselves birders. The national average is 24% but in Utah, only 11% think that they would qualify. This is a bit unfortunate, because research has shown birding to have tremendous advantages for human physical and cognitive health. Committed bird watchers have detectable brain differences that suggest bird watching reshapes the brain in much the same way as learning a language or a musical instrument does. Three combined studies in the UK have shown bird watching to be a remedy for stress, anxiety, and depression. Becoming a birder physically reshapes your brain. Considerable research shows that learning and practicing bird identification increases the structural density and complexity in brain regions tied to physical processing, attention, and working memory. These changes help build a cognitive buffer that protects against age-related memory decline.

Perhaps Terry Tempest Williams put it best: “Birds are wherever we are. They are our companions. Birds are mediators between heaven and earth.”

This is Professor Marshall Topham from Utah Tech University. I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:

Images Courtesy & Copyright Marshall Topham, Photographer
Also included photos Courtesy US BLM: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmutah/32152508267/in/album-72157667920964286/
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Bob Holmes, Composer, Hugh Jones, Producer, Rubber Rodeo-Before I Go Away, 1984, https://www.discogs.com/release/9698183-Rubber-Rodeo-Scenic-Views
Text: Marshall Topham, https://ees.utahtech.edu/faculty-staff/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah pieces by Marshall Topham https://wildaboututah.org/author/marshall-topham/

417 Species in Washington County, Utah United States, eBird Printable Checklist, eBird.org [visited June 22, 2026] https://ebird.org/printableList?regionCode=US-UT-053

Birding in Washington County, UtahBirds.org, http://utahbirds.org/counties/washington/index.html Note, this is not a TSL-protected connection: http not https.