April 15

This Sunday, we returned to HMI after our week of Spring Break. After various college visits, skiing trips, or down time at home, we were excited to reunite with our friends and cabin mates. The majority of us flew into Denver International Airport and formed a group waiting to drive to HMI. We sat in the airport, chatted, and ate what we could. As soon as we had enough people to fill the vans, we loaded up and were on our way.

Throughout the course of the day, various groups and individuals trickled into Who's Hall and proceeded to get settled in once again. It was nice to get back and have little on our plates other than to get reacquainted and share stories. Throughout the afternoon we hung out around campus and got back into the swing of things, and then enjoyed a tasty dinner. During the evening, we had a short study hall to finish up any work left over from the break. After study hall, we headed back to our cabins for our first night back on campus.

Our next few days were jam-packed with classes of a new variety: Wilderness First Aid (WFA) classes. It wasn’t abnormal to walk outside and see numerous students lying on the ground, sometimes with large, bloody abrasions on their foreheads (makeup, of course), other times lying in awkward positions, complaining of back pain, and yet other times unconscious victims strewn about the walkway (it was fun to get a "SAMPLE" history from them: “Any allergies?” no response “Any medications?” no response “Have you had any water recently?” no response– you get the picture).

You can all rest assured: when we get back from HMI, not only will we be able to pack a backpack with 50-pounds worth of things in under 5 minutes, cook back-country pizza like master chefs, BUT we’ll also be able to successfully bandage gushing wounds, make a backcountry splint, and hypo-wrap all of those hypothermic people in the front-country! Yup – you all can proudly say your daughter/son/friend/niece/nephew/etc is now certified in Wilderness First Aid.

We spent yesterday excitedly preparing for expedition. We are all anxious to get back to the canyons. However, this trip should be very different from our first. We have been promised (crossing our fingers) that the weather will be warm, although most of us are skeptical of this! Also, the structure of our groups is slightly changed because we will have a student expedition leader and we may have opportunities for traveling independent of our instructors. This expedition we will be held to higher standards because of our experience on the first two trips, yet we all look forward to practicing and mastering our skills. We will also be able to teach some classes and play lots of games.To see more photos of RMS 26, please click here.

We can't wait to get into the field! 

By: Charles Nunziato, Jill Gardiner, & Allie Cohen

 To see more photos of RMS 26, please click here.