February 7, 2009

For our first expedition in the canyons of southeastern Utah, few of us knew what to expect. How warm would it be? How cold? What kinds of layers of clothing should we bring? What will it even look like? Those questions were answered during our first few days away from the comfort of the campus. On top of the mesa where we parked, we were slightly surprised by the moderate temperature, especially for the end of January. Later that night, down in the canyon, it got colder, and it snowed for a good part of the night. But we all made it through with warm thoughts, hot water bottles, and tons of extra layers.

Hiking days remained warm, effectively thawing out our stream of drinking water and our water bottles. We made our way from campsite to campsite guided by the towering canyon walls, which we learned later were made of sedimentary rock and shaped smoothly by rivers over 10 million years ago. Some of our days involved weaving through boulder fields, others were easier walks above canyons, and still others involved exploring deep slot canyons, where we could only walk in single-file lines just to fit through. The expedition as well as the canyons proved to be full of twists and turns, with surprises around every bend.

Perhaps some of the more awe-inspiring features of the arid landscape that sheltered us were the numerous ruins that sheltered ancient civilizations thousands of years ago. Next to where we hiked and camped, we found the remains of the Ancient Puebloan civilizations, evidence of the rich culture and history the canyons had to offer, in addition to its rock formations. In ammo boxes next to the ruins, we read from information packets about the significance of the pottery shards, arrowheads, and corncobs scattered around us. We felt content with taking nothing but pictures, and leaving nothing but our signatures in the log books, but what we got out of the experience was more than anyone could have hoped for.

Our route started off in Owl Canyon. The descent into Owl went smoothly with no pack passing to be done. Once inside the canyon we hiked to Neville’s Arch, a natural arch about 600 ft from the canyon floor. We took a layover day by Neville’s Arch, and had science and P&P classes beneath it. Next we moved into Fish Canyon. We explored the beauty and rock formations and continued to learn about the natural world through Thoreau’s literature, which was part of our English assignment. The last day in Fish Canyon was a tough one, and we hiked five miles and then climbed up about 1000 feet to exit the canyon.

Then it was time for the organized chaos of re-ration day!  We all got to empty out the trash from our packs and stock up on food – yum! That night we camped on the top of a drainage about a mile into the Grand Gulch. There we had study hall and an iron chef competition (the girls won!). During the remaining days we visited a number of ruins and saw amazing petroglyphs. One particularly interesting ruin we visited was called "Jailhouse Ruin". There we saw a number of small huts with windows made out of wood, and they even had a kiva, which is an underground structure in which ceremonies were held. Then it was time to exit the canyon. We camped at the trailhead the last night and piled in the van early the next morning to head back to HMI.

During the two weeks, we didn't just take classes, eat, and hike. Our expedition groups also formed communities. We worked hard to learn everyone's quirks and random facts about each person in order to become close friends in fourteen days.  We named our expedition group the Dork Squad, which brought us together in the first hour of the van ride by forming a consensus about the name.  Throughout the trip the instructors taught us many communication skills including "SBI" feedback and VOEMPING (a form of conflict resolution).  Every night we joined together as a whole to have circle, a time to discuss the day, personal feelings and the day to come.  Two of our expedition members were responsible for teaching a game to the group during circle.  The Dork Squad laughed hard and relaxed together while playing the story game, mingle, moo and many other ridiculous games.  During circle we also had a spotlight, where one group member would share their past, hobbies, home life, and future plans.  This allowed us to learn more about each other and become a community as a whole.  At RMS there are many communities: the overall student body, cabins, cook crews, and past expedition groups.  As our first expedition group fades away we will all remember the Disney songs we sang on the trail, the Dork Squad dance, the long intellectual conversations, and the much louder van ride on the way home. 

Now that we’re home, we have a chance to decide what it means to be RMS XXII.  It’s actually funny when you think about it. 42 students are expected to work together, live together, cook together, and clean up after one another. We arrive in Leadville and four days after we meet one another and begin to form our unfounded first judgments, we are carted away to Utah. It almost goes without saying that after this wild and amazing endeavor we have formed unbreakable bonds with our expedition mates. These people have already seen us at our worst; in the early morning and not having showered for way too long. Our closest friends from home haven’t even seen us in that kind of glory.

You might expect us to return to HMI and feel awkward and out of place among the other thirty-some students who haven’t been getting to know us and smelling us for the past two weeks, yet no such feelings came. As soon as the buses pulled in, hoards of smelly students poured out full of thousands of stories to share with the students from other expeditions. We were immediately put to work on the first stage of de-issuing all the gear we had used on the expedition. We grouped together pots, pans, spice kits, tarps, repair kits, maps, and soap bottles. After this task came and amazing burrito dinner and then the mad shower rush. Everyone darted for the whiteboard in order to get his or her name up on the shower list. Somehow we all managed to get clean and return to our cabins where we got to sleep in nice soft beds in warm fire-heated cabins.

We all woke up the next morning to a breakfast that we did not have to cook ourselves and then began our day full of post-expedition clean-up; there were tarps to be hosed, bottles to be cleaned, and vans to be mopped. It took a few hours to adjust to the running water, the electricity, and the concept of using more than one pot to make meals, but believe it or not, we're already getting used to it.

 Leaving the Canyons was a bittersweet day for most of us. We all desperately longed for a toilet and shower but none of us wanted to leave behind the incredible experience that we had just shared. Despite missing the canyons, we are all safely back at HMI and ready to start what has been referred to as the “next expedition as RMS XXII.”

By: Kate Fisch, Max Feldman, Avery Kernan, Lucy Williams & Sarah Baranes