| Moondance Leadership log (2004-06-20 -> 2004-07-10)
Leaders: Mary Kathryn (MK) Williams and Henry Wood
Students: Kate Bentley, Julia Bollinger, Caroline Brantley, Hunter Craft, Gavin Kastner, Hadley Miller, Alex Ohl, Millie Ward, Katie Wear
Everyone met on Sunday in Seattle and the are off for the first backpacking section on the Olympic Coast. MK reports they are fired up!! Check in later this week for their update from the coast.
We are back from our coastal hike of one of the longest stretches of wild beach in North America- the Olympic Coastline! After learning the elements of backpacking, backcountry cooking, and a little bit of map reading, we were ready to say goodbye to the highway and hit the trail! Millie and Gavin were excellent leaders for this jam-packed day-their experience on past Moondance trips proved valuable as we covered mounds of necessary information to help us get ready for this day. After Gavin and Millie spearheaded food distribution, we were ready to jump in the van for a short drive to Olympic National Park.
After a short hike through the rainforest canopy of Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, and huge ferns, our trail opened up in to a huge expanse of wild beach, with cliffs to the north and south and sea stacks in the ocean-the remnants of glacial carving thousands of years ago. We set up camp while Kate, Gavin, and Caroline prepared a feast of chicken stir fry with fresh vegetables and a homemade sweet and sour sauce. It felt great to finally lie in the backcountry! At moonup, we talked about our goals for this course and watched in awe as the waves were breaking with electricity of the bioluminescence.
The next morning, Hadley, Alex, and Millie fixed hash browns with cheese, kielbasa, and loads of ketchup to fuel our bodies for the coastal and cliff hike ahead. From Third Beach we hiked south along the water, ascending rope ladders and log stairs when necessary to hike 200 feet above the coast-a coast impassable due to tides or ocean side cliffs.
The forest felt like a jungle with vegetation thick and teaming with life. Alex noted the size of the trees, some so big that it would take all eleven of us to make a circle around one! Our group is made up of fast hikers. While still making time to pick salmon berries along the trail, our crew made it to our beach campsite with plenty of time to relax and to get to know one another a bit more. Kate, Hadley, and Millie fixed “made to order” tuna melts-by far the best I’ve ever had (MK), and Oreo pie for desert. This group appreciates good food!
Our bodies were a bit sore the next morning so before we began hiking, we had a stretching and yoga session on the beach and we spotted a small seal bobbing its head out of the water! We had another fantastic (and fast) day of hiking. Hunter’s antics, Millie and Kate’s raps, and Julia and Caroline’s domination of “Big Booty” kept us all entertained on the trail. Katie, Gavin, and Caroline got us off to an excellent early start with M&M pancakes! Alex’s positive spirit while feeling under the weather and Hadley’s overall sweet nature and willingness to try new things has kept our group strong and working together as a team.
Our last night on the coast ended with a bang as Hunter and Millie prepared four-cheese baked ziti topped off with an incredible apple cobbler by Julia for desert; with brown sugar, butter, cinnamon sauce, and of course fresh apples. Two bald eagles flew over our camp as if to say goodbye, and our last day on this section was described as “varied, solid, fun, and exciting.” Out of the backcountry we made a stop to Godfather’s Pizza and Baskin Robins to have a night off from cooking and rewarded ourselves with a late morning of sleeping in.
We’re in action mode now as we prepare for our next backpacking section-seven days through the heart of Olympic National Park. We’ll be in touch in a week!
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK
With our boots and our packs more broken in from our coastal backpacking section, we drove down the scenic HWY 101 to the southern tip of Olympic National Park. We had a quick lunch at the North Fork trailhead, gave a fond farewell to our u-haul, and set out on our 44 mile adventure! We had a long drive to our trailhead and a 6.5 mile hike ahead of us and our group still knocked it out with enough time to relax before cooking dinner! We were just on the edge of the Quinault Rainforest so the vegetation was thick and green! The purple foxglove that Gavin spotted on the coast was still with us, as were the ferns, salmon berries, hemlocks, and cedars. We steadily gained close to 1000 feet our first day, but with good friends and good weather, the climb seemed pretty easy for this crew.
Our second day proved more physically challenging as we hiked from our campsite at Elip Creek to Low Divide- an elevation gain of 1600 feet over 10 miles of trail. We watched the land around us change as we entered a sub-alpine climate and caught our first glimpses of rocky mountain tops with their last bits of snow. Gavin and Hadley did a great job as leaders of the day-this group is by far the most efficient group on the trail that Henry or I have ever worked with, easily covering 3-4 miles before taking a break!
As we climbed up to Low Divide, the trail opened to a beautiful meadow filled with melting snow, tiger lilies, red columbine, and a bear! We all watched it form the trail in amazement as it foraged through the grasses. After 15 minutes of taking pictures, we continued on the trail toward our campsite and caught a glimpse of two other Black Bears playing in the meadow about 100 yards from us! Black Bears are not aggressive like grizzlies, and since we knew how to properly hang our food, we weren’t worried about any bear encounters. We settled in to our home for the next two nights, had some yummy chicken burritos prepared by Katie, Gavin, and Caroline, and then played a little Frisbee with the rest of the daylight. It sure is good to get to camp so early!
We slept in (our bodies needed it) and after a fried bagel breakfast (Hunter’s all-time favorite) we hiked up the trail a bit to Lake Margaret-our destination for the day. Using our Crazy-creeks for floats, we jumped in the cold water and let the sun warm us up. One by one we crawled out to dry and spent the rest of the day swimming, playing cards, and watching a bear play on the other side of the lake. Once again, another day of perfect weather for everything we wanted to do!
We headed back to camp late in the afternoon and noticed that we had a visitor in our kitchen. Apparently, after rummaging through our pots, our resident bear realized that there was no food to be had and was nowhere in sight! Alex, Hadley, and Kate whipped up five big sausage and cheese pizzas while everyone else played Frisbee and shared stories. Our bear decided to check out our dinner too-Katie was helping to chop onions and suddenly said, “Wow, there’s a huge bear.” Sure enough, 20 yards from our kitchen was a Black Bear. Everyone quietly watched it and it quickly became uninterested in us. It is so great how everyone responded to wildlife-with respect, awe, and a healthy level of curiosity and caution.
We hiked another whopping 10 miles the next day to Camp Wilder-once again with plenty of time to play cards, have a class on personal leadership styles, and have delicious pasta Alfredo. With a new awareness of leadership styles, our two “Drivers”-Alex and Gavin led us on a nine mile hike above and along the Elwha River to Elkhorn. Hunter had a brilliant idea of using his crazy creek as a PFD-a personal floatation device-literally! In the eddies along the Elwha, a few willing souls braved the cold water and floated downstream a bit! After jambalaya fixed by Katie, Caroline, and Gavin, we learned how to make backcountry hammocks from a local ranger in the area-you never know what you’ll learn out here!
Our group crushed our next day’s hike as usual-10 miles in around 4 hours with two breaks! Everyone moves with such fluidity and the reality that we were on the verge of emerging into the front country again helped institute a greater appreciation of where we had been for the last seven days. At moonup, everyone shared all the things at home they will appreciate more-beyond the usual food and showers, relationships with parents and siblings seemed to be the most important thing for all of us. What our group has realized most though is the uncomplicated nature of the backpacking trip-with our home on our backs, our feet to motor us, and good friends to help cook dinner with us, life is pretty simple and beautiful. Front country time is ahead, but with it comes rock climbing and Rainier, so we are more than excited! More to come but here are some backpacking highlights from our crew:
Swimming in the lake, seeing the bears, eating great food, and watching the stars with everyone-It’s all awesome!-Katie
When you’re in the backcountry, you get to know everyone in your group so well-we’re like a new family.-Kate
My favorite part of backpacking is getting to camp early in the day and just hanging out with your group. Everyday gets better and better!-Millie
Everyday has been gorgeous and so much fun. Talking and singing on the trails, being surrounded by snow peaked mountains, and falling asleep under the stars next to a group of awesome people has made this the best section!-Julia
Coming back to camp from the lake in the meadow and find out that a Black Bear had messed around in our kitchen playing with our pots and pans, it was exciting! It even left a foot print on the cutting board!-Alex
My favorite day was hanging out at the lake, it was freezing but tons of fun!-Hadley
Relaxing and hanging out at camp after a nice long day of hiking.-Caroline
Our group and leaders are great, plus the scenery has been amazing. We haven’t had a bad day.-HDC
The entire backpacking section was awesome. Every single day was great!-Gavin
Climbing Update ML
Henry and MK
The past two days we have had an amazing time rock climbing! We started early yesterday with learning how to belay and tie the figure eight knot. Our guides were super nice and very helpful for a lot of the first time outdoor climbers. During the day we had four challenging rocks to climb and everyone made it up at least once. Katie is an amazing climber and showed everyone how it is done. After climbing we went back to camp and cooked some dinner. The cook crew, Katie, Caroline and Gavin made some awesome burritos and then chocolate brownies for dessert. It was a great way to end the day. Everyone was pretty tired so we had moonup and then half the group slept inside tents while the others slept outside.
We had an early start in order to allow us to swim this afternoon. We went to a different place to climb and went up 5 different routes and repelled. To keep cool while waiting to climb we hung out in a near by cave. After a hot day we cooled off in the river and washed off 14 days of dirt in the icicle creek. It was FREEZING! We are headed into town to see the 4th of July parade. It should be very cool in the Bavarian town! Unfortunately without fireworks we will head back to camp for dinner. Cook crew Alex, Hadley, and Kate made delicious chili with corn chips. There is no better way to spend the fourth than with our new Moondance family!
NEW LOG/LAST LOG
MOUNT RIANIER
Moondance’s Leadership 2 course finished with an amazing time on Mount Rainier! It began at Rainier Mountaineering, Inc.’s “Base Camp” in Ashford early Tuesday morning. We spent some time getting outfitted with plastic boots, ice axes, crampons and other tools of the mountaineer’s trade. We were also greeted by our guides Phursumba, a Nepalese gentleman who began his mountain guiding career at 14 on Mt. Everest, and Dave. Once we were ready, we were driven up to Paradise where our snow school class would take place. After a short hike we found ourselves standing in an enormous snowfield. Phursumba and Dave told us that before we were ready to climb, we first must learn to walk--on snow! We were instructed in various methods of kick steps up the side of a large hill. Once we had this down pat, we were taught how to self-arrest with an ice axe. This involved screaming at the top of our lungs, “falling” and then throwing ourselves to the ground with the pick of the axe in first, followed by rapid kicking of our feet into snow pack. It was great fun and everyone did a great job learning this important skill. We really enjoyed Phursumba’s words of wisdom. He told us to remember that “tough times never last, tough people do!”
After snow school was over, we returned to camp. Katie, Gavin and Caroline cooked some tasty mac and cheese followed by brownies. After dinner was finished we had Moon-up and went to bed early. During the night we were joined by Hayes who arrived just in time to hike with us part way up to Camp Muir the next day!
Wednesday morning began at 5:00 AM! The cook crew was Hadley, Alex and Kate. Believe it or not, they took the time to cook excellent pancakes to fuel our big day. We drove back to Base camp to meet our guides and then were driven back to Paradise. Today our guides would be Dave, David, Jon, and the world renowned mountaineer and owner of RMI, Peter Whittaker! Once we arrived in Paradise, we suited up and began our hike to Camp Muir. The walk included approximately 4.5 miles and 5,000 feet of elevation gain! The weather was foggy and a bit surreal. We were split into two groups this day. Mary Kathryn was with Kate, Julia, Gavin, Millie and Alex. Henry had Hunter, Caroline, Katie and Hayes. Both groups were also accompanied by RMI guides. The day went surprisingly fast. We took about 3 breaks from about 10:30 AM until 3:00 PM and made it to Camp Muir (a old stone hut on the side of the mountain) with plenty of time to get outfitted for our midnight start that evening, grab a hot drink, and rest our toes in our sleeping bags! Both Leadership groups were staying in the hut so the big slumber party began! All eyes were shut around 7pm though and at 1am, Peter woke us up with a “rise and shine” and we started preparing for our journey ahead!
Since we were on separate rope teams, our times were staggered, but by 2am, everyone was on the mountain. The stream of headlamps was quite a sight! We crossed glaciers, stepped over crevasses, climbed scree fields in our crampons (an awkward thing to do!), kicked steps up steep inclines, saw a beautiful sunrise, with almost all of us making it to the summit. We are reminded that life isn’t sustained on top of a mountain, but rather on its sides. There are revelations to be had, lessons to learn, and beauty to absorb during all parts of a climb.
After a grueling climb down 9000 ft with sore legs, we treated ourselves to cheeseburgers and French fries at a local restaurant and turned in for an early night—we had been moving for almost 40 hours with about 9 hours of total rest time! Our next day was filled with a bit of work and a banquet at Vic’s. At our final moon-up, we all expressed how “living in the moment” helps us to realize the true beauty of being outside—absorbing magnificent scenery and building strong relationships is the highlight of any trip. We wish everyone the best for 2005—we’ll miss you!
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