A tour of High Trails

I thought I'd finally take a second to show you all were I work. I took some pictures of were I live and now here are some pictures of where I work. Although, essentially they are the same place. I only have to walk about 3 mins to get to work. :)

Here is a picture of my cabin from last week. They are pretty standard. Some sleep 12 and others sleep 20. You get placed depending on how many kids you have. This one is pretty big for my 17 girls. One the first day the kids have to drag their luggage to the cabin and this one was pretty far a way. They hated it, but I told them that it was going to be the hardest thing they would do all week.


This is the door to the cabin. They are labeled in groups of animals. They are bird animals, mammals, and insects.

This is inside of the cabin with all of the bunks. They are pretty comfortable and I definitely prefer the wooden ones to the metal bunks because they don't make as much noise.

Here is the set up of my cabin rules and layers poster. The girls seem to like my decorations.

This is how I set up my bunk. I try to make it as homey as possible. :)
This is the view of walking from the cabin to the dinning hall.
On the way you pass the amphitheater. Usually you can see the mountains but this particular day there was this huge cloud that surrounded us. It was really weird and neat to think that I live at such a high elevation.
Here is our amphitheater up close. This is where we have campfire and skits on Thursday nights.

This is a picture of our dinning hall all set up ready for campers to arrive. That's Jake sitting at the table. He's making bead necklaces for the kids. The campers are obsessed with earning the beads during the week. It's crazy and funny.
Alright it's time to start getting ready for next week. This weekend was pretty low key especially compared to last weekend. Yesterday we just hung out in Big Bear and then got together with the other Edwards staff at night to play some games. We haven't seen them in a long time. It was good.
Next week I'm on single cabins again. It should be fun. It's a 5 day program so I'm excited to finally get to teach astronomy! Yeah! I want to bruff up in my stars using my book I got from John.

P.S.- I found out on Friday that I made it as one of the 3 Line Dancing instructors. They must have liked my tryout. :) I'll let you know how my first class goes. I'll most likely be teaching the maccarina, the hitch hiker, and thriller.

Read all about it!!!

I’ll get to the good stuff in a minute but first…

My weeks
Man, weeks here just fly bye! I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! Last week went by so quickly because I was doing time and a half, which means I had my own cabin group and split a field group. It was really fun but gave me a glimpse at how busy things can be when you have to work around the clock. I was just glad I survived. :) This week hasn’t been that crazy because I’m just on a single cabin group. My girls have been great! A couple of them started out a little homesick but we knocked that right out and changed it into smiles. I think that some of them are going to be sad tomorrow when we say goodbye.

This week was also big for me because we had tryouts for Line Dancing instructor. Those who signed up had to teach one of the three dances during the Line Dancing class. I taught the Thriller dance on Tuesday night. I went in pretty nervous but thought I got luck to teach my favorite and the student favorite dance. It actually turned out great! I had a lot of fun. I got my rights and lefts mixed up a couple times but the returnies said that Dawn (the evaluator) was going to be looking for we picked up if we messed up and how we interacted with the kids. I think I did alright. I’ll let you know how it turns out and if I will be the new Line Dancing instructor…. (say a little prayer for me :) )

Yosemite
So what’s the big news??? I’ve told some people and they have been waiting patiently to hear about it but last weekend I had one of the best trips to Yosemite! It was amazing! I’ve never been there before and it is definitely one of my seven wonders of the world. I strongly believe that everyone should make it to Yosemite in their life time. We happen to go at the perfect time to see the BEAUTIFUL fall colors! It made me think of fall in Minnesota, but it didn’t have all the maroon and gold. Yosemite was filled with bright yellows and greens. There were huge maple leaves on the ground that were practically the size of a dinner plate or Frisbee disc. It was so pretty! Here, look for yourself… gorgeous right?

Yosemite is the oldest National Park in the US. Most people come here to climb the granite cliffs, to see the cascading waterfalls and Giant Sequoias, and to hike the forests made famous by John Muir and Ansel Adams.

Because we had a three day weekend a group of 8 of us made a last minute decision to go on this trip. We left in the morning on Saturday to drive 7 hours to Yosemite. When we got there we had to figure out a place to stay since the Park had closed for the night. We asked around and found a site a little ways from the Park that was like Tedagooch. You basically parked you car in a lot and them carried your stuff to the site about 20 feet away. It turned out to be the best place ever. We were all by ourselves and had a great time! We made our dinner, sat by the fire, and went to bed pretty early. We planned to get up at 5:30 the next morning.
It was an early morning but it was totally worth it! We woke up and broke camp to drive into the Park even before it was open. We hiked into see the Giant Sequoias at sun rise. I didn’t even know what to expect. Tynan, one of the guys with us, had been there before and was telling us about the sequoias around the campfire. He told us the trunks were huge and tried to show us by having all 8 of us stand in circle at arms width. We didn’t believe him and turns out they were even bigger than Tynan said. What do you think?

This is a picture of a group of trees called the Bachelor and Three Graces.


Dad would have been in tree heaven to be there! The sequoias in the Mariposa Grove are said to be the oldest living things. They speculate that they could be over 3,000 years old and can grow to be over 300 feet tall!
This is the Fallen Monarch which biologists believe fell centuries ago but has not decomposed because of the tannic acid. (ask Dad to explain how that works in detail)

This is a picture of me showing how wide this tree is. It had fallen on the path and they cut through it to show the rings on inside. Pretty amazing huh?

This is looking up at the tallest tree in the grove. It is called the Grizzly Giant. It is estimated to be 1,800 years old and one of its limbs is said to be seven feet in diameter!

This is me in the California Tunnel Tree. In 1895 the tunnel was cut to allow horse-drawn stages to pass through. It amazes me that it is still standing like that!

As the sun was rising it started to make the different colors of the forest pop out. I tried captured the bright red colors of the trunk with this picture.

As we were leaving the Mariposa Grove we spotted some deer. They didn’t mind us taking their picture and so we got to get really close to them. Aren’t they cute mom?


Half Dome
Once we made our way out of Mariposa Gove then it was time to start our hike. Along our drive, the day before, we stopped to take a picture of Yosemite from far away. This is a tunnel view the Yosemite Valley. The pointy peak in the far back is the one we hiked to the top of. Yep, I did it! Just wait until the pictures to come.

We got a site for the night in the Park because we knew that we would have to finish the hike in the dark. It was at least a 10 hour hike. When we were filling up our water bottles for the last time we started chatting with a guy and after we told him our plan he said, “you’re kidding right?” haha thanks for the confidence buddy! I really think that his comment is one of the things that motivated us to finish the hike.
The hike just got more and more beautiful with each switchback. The higher we got the prettier the view became.
Here’s a picture we took when we stopped at the top of the waterfall. In the picture with me is Matt and crazy Dan.

Then after about five hours we finally reached the toughest part. Tynan told us that when he was there the first time they didn’t make it to the cables. They were to tired and had to turn around. All during the hike I didn’t know what he meant by the “cables.” I just knew that it was the point when the slope was too steep and so then we had to take the cables to the top. Once I got to this point I realized what they meant by the “cables.” I thought that we would get into a chair lift on a cable or something but I was very wrong. The cables were two wires running through poles that were in the rock and wood slates that acted as foot holds for what was more of a climb without a harness than a hike. It was a straight up shot that climbed 900 ft. in elevation. It was amazing, scary, and super hard on the muscles after hiking for so long already.

This is a picture of the cables. Hopefully you can see them they are quite small in the picture.

Getting to the top was such an accomplishment and the view was breath taking! I felt like I was on top of the world! It was so great! The clouds were below us and the view of the valley was stunning! There was a cloud that at one point surrounded us entirely and we couldn’t see anywhere around us. It was so cool. We decided it would be smart to wait out the weather and not climb down at that point.

Here is a few pictures of the view from the top.

We were one of the last people to reach the summit for the day which we found out was going to be the last day of the year. The next day they were going to take down the cables so we got pretty lucky. There were only two other guys at the top with us. Although they weren’t going to be accompanying us down. These men as we found out were base jumpers and were planning to jump from the summit. Base jumping is a very illegal sport which means you free fall jump from a very high point. Many people try to do it off of the Eiffel Tour and the Rockefeller Tower. We all were stoked to get to meet these guys and maybe even see them jump! We waited for a while but then after they suited up got ready they told us they were going to have to wait some more. They wanted to wait for a good cloud to cover them from the rangers watching for this sort of thing while they were in the air. They also planned to jump at this time which just about sun down so that when they landed it would be impossible for the rangers to find them in the dark. Crazy huh?!?

Here is a picture of them getting ready to jump from the point that they chose. I’m so glad we weren’t going to do that! They are the small guys at the edge.

Instead of base jumping we chose to hike down, which in my opinion was way more scary than hiking up. Here’s picture looking down the cables.

Most of our hike back to camp was done in the dark. We all had head lamps and encountered a little bit of rain. It was a great day! Our group bonded and now have one of the greatest adventures to share with each other. I’ll be sure to post a picture of all of us at the top once I get a copy. Sadly my camera died once we got to the top.
Here’s one last picture of the whole group before we started our hike. Thanks for reading about my adventures! I’m sure there will be more to come! Miss you all!

Week Two

Good morning again! Sorry to post twice in one week but I’m trying to catch up a little. This post is a record on the past week, which was my first time in the field. I’ve written it like a schedule so you can get a feel for what a typical week is like for me. At the end I talk about my weekend and there are some fun pictures of my adventure. Today is Columbus Day which I guess is a day off for us. We don’t have kids until tomorrow. It’s nice to have a break but this also means my pay check is smaller. :) Anyways, here’s my week!

My First Week in the Field

Monday

It’s go time! I was a little nervous because now instead of babysitting and entertaining girls in a cabin now I had more students (about 12) and now I had to teach them something! Although, as the week went on I found this position was very comfortable for me. Teaching was normal for me. I surprised myself with my time management skills which most people here are struggling with. During my first class I had a peer evaluate me and she was impressed with the flow of my class and how well I watched the clock. (Thanks Amy Vandermeeden! )

The morning started out by working on out Project Areas. These are our jobs that we are in charge of to get camp ready, fix it up, and clean it up at the end of the week. My Project Area is Teacher Housing. This means I have to set up the linens and such so the teachers/chaperons have a nice place to stay. I was put on the job because I pay attention to detail. :)

Once the buses pulled in our job was to unload the luggage. We got it down to quite the system and it went pretty fast. It’s funny to see the bags where mom has obviously labeled it many times in lots of places.

Then it was time to prepare and teach after lunch. I got my field group which was a pretty good bunch of kids. They came from a Christian school in Pacadena, CA. They were quite chatty and instead of singing camp songs while we hiked they loved to sing Black Eyed Peas and Taylor Swift (yes even the boys were belting it out). I had no problem with it since thankfully I knew some of the songs so I could sing too. One of my students came up with a funny joke that some of you will get. “What do you do to Lady Gaga?” “Poke her face.” I thought it was hilarious! Hope you like that one Laura! :)

After we hiked a little ways from camp we sat down to teach Team Discovery. This class is meant as an intro class for the kids to start to observe the forest around them and to be welcomed to asking questions about the environment.

Jana search and rescue-

The funny thing about this class was that while I was teaching there was a lot of chatter going on my walkie, which I have to wear on my hip at all times, so I turned it down a little bit. But I must have turned it down so low that I didn’t her Jana, the medic, calling for me. She needed to give me an inhaler for one of my students but I couldn’t hear her calls. She even tried my cell phone but that was on silent too. Then she had to come out and try to find me. We are supposed to mark on a map where we are going to be for the day but I haven’t gotten it down quite yet because I wasn’t really on the path I said I would be. Oops. Lucky Jana did find me and everything was okay. I did get a little slap on the wrist form my boss at the end of the day but thankfully it wasn’t an emergency situation or anything.

Then finally it was Switch Over Time! I made it! I was done with my first day in the field!

Tuesday

This was an adventure day were I had to teach 4 classes. Orienteering, Climbing, Native Culture, and Adventure Course. Oofta! :) It was a lot to cover but the kids had a great time and loved climbing. In the morning after breakfast the field staff all has to make sandwiches for our students. This was a fun process. We probably made over 100 sandwiches at least! We pack them in stacks to save on baggies which is good, but turned into a lesson for my students. When it came time for us eat our sandwiches they were squished and not all that appetizing. They had over ordered and had a lot of food waste. They learn a lesson and the rest of the week they did a lot better.

Climbing is on of the classes that we had to get certified to teach so this day my director observed me. I was really nervous that I would forget something and I had heard that she was pretty tough. I was excited to find out that I passed! Woohoo!

When it came time to teach Native Culture I had to be a little flexible. I walkied to my support coordinator because where I was supposed to have my class the other school was having their Respect Speech. Oops! Now what? I have to use my head to juggle a few things around to wait until the space was open. It all worked out and the kids still had a good class.

Wednesday

This day I taught Furry Friends(mammals), Little world (insects), and Environmental Awareness. It was a good day. The students didn’t squish their sandwiches this time so lunch was a little better. They carried them like a baby instead of swinging them around. They named each bag, “Tuna baby” and PB baby.” :)

At the end of the day when we got back to camp I found out that my students had left one of our water buffaloes and a few props out in the field. I was a little frustrated because that meant I had to go back and get them. We have a camp mountain bike that I asked to use. My director said, “you have to be certified to use it” and then covered his eyes. :) hehe. I sped away quickly before it got too dark. I got to practice my mountain biking skills that I had learned from Carolyn in Utah. It was fun! Thanks Big-C!

Thursday

This day was pretty normal. I taught Plant Detectives, Earth Works (rocks), and Outdoor Survival Hike. The plants class was fun because I was able to point out a bunch of trees and I think the students learn a lot too. The rocks class was a little rough. I still have a lot to learn about rock myself. :)

Friday and the Weekend!

It’s funny how the mood completely changes on a Friday, even here. A lot of the staff was just glad to have survived the week because a lot of people have been getting sick. (Don’t worry Grandma, I’m taking my vitamins. :) ) It was a fun week but we were all very excited for the weekend!

If I talked to you on Friday you probably heard that I was going to go camping in Joshua Tree, but actually plans changed and formed into other things.

Friday night we hung out a Seven Oaks which is about the only bar up the mountain. It is only 10 minutes away. It’s a really cute lodge type bar with roaring fireplaces, pool tables, and a jukebox. I was super excited to see the Twins game on when we got there! I haven’t been able to see Minnesota sports since getting here. It was a great way to unwind with friends.

Saturday I ended up going into town to run a few arons with some girls and then meeting up with a couple guys to go rock climbing. Justin and Alan go rock climbing pretty much every weekend. They are really experienced and good. I’m glad that they were there to give us advice. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

This is Brittani. We convinced her to give it a try. She was a little scared if you can’t tell by her face. She did great and I think she is determined to go back and concur that climb.

This is Kelly with Alan belaying. She wasn’t even going to get on a harness. :) She did great!

This is me starting out. Justin is belaying me behind the bush. This climb that I did was rated about 5.9. It was tough but I did it!

This is a close up of me. Man, those rocks were cold!

This is me at the top. Honestly, the climb wasn’t the scary part. Repelling down is the scary part! I needed some coaching to not hold onto the rock.

Saturday I went to mass in Big Bear with Jessica and her family which came to visit from Colorado. Jessica and I were so proud because we finally made it to our first English mass since being out here. :) We’ve gone to 3 Spanish masses and 1 Latin. It was pretty funny. It was nice to finally understand everything the priest was saying. After the mass we had lunch and I waited for Brittani, Ange, and Kelly to come down the mountain. Ange and Kelly were going to bird watch while Brittani and I went for a run. We wanted to run around Big Bear Lake but found out that it’s 9 miles. Considering that I haven’t really run since I left Utah we thought that might be too much for start. It’s a goal that we both want to work towards. We ended up running for a good hour and had fun finding the different paths.

Today I’m going to get ready for the week and study a little more about my classes. I am working time and a half next week which means I’m in the cabin all week and split a field group. I’m splitting with my friend Drew so we are going to alternate teaching days. It should be a lot of work but also very fun! I’ll let you know how it goes! Miss you all! Thanks for all of the updates on what is happening in good old Minnesota!

I survived!

This was written last weekend, I promise. I just haven't had enough time to post it. I will try to work on my post for this week asap. Enjoy! Miss ya Minnesota!

After a crazy last minute switch I hussled to get things ready for my week in the cabins with my first set of girls. It turned out to be a great week! I worked a lot of hours and hardly spoke to the outside world but I made it through with flying colors! Everyone was still smiling and standing at the end of the week. :)

First Day

Tuesday was when our school arrived (Bouquet Canyon Elementary). They pulled and our job, as cabin instructors, was to greet the students as they got off the bus. We then broke them into there cabin groups. I had nine girls in my cabin, which was Sparrow-Hawk. My girls were so eager to get their bunk set up. First they had to lug their stuff to our cabin. This was probably the hardest take of the week. J Sadly our cabin was the farthest away so you can imagine the complaining I got to hear along the way. I told the girls they had to carry their own suitcases because they chose to pack them so heavy. :)

Once we got to the cabin and they picked there bunks we sat down and went through rules. I have made my cabin rules with the theme of cooking/baking. Each rule is written on a recipe card and then put on and apron that I made. The girls liked it. It’s a recipe for a great week! J They had lots of questions about our camp rule about “Happy Tree.” Happy Tree is what we call going to the bathroom in the field/woods. We have to instruct them on how to do this because many of them have never been camping before. The girls were really grossed out but I told them I do it all the time and it’s no big deal. When they are out with their field groups they are gone for seven hours so it’s important that they know how to go to the bathroom otherwise we might end up with a “code yellow.” The advice I gave the girls was to role up their pant legs and squat going down hill. It also helps afterwards to do the “Brittany Bounce or the Shakera Shake” :) I’m pretty sure they thought I was weird but they soon learned.

Hereare my cabin rules. Cute huh? I thought the kiddos would like it.

After the rules, it was time for lunch. I ate with the girls and then the kids went off to their first field class. Mean while we had a cabin meeting to make sure everything started alright. They plan to have these meetings everyday for the first two weeks just to make sure that everyone is doing okay. Then pretty soon it was “switch over” time, which is when the field instructors handoff the kids to the cabin instructors. It was now time for dinner.

After dinner, my girls and I went back to our cabin for our first Tribes. Tribes is where your get a chance to bond with your cabin and make connections and hopefully spark some new friendships. My girls loved it! It was really quality time and we all became quite close through this first Tribes and the ones to follow.

Then it was time so layer up for Nocturnal Nation. This is a class that I taught outside for our night hike. Thankfully my girls weren’t too scared of the dark but they did get very cold and stumble in the dark a bit. The moon was bright so that helped. They really liked the experiment with our eyes adjusting to the darkness. Or solo hike didn’t quite work because instead of going one at a time for the walk they just went a few minutes after each other. J oops oh well. I’ll have to explain it better next time.

Time for bed! I was really worried my girls were going to get home sick in the middle of the night. I read to them until they feel asleep so that they wouldn’t have to be thinking about home. (This was something they ended up really looking forward too each night.) Honestly, I think I was the only one who had a restless night because my brain kept churning. I was so worried that I wouldn’t hear my girls if the woke up in the middle of the night or I was worried I had over slept. Turns out nothing happened in the middle of the night but we did wake up a little late in the morning. It was tough too get them moving but we made up time and weren’t late for breakfast. I had survived my first night with campers! :)

The rest of the week went well. Showering took for ever and I learned that if you teach the girls a song when you are walking to the showers, they are bound to sing it in the showers. J We did rest of the night programs (which you can read more detail about in my previous blog). My first night of Snake and Line Dancing went well. I thankfully didn’t have to hold a snake. Few! Campfire was good. My girls did a skit called Candy Shop and had a blast.

Then it was already time to pack up and go home. :( My girls were really sad and didn’t want to leave. We got our bags packed and ready surprisingly quickly and so we had time for one more Tribes. They were excited. We did the Rose, Bud, and Thorn for the week. Most of them said their bud was carrying luggage and strangely a lot of them really liked the time they had in the showers? It was funny but they really bonded in there. I guess it was girl time or something?

After breakfast the whole school goes to do the last class with the cabin instructors. We have to prepare bag lunches. I actually got pulled away early to get trained in my Project Area. On Fridays we have to clean up camp and so we have Project Areas. Mine is Teacher Housing, where the teacher’s stay while the school is here. We ended up loosing track of time and totally missed when my girls left on the bus. Oops! I actually didn’t get to say goodbye! I felt really bad. :)

Once the schools left we all were busy bees working on our project areas. We actually didn’t finish with our meeting and everything until 6:15! That was a long day! Especially since I had picked up my girls at about that time the day before so it was practically a full 24 hour shift! It was cool during the meeting to hear about everyone’s week and to celebrate that we had all survived! :) We all were going to meet at a bar half way down the mountain for a beer to celebrate.

Here are a couple pictures from when I was doing my observations. This is Stephanie. It was always hard to work all night and then have to go observe people during the night.

This was just for the pretty sight and the fact that I had a camera. It's so beautiful here!

Weekend at the beach!

My friend Kelly (not Smith, sorry) lives near Huntington Beach and invited us to stay at her place for the weekend. It was SO much fun! We were all totally pumped to go to the beach! It was funny because since Kelly lives in Cali the beach doesn’t really have that much glitter anymore, but you should have seen us. We were like kids in a McDonald’s play pen! We went crazy once we say the waves! It was so much fun to play in the waves and man are they strong! Kelly was giving us pointers and keeping track of us so we didn’t drift away too far. It was so awesome! I got sand everywhere and almost lost my bottoms a few times. J We stayed at the beach for a few hours and then went back to clean up.

It was so nice to sit in the warmth and relax after a crazy week!

The waves were so much fun to play in! I loved it!

Sunset

Kelly told us the sunset was beautiful so after cleaning up we went back. It was worth it. Pictures say a thousand words so I’ll let them speak for themselves.

It was such a neat sight to see the moon and the sun in the same sky!

Now I’m back up the mountain getting ready for another batch of kiddos. I’ll be working in the field for a five day program. Wish me luck! My first class is a Discovery Hike. I hope my teaching skills come back to me!

Here’s one last picture for you to show you all how much I miss you! Thanks for all of the calls and messages! I really appreciate them!