Blog #3 - Expedition Leg One - The Green Mountains

Winter Semester 2017 Blog #3:

“Leg One- Green Mountains”

I went out looking

Looking for peace

And I found it, in the snow that gently falls

A hushed whisper of comfort

I went out looking for wisdom, for strength

And I found them in the in the trees

In the deep roots of the fir who holds you in her arms

Despite the cold

I went out looking to unleash something within myself

Something you can’t quite name

But can only sense

And discovered it had been there all along.

I went out looking, weaving among the birch, ducking under the hemlock

And I found life

Life in the laughter, life in the joy

In the warmth of meals shared and the grace of songs sung

In the over lapping of boughs

And the freedom of a gentle glide over the snow, now come to rest

Until the spring

I went out looking to learn and maybe to teach

And found that with each answer comes a hundred questions

Questions for another day, questions for another life

On the day I went out looking,

I went searching for gratitude

And I found it everywhere I turned

In every soul I encountered

My own no exception

I went out looking one winter day

And in looking I began to see

-Zoe

Hello everyone!

There is so much that has happened since we left Kroka on Wednesday February 8th to begin our expedition on Route 11 in Londondary.  We have now arrived at Farm and Wilderness in Vermont where we will be preparing for the next leg of our trip in the Chic Choc mountains of Gaspe Canada.

A day on trail

The crackling of fire begins to call us back from sleep.  Soft singing awakens us and we know it’s time for the day to begin.  Some days the sun is still asleep when we are not, and others she calls us forth from our slumber and we know it’s morning.  Once our sleeping bags are rolled up and safely at the bottom of our backpacks we head out for a morning sit spot to greet the new day and spend a moment in silence with the land.  Once the familiar call for breakfast and hand washing comes we gather once again in our warm expedition tent and sing a song in gratitude for the meal in front of us.  It is still early and there is much that needs to be done before we hit the trail.  After filling out our learning logs, weather reflection and licking our bowls clean, in silence, we commence taking down camp.  Putting the tent away, removing mats, cleaning ashes out of the stove, packing up the kitchen, stacking extra firewood and doing anything else that needs to happen.  Once everything is packed away and skis are on feet, it's good to take a moment and thank the space that was our home for the night, the boughs that we slept on, the trees that sheltered us and heated our tent, and the fresh winter air that nourished us.  On trail we ski on snowmobile trails, the Catamount, and we occasionally bushwhack or road-walk.  Each day is different, some days we may only ski 5k others closer to 10-15k. 

This leg we have been working with our teacher Chris Knapp and learning about what it really means to live in the bush, away from civilization.  During this portion of the expedition we have had a lot of what we call “live-over days.”  These are days where instead of taking down camp in the morning, traveling during the day, and then setting camp up again in the evening, we spend up to two days in one spot.  On these days we are able to focus on our academic block, learning about trees, reading True North by Elliot Merric, working on cardinal directions, carving spoons, studying weather patterns, responding to journal prompts and doing some solo time in the woods. 

We kiss trees!

On our first live-over, only our second day on trail, we learned what to look for when setting up a good camp.  Ideally you have a camp that takes care of your basic needs; shelter, water, fire, food.  In order to achieve this you need dead poles for firewood, bountiful boughs for the floor of the tent, hopefully a potable water source nearby (if not, melting snow works), and an open area to fit the tent. The best way to check if a dead standing pole is dry is to kiss it.  You simply cut away the bark until you reach the wood and lean in... If after a few seconds the wood feels warm against your lips then it is dry, if it is still cold then the wood is wet, it’s that simple.

Although while on trail we are away from most people we are still close by. On day three we skied to Burr and Burton mountain campus and spent some time with the students there learning about what they are up to.  Burr and Burton Mountain Campus is a semester program open to students from Burr and Burton public school.  Five days a week the students get dropped off at a trail head where they take a short hike to their school.  During the week the students study naturalist writers, natural history, sustainability, energy, cook their own meals, work on compost and do solo journaling.  We also stopped by at one of Farm and Wilderness’s campus’s in the hopes of helping out with ice cutting for their summer ice house, but when we arrived it turned out that they had to move the ice cutting to a different location, so instead of cutting ice we got fed and had some lovely conversations.

We have been very lucky with weather, the only days we’ve gotten snow storms have been on live-over days.  On travel days the sky has been blue and the sun warm.  Each day we spend time in the morning reviewing what happened the day before.  We go over what we learned and what the weather was like: writing down a weather story, telling chapter by chapter what went on in the sky.  Here is an example of a weather entry by Samuel:

Feb/18/17

“Today was unseasonably warm, the sun was shinning and the sky was blue. As we crossed lake Ninivah in the morning there were high cirrus clouds blowing in. By mid day the wind was coming from SW and the sky was overcast. Our ski’s stuck to the snow. Towards late afternoon the wind shifted again to NW, bringing unusually warm temperatures for a NW wind. The sky was clear once more by nightfall” [picture of us on lake niniva]

On one of our longer live-overs we got to spend some solo time in the woods, bringing with us a match container, a compass, our day food bags, and some dough to make bread on a stick. We had two hours and the instructions were to ski for up to 45 minutes in one direction, make a fire, and cook your bread on a stick. Another key element was to spend time speaking with the earth. Having a conversation with the trees, the mountains, the rocks, the snow...anything. We came back from the day with new stories and a feeling of accomplishment having not gotten lost.

Halfway through our trip we ditched our metal spoons and relied solely on our carved wooden spoons, a few students had to use pieces of firewood to eat with until their spoons were done, but by the end of this leg everyone had beautiful spoons to eat out of and take pride in. 

Along with the drop off of our spoons, we also picked up another member of our group.  Chris’s nine year old son Owen joined us for the second half of our trip.  He may be half our height but he can ski better than any of us. He soon earned the name “speed demon” as he swerved in and out of trees flying down the hills with a smile on his face while the rest of us wiped out in the snow.

We have now completed the first leg of our winter expedition, traveling 70k through the green mountains of Vermont up the steep hills and back down, slipping and sliding through the soft snow with all we need on our backs. But this is just the beginning. By the time you will all be reading this we will be on our way to the Chic Choc mountains, where the weather is colder and the snow is deeper. We look forward into the future with excitement and gratitude for what we have and for what we will learn from the earth and each other.

Signing off for now,

-Ila

“True cold is not the absence of heat

But rather the bringer of warmth

For without cold we could never

Feel the warmth of soft knit wool

A cozy tent, and burning wood stove

The heat of friendship and community

In the brisk winter wind

We would never be compelled

to reach deep within ourselves

And unearth the warmth that only we have to give”

-Grant