Tag: hiking

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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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Naomi Peak

Climbing Mt Naomi, Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Climbing Mt Naomi
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Nature Journaling, Mt Naomi Hike, Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Nature Journaling
Mt Naomi Hike
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Nature Journal Entries After Climbing Mt Naomi, Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Nature Journal Entries After Climbing Mt Naomi
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

One September day when I was a fifth grader, my dad pulled me out of school to climb the Pfeifferhorn, an 11,000 foot peak in the Wasatch Range. That was the most meaningful and defining day of my elementary school experience.

Years later, when I first arrived in Logan, my younger sister Heather and I climbed Naomi Peak the day before our USU classes started. We made it an annual habit. At just under 10,000 feet elevation, Naomi Peak is the highest point in the Bear River Mountains.

Fast forward forty years from that day on the Pfeifferhorn and I’ve made a career of taking students out of class and into the mountains. Outdoor school programs are synonymous with science, but you can justify any destination with the language arts curriculum by having students write for authentic purposes and read meaningful texts.

When I taught at Mount Logan Middle School, we offered a literacy-based summer school program for incoming sixth graders. Part of that two-week experience was an overnight backing trip up to High Creek Lake. The next day we would climb Naomi Peak, then pack down the trail to Tony Grove. It is a grueling journey. We did it with student groups two to four times each summer for more than 15 years. Our strategy was simple, walk until our students were tired, then sit down, eat snacks, create word lists, and read and discuss a chapter of the book we were reading together. When students began to fidget, we’d hit the trail again. We repeated the pattern for eight hours, or however long it took to reach our destination. We wove science, math, and social studies concepts into the learning, but our main curriculum focus was literacy.

Four years ago, we decided to carry on these traditions with our sixth graders at Edith Bowen Laboratory School where I work, facilitating outdoor experiential learning opportunities for students. The second week of school each year we take four separate groups of students from Mr. Baggaley’s and Mrs. Jenkins’ classes to Naomi Peak to start off the school year. The round trip is just over 6 miles and it takes us 6 hours with our learning stops.

When we reach the summit, we have students pull out their field journals and use their word lists from the trail to create vivid descriptions of their journey. This is the best classroom to teach writing—where students can write with purpose about real emotions and experience. Writing forces students to slow down, to be still, and to be fully present with the landscape and with their thoughts. It allows them to construct meaning.

One student wrote, “I kept doubting myself, asking if I should turn back—my thighs aching, my feet sore, my stomach hungry. Every doubt was a new reason to quit, making me question if it is worth it. But I made it.”

Students huff and puff and we talk about the importance of pacing and controlling our breathing. We focus on being efficient, not fast. Students make new friends. They build confidence and they have fun along the way—even if they don’t want to admit it. One student wrote, “It was meh.”

As an educator I’m accountable to the state to connect learning to curriculum standards—I take that seriously. Outdoor programs give purpose to learning—making the state curriculum a means rather than an end. But I’m also accountable to these little humans to bring joy to the learning process, to nurture their curiosity, and give them a sense of belonging.

I do wonder what these kids will remember about Naomi Peak. I wonder if they will ever come back in the years ahead. Will they remember the adversity tree we stopped to talk about? The steep inclines? How tired they were? Or will they just remember the euphoria of standing on the summit while a cool breeze blows all their cares far away into Wyoming?

A student shared her journal entry with me on the summit: “I have never been so proud of myself and my mental self. The view is unreal. I am so lucky and happy, but I wish my mom was here because she pushed me to go. I’m so lucky to have my friend. She helped me and I helped her. I can live life accomplished. I am calm and I am free.” Underlined twice, in giant letters, she finished her entry: “I am amazing!”

I am Eric Newell and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell

Morgan, Susan K, Geologic Tours of Northern Utah, 1992, Found on website hosted by Utah Geological Survey, Department of Natural Resources, State of Utah, https://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/misc_pubs/mp-92-1.pdf

Mt Naomi Wilderness Map, Wilderness Connect, University of Montana, https://umontana.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a415bca07f0a4bee9f0e894b0db5c3b6&find=Mount%20Naomi%20Wilderness

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When Farm Meets Forest

When Farm Meets Forest: A Herd of Sheep Near Hardware Ranch Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
A Herd of Sheep Near Hardware Ranch
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Pyrenean Mountain Sheep Dog Near Mendon Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer Pyrenean Mountain Sheep Dog
Near Mendon
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Last week, while driving along the western edge of Cache Valley just north of Mendon, I saw a huge herd of sheep complete with a sheepherder’s hut. I slammed on the breaks and jumped out with my camera to catch a few pictures of this rippling river of white. As I approached, a big beautiful white stepped out of the flock. This sheepdog was on the job, protecting the flock from any intruders. As we took a long look at each other, I remembered the story of a similar dog who made quite a splash in the local news 20 years ago.

In this story, a Bear Lake resident, Jimmy Stone, spotted a white Pyrenean in Logan Canyon, and got to worrying if it was lost. He started taking daily trips up the canyon to fill a bowl with dog food and tasty treats. The dog came down to eat the food, but would not leave the area. Jimmy hiked up a nearby ridge, and with the help of his binoculars, discovered the dog’s secret: This loyal guardian dog was sticking with 3 lost sheep. Hoping to lure all 4 off the mountain, Jimmy dropped off a bale of hay. The sheep did not come own, so the dog carried the hay up the hillside – bit by bit. Jimmy dropped off branches of crispy apples. The dog carried them up. The sheep were not coming down, and the dog was not leaving without them. Winter snow arrived. Jimmy bought out all the corn dogs at a local convenience store and threw them like tiny footballs up to the dog. More snowstorms arrived. It was time to ask for help. Search and Rescue showed up immediately with snowmobiles and sleds. This story has a happy ending as the search and rescue team managed to get the dog and the sheep safely off the mountain.

Meanwhile, back on the side of the road north of Mendon, I found out this huge herd of sheep had spent the summer in the mountains above Hardware Ranch. They had been brought here by trucks and were now gleaning a local farmer’s alfalfa fields. Soon the trucks would return to take them to Nevada to spend the winter.

How different this huge herd was from the early pioneer days in Mendon when most people only owned a family milk cow and a few smaller animals. It was the job of the local “herd boy” to gather the milk cows and take them up the mountain to graze during the day. Apparently taking the cows home was the easy part of this job. Each cow knew exactly where she lived and would peel off the group at their own garden gate.

Unfortunately, over time, as the livestock populations increased, the Mendon mountain got severely overgrazed. Each rainstorm would send rocks and mud crashing down the steep slopes. Trying to persuade the town council to get the livestock off the mountain and let the vegetation recover, John O Hughes made a bold move. During a council meeting, he took his glass of water and dumped half of it over the head of a bald man. Everyone watched in stunned silence as the water rolled right off the bald head and soaked the man’s shirt. Hughes then dumped the rest of the water onto a man with a bushy head of hair. This man’s shirt stayed dry. That settled the debate.

To this day, the Mendon mountain is green and wooded. It’s nothing short of a hiker’s paradise.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers.
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections, Courtesy & Copyright © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio upr.org and 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, Mary Heers’ Postings

Great Pyrenees, Dog Breed Profile, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, https://www.hillspet.com/dog-care/dog-breeds/great-pyrenees

Stone, Jim, Stone, Karen, The Legend of BIG BOY Safe or Stranded: An Account of a Real Life Living Legend, Balboa Press, January 7, 2021, https://www.amazon.com/Legend-BIG-BOY-Safe-Stranded/dp/1982260386

Kent, Steve, Dog who refused to abandon sheep in Logan remembered in book, The Associated Press, January 23, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/sheep-canyons-utah-dogs-logan-5a2db87b1fd300b1b39d0de3885ea5eb

“Six hikes are detailed in the Wellsville Mountains above and west of Mendon”
Wallace, David, Cache Hikers 2023, Bridgerland Audubon Society, 2023, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/product/cache-trails/

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Grandaddy Basin

Grandaddy Basin: Oft Have We by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Oft Have We
by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Oft have we, my friends and I,
Left cares of home, and work day woes
To find a haven, there cast a fly;
And where we’ll camp–God only knows.

Oft have we hiked the trail uphill
To see it pass, and again return–
Walked mile on mile, to get the thrill
Of a meadow lake and a creel filled.

Oft round the lake we’ve cast and fussed
And wished it something we might shun;
But something deep inside of us
Just holds us fast till day is done.

Breathtaking Beauty by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Breathtaking Beauty by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Utahn Alfred Ralph Robbins loved exploring the Grandaddy Basin in northeastern Utah’s High Uintas with a group he called The High Country Boys. He compiled his labeled-and-dated sketches of camp and lake adventures among a sprinkling of black-and-white photographs in a scrapbook spanning the 1920s through the 1960s. They were casting at Governor Lake in 1927 and resting at Pine Island Lake in 1952 with 125 trout strung between the trees. I know they fished Pinto Lake, Trial Lake, Betsy Lake, and just about every lake in the area for 40 years. I know they, outfitted by Defa’s Dude Ranch, even stopped “on top of the world” on their way to Hatchery Lake with Alvis Newton Simpson, Robbins’s son-in-law and my grandfather, because he captured and preserved it.

Alfred Ralph Robbins and Grandson Jerry Newton Simpson 1947 Utah Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Alfred Ralph Robbins and Grandson Jerry Newton Simpson 1947 Utah
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
As my father handed down copies of this family fishing scrapbook to his grandchildren, my sons and daughters, after what they called a Fishing-with-Grandpa Simpson Saturday, he included a cover photograph of his Grandaddy Robbins, in his fishing waders, holding five-year-old grandson’s hand. My father added, “I only made one horse pack trip to Grandaddy Basin with Grandpa Robbins, but it was a very eventful week. It stormed one day and we could hear the rocks tumbling down the mountain when the lightning would strike and dislodge them. Another day there was a mayfly hatch as we were fishing one of the lakes. When that happened, the fish would bite on anything that hit the water. The mosquitoes just about ate us alive, and repellant didn’t help much. We saw some fish about three feet long near the rocks on shore, but we couldn’t get them to bite. We caught plenty of other fish and ate fish for supper most days that week.”

Do you have similar memories in the wild with your grandparents recorded somehow? Turning to one of my favorite books, “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place,” I read again how Terry Tempest Williams described the memories with her grandmother among avocets, ibises, and western grebes during their outings in Utah’s Great Salt Lake wetlands. Grandmother Mimi shared her birding fascination with her granddaughter Terry along the burrowing owl mounds of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Williams wrote, “It was in 1960, the same year she gave me my Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds. I know this because I dated their picture. We have come back every year since to pay our respects.”

I’m not a grandmother yet, but I will one day make a trek over Hades Pass again, gaze at the Grandaddy Basin below, and capture nature’s poetry with pen, camera lens, and little hiker hands in mine. Bloggers have technologies today to share instantly with me and the rest of the world their adventures in this Grandaddy Wilderness region. Documenting autobiographical history has evolved from dusty diaries and scrapbooks with black-and-white photographs to today’s digital image- and video-filled blogs in exciting ways that can include the places in Utah you love with the generations you love. Consider it your contribution to history.

Grandaddy Ohs and Ahs by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Grandaddy Ohs and Ahs
by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

I would not miss the Oh’s! and Ah’s!
I’ve seen in Doug’s and Noel’s eyes,
When first they saw Grandaddy Lake
From the summit, in the skies.

They are thrilled I know, and so am I.
They show it in their face;
While I just swallow hard and try
To thank God for this place.

I am Grandaddy Basin poet Alfred Ralph Robbins’s great granddaughter Shannon Rhodes, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Williams, Terry Tempest. 1992. Refuge: an unnatural history of family and place. New York: Vintage Books. https://www.amazon.com/Refuge-Unnatural-History-Family-Place/dp/0679740244

Andersen, Cordell M. The Grandaddies. 2015. https://cordellmandersen.blogspot.com/2015/06/photoessay-backpack-1-2015-grandaddy.html

Wasatch Will. Fern Lake: Chasing Friends in Grandaddy Basin. 2018. https://www.wasatchwill.com/2018/06/fern-lake.html

Delay, Megan and Ali Spackman. Hanging with Sean’s Elk Party in the Uinta’s Grandaddy Basin. 2015. https://whereintheworldaremeganandali.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/hanging-with-seans-elk-party-in-the-uintas-grandaddy-basin/

Rhodes, Shannon, Wild About Nature Journaling, Wild About Utah June 22, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/wild-about-nature-journaling/