Every Explorers Club group gets a name given to them when they begin their journey together. As the groups age, they grow, learn and gain experience together. After they have had a few years under their belts, the mentors let the group know that they can now change their name if they want, as long as they can all come to a consensus about what that name should be. Some groups change their names to reflect particularly challenging outings that they have had (Storm Wolves, Daredevils Club, Vespula Veterans). Other groups choose to change their name when they feel that they are entering a new stage in their Explorers Club journey. So, at the end of our inaugural campout of their last season together in Explorers Club, the Red-Tailed Eyas sat on a thick bed of moss under a towering old growth Hemlock and decided to change their name and become the Red-Tailed Hawks!
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| Our trusty steed, Moose |
Now that you know how this weekend ended, let's start at the beginning. We gathered at Samish Woods and we shared stories of summer and reconnected with those members of our group that we hadn’t seen for a few months. Before we got on the bus, however, the mentors felt that it was important to introduce (or remind) us of what a “backcountry mindset” looks like.
The mentors let us know that, because we were going to be much further from definitive medical care (aka, in the backcountry), we would need to adopt a new way of being that was different from our behavior and attitudes on our usual, frontcountry explorations together. Together, we anticipated hazards and discussed actions that we could take to mitigate these hazards and the increased risk of being in the backcountry. We all agreed to “dial it back” before we got onto the bus and to keep living within that backcountry mindset for the next two days.
It was late morning by the time that we reached the Welcome Pass Trailhead, which was also our campsite. We took some time to scurry around in our new surroundings before we decided where to set up camp. We the RTHs are adept shelter builders and we utilized our knowledge of how to pick a proper site for a survival shelter to inform where we setup our tents. Once our sites had been picked, our mentors gave us our tent groups and tents and left us to our own devices for setting up our and organizing our gear inside of them.
Once we had taken care of getting the camp set up, the mentors allowed us to decide for ourselves how to use the next couple of hours. The forest floor was covered in thick moss and the pit and mound topography of these woods made our choice to play a game of Spider’s Web an easy one.
After the game we came back to camp to have a snack and, as is so often is the case with adolescent males, some roughhousing broke out. It was playful and all in good fun, however we had done a poor job of considering our backcountry mindset in this instance. The mentors tried to remind us to tone it down but we just couldn’t listen. After continuing to make unsafe decisions after we had been reminded to be more aware and intentional with our bodies, the mentors had to call us into a circle so that they could relay the importance of staying safe in the backcountry. The mentors found that, once we were all in a circle, we listened much better. High school is just around the corner for us, and the mentors let us in on some of the new responsibilities that we would have to take on as we entered young adulthood. As a group, we came away from that circle with an improved understanding of responsibility and a new awareness of what that responsibility needs to look like in our actions and choices.
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| Snacking |
Our campout centered around what it means to be the eldest Explorers Club group and how we can get the most out of our last year together. We explored the idea of responsibility and maturity through a variety of different avenues. During an hour long sit spot, we had the opportunity to ponder what our relationship to nature looks and feels like. We spent time exploring old growth climax succession forests where cedar and hemlock dominate the canopy and shade out the understory. That leaves the forest floor covered with thick moss and sparsely spaced shade tolerant sword fern, huckleberry and hemlock saplings. We shared stories of our younger Explorer selves in order to see how much we have grown individually and as a group across a broad range of skills. We shared some of our trepidations about high school and about disbanding as a group next year. We also got the share with each other our answers the the question, “Why are you here, doing Explorer’s Club?” It was inspiring for the mentors to see this kind of growth and depth from a group who not so long ago shirked new responsibility because childishness was so much more comfortable and easy.
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| A relativley young forest still full of small, tightly packed Douglas firs |
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| Because of the steepness, smoke, and coming rain, the RTH decided to turn around at this point on our hike (about half way) They chose to spend the remainder of our day in a beautiful patch of old growth forest just off Hwy 542. |
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| Huge downed trees provide excellent climbing structures.. |
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| ... and great ways to move through the forest! |
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| Returning to the bus after our closing circle. |
The mentors felt honored and privileged to get to be a part of the Red-Tailed Eyas maturation into the Red-Tailed Hawks this past weekend. The mentors have been encouraging the RTHs to lean into new responsibility and maturity for a while now, but ultimately the RTHs decided to take that step together, on their own time. We are excited to see how this shift manifests in our coming outings and throughout our final year together.
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