Monday, June 27

Our first day at HMI started at the Denver Airport: some of us arrived early from our flights and some of us arrived late. There were two waves of buses and coincidentally, almost all of the later students are going into their senior year; others are entering their junior year. We got to the HMI campus and we just dropped our stuff and wanted to sleep. But, there was much to do, like meeting people! We played a name game with faculty (and their kids), staff, and students, and then had dinner after setting up our humble cabins. Dinner was great and we all meshed very well for just having met each other. Some were shyer while others jumped right into the conversation. It was overall an uneventful day but filled our heads with positive thoughts about our upcoming adventures.

 Day two started off with a nice walk on the trails behind HMI’s soccer/quidditch/frisbee field for AMX (morning exercise). We walked a short distance and stretched then headed back to Who’s Hall for a breakfast of eggs and bacon. Advisee meetings followed: we split into small groups and learned who would be our advisor, and made plans for our respective groups for the rest of our six weeks together. After a rules talk, a community meeting was next on the agenda, where we discussed what we would like to see out of Summer Term and how we would like to be remembered as the very first Summer Term ever! Then it was off to our first Practices and Principles class (P&P) with Karen in which we did a reading, had a discussion, and learned about our first field assignment. Then thirteen of us headed to Turquoise Lake with the Environmental Science class to learn about the aspen groves, while the remaining five headed off to Humanities class to learn about shifting perspectives through different readings and personal journaling. A delicious grilled burger enjoyed on the porch together concluded the day, along with a nice sunset, roasting s'mores, and conversation.

The next day we began the day with half an hour of relaxing yoga. A lot of us had never done yoga before, and although some of us thought we looked a little bit ridiculous, it proved to be a great way to start off such a busy day! After breakfast, we experienced our first round of chores at HMI, which left each of us quite protective of our assigned zones. Then, after splitting up into our expedition groups, we were launched into a whirlwind of activity. Our expedition leaders outlined our route and then helped us to figure out what gear we needed to bring on our first backcountry experience together.

After a hectic ten minute scramble to collect our gear for the nine days, we took a break for a delicious lunch of tuna melts as we basked in the sun. We then collected our food rations and divided them amongst our tent groups. The expedition leaders educated us next in the fine arts of reading maps, setting up and staking tents, and lighting our stoves. Equipped with our budding backcountry knowledge, we packed our backpacks with help from our instructors and then turned our packs over to the scale. Once we had all adjusted our pack weights, we headed in for baked ziti so delicious we nearly polished off both enormous pans, and then followed it with very large bowls of ice cream. After dinner, we hiked to Turquoise Lake with Christina, the Head of Summer Term, were we skipped stones and relaxed. Overall, we are all very excited, and some also a little nervous, to head out into the backcountry for what is sure to be an incredible nine days.

By Will Beck, Scout Sorcic, and Gracen Evall