Oliver Sadler

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I surprised myself when I was practicing bow drilling and I managed to make the pine block start to smoke. I didn’t know I could get that far to make it start smoking. Maybe if I had kept on going I would have “busted a coal”. I am happy I know enough on how to bow drill because I could teach a friend or a family member how to do it.

 I know I have gotten stronger because every morning on campus we ether run or do weight lifting. When we run we go up to an overlook and for weight lifting we go to the garage of achievers. In the garage there’s a few different machines like a bench press, chin up bar and a treadmill. Every few weeks we do a 100-yard dash for our fitness test and we also run around the track for four laps and try to beat our best time. Then after all that we do stretches and sit-ups or push-ups for 1 minute.

 I am hoping to learn new skills like knots and flint knapping. At our campsite at the Grand Canyon I tried to make an axe head and it came out okay but not perfect. I am still trying to master basic knots like trucker’s hitch and the bolin knot. I’ve surprise myself by gaining better leadership skills. I am wondering what field skills I’ll learn in the future.

Harrison Kight November 12, 2013

Harrison Kight

November 12, 2013

 

Expedition Errors: The Events That Weren’t Supposed to Happen

 

                During the course of our cross-country road trip, we ran across many mishaps that hindered our progress. Throughout the two weeks of driving, camping, and exploring, almost all of the intended activities were changed or cancelled as a result of some unexpected roadblock. Although the expedition was amazing overall, I thought I should be the one to describe this series of unfortunate events.

 

                The original starting date for the expedition was October 28. At the time, one of our group members, Zach, had some sort of serious illness, and the rest of the group was required to leave the next day. After departing with our new student, Mike Wolfe, we drove for ten hours to a campsite in Missouri. We arrived at 11:00pm, a very late time to eat and set up tents, only to take them down the next day. The following trip to Kansas wasn’t that bad; we arrived at 9:00pm (still after ten hours) and set up quickly, but the brief rainstorm on Thursday morning soaked our tents. This may not seem like much of a problem so far, but many more issues occurred after this.

 

                That same day, after a rather fun afternoon, the group reached Colorado at 10:00pm. Although this campsite had an amazing view, the area was very cold, possibly reaching temperatures of about 25 degrees in the morning. Tired and hungry, we headed out to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We planned on riding a sand sled down the dunes, but the rentals were cancelled the day we attempted to use one (November 1)! After retrieving Zach on Saturday, a long drive to Utah was among us. We finished setting up camp at about 10:30pm, and left for Arches National Park that Sunday. When we returned to camp, a crazy scene awaited us.

 

                We knew that the weather that day consisted of strong winds, but we didn’t think that the gusts would destroy our tents! Two of the tents, including mine, had several broken poles, and my tent had to be hung by a rope in order to stay up! This situation took over an hour to rectify, and it was a pain to do! Not only did we have to drive to Arizona the next day, but now we had to deal with these tents!

 

                The day after our ten-hour drive to the Grand Canyon National Park, we had a major surprise to encounter upon our hike! It turned out that Zach had hip surgery a while back, and his weighted pack was causing a lot of pain in the affected area. As a result of this and several other facts, the hike into the Grand Canyon had to be cancelled. Although we had plenty of activities afterward to keep us entertained, this was a major upset for the group. But the madness didn’t stop after this last destination!

 

                Although the flight back to base went smoothly, the drive after our arrival in Charlotte (my hometown) took three hours. But the main factor here was that the drive started at midnight! So we arrived back at base at 3:00am! Despite all of these mishaps, the expedition in general was amazing, and a great learning experience for the future. Somebody had to mention these factors, though!

Jake Midgett's Strengths

Jake Midgett            English            November 11, 2013

                        What I Bring to the Table

Hard working, leadership, and ingenuity are all very important qualities and characteristics that will help you in life and those qualities and characteristics are what I possess. I have brought all of these characteristics and qualities to SOAR this year. It is hard to maintain these qualities with your peers that you are around twenty-four-seven, but it is manageable.

Starting my first year at SOAR I was excited and nervous, but I now realize that there was nothing to be nervous about. Doing your role, school work, or job is easy, but putting hard work into it is the harder part. I always put effort and hard work into whatever job, role, or my school work. I do this because when someone sees how good of a job I did I will say to myself “yeah that was me!” A way being a hard worker has helped me through tough times on expedition is when I get ahead on school work in the van because not only do I get ahead in that school subject, but I also will have more free time later.

Next, I came to SOAR being able to lead people. I was really excited to test my leadership skills with my peers because I am trying to be more assertive than bossy. Every time I practice leadership skills is a learning experience because I try out different ideas. One way being a leader has helped me through tough times is when we were setting up tents in the dark and it was pretty cold out; I asked my team to set up tents with me instead of having them set up tents themselves.

            Lastly, I brought ingenuity to SOAR. I have a lot of ingenuity because I love to problem solve so it is like a game of chess to me and I love to analyze situations. Ingenuity comes in handy for just about everything! I have used my ingenuity to fix and set up tents.

            In conclusion, I have a lot of qualities that I have, can, and will share while I am at SOAR. I am proud to have obtained all of these qualities in the past. I look forward to continue to use them to the best of my abilities in school, work, and while I am at home. I am glad that my parents have taught me to be a leader, a hard worker, and to use my ingenuity.

Aaron Cabaniss - Grand Canyon Adventure

Aaron Cabaniss

November 12, 2013

English Blog assignment

Driving to the Grand Canyon was an adventure in itself. As we stopped along the way to get has and snacks, we saw things we would not normally see. One of which was seeing the states of Missouri and Kansas, and as we drove across the highway toward Colorado to spend the next two nights in a campsite, we saw tumble weeds rolling across the road over the vast, flat terrain. After finally reaching our destination in Colorado at midnight, we set up camp in the bitterly cold night.

The next morning I awoke early to find one of our instructors, Dan, already up, gazing at the mountains on one side of our campsite to the other side where the plains set as the sun rose. We then started the morning with making breakfast and finishing our roles. Afterward, we continued our adventure to the great sand dunes where we hiked a valley filled with sand. It was like a ski slope area filled with sand instead of snow. Mounds and mounds of sand we climbed to slide down with trash bags used as sleds. We emptied our pockets full of the dry, fine granulated sand and pilled back into the van to continue our trip back toward the campsite for another night.

The following morning, we packed up all of our gear and headed toward the arches in Utah, another long adventurous trip. We finally reached our destination seven long hours later. The arches were amazing! Huge boulders with holes carved out like caves were more interesting to look at than I had thought. The next day we continued our journey once again to the place we had all been waiting for; the Grand Canyon.

We arrived at Mather campground around eleven at night to set up camp and cook dinner. Everyone was a little frustrated with each other since we had been cooped up in the van for almost eight hours straight. Needless to say, when our heads hit the pillow in our sleeping bags, we were out.

The next morning we tried hiking down in the canyon to spend three nights in the valley, however, one of our team members was not feeling as well as we had hoped. He was still getting over a bad case of the flu. We decided against hiking down in the canyon and instead stayed another night up top to hike around the rim the next day.

Watching a video and touring the visitor center were only a few things we did to occupy ourselves for such an awesome place to be this time of year. We then flew home the next day and are now here, back at SOAR, to tell the wonderful story of the Grand Canyon expedition three experience!

Michael Wolfe, Primitive Experience

Mike Wolfe

Blog

 

 

We are learning all the time, but don’t have the brain capacity to remember everything we are learning during all of that time. Half of our learning takes place in school, the other half in the outside world, yes on the contrary it could be more in one than the other. Today I am writing on something that I learned on the Grand Canyon expedition, and how it has affected me, which is quite coincidental. I love the woods and love the west for the desert even with all the trees, rocks, and animals. I loved primitive skills the most out of the things that I loved. I especially loved it when I started a fire with a bow drill, which is a VERY primitive way of making a fire with all wooden utensils, a rock, and last but definitely not least, the “P-Cord” or Para cord to attach to a bow, and to wrap around the spindle. The rock goes on top to keep pressure on the rest of the set. It is very fun to use and not as much fun to learn because it is very annoying when you get “Spindle-whipped” or get hit with the spindle. It really hurts, but besides that it’s a really versatile tool to have at your disposal, and I loved it even more because it was my first actual bow drill fire rather than just having the fire made with a lighter. Ergo, it took me almost a year to fully learn this, but as it is the same with learning new things, it was worth it. When I say it was worth it, I don’t just mean that making the fire was worth it, but also the experience of it all was worth it. In all truthfulness I really wish that I could have had even more bow drill fires rather than just only being able to make only one single bow drill fire. It kind of irks me that I wasn’t able to make more than that one single fire.

Zach's one of a kind Expedition

          For the start of this expedition I did not start by sitting in a white panel van on its way to Missouri, jamming to my iPod and checking out who was next to us on the highway.  I started off in bed. Earlier that week I caught a case of walking pneumonia just after getting a nasty sinus infection. So I was in bed for the first three or four days of the drive wishing I was with my team. But, on the Friday of that week, I packed the things I needed for the field and headed out with our crazy Uncle Andrew to Atlanta on my way to meet up with my team. The next 2 travel days consisted of airport food, dissecting every single bit of information from our Sky mall magazines, underground trains, and very annoying crying and screaming babies.

   After all air travel was completed it was just a matter of renting a car (the car hoped to be rented was a fiat or smart car for traveling through the Rockies), get to our hotel, wake up, and then drive to meet the team in Great Sand Dunes National Park. On the drive to the meeting point I was realizing how important and good it feels to be part of a group. When I was in bed I honestly missed my group and for once, felt lonely here at SOAR.  Every mile closer we got the more excited I got about seeing my group once again. Finally, after many mile of driving we ran into sight of that old van which contained the members of Espada Ardiente. After getting re acquainted with the team and newly acquainted with our new member at the time Mr. Mike Wolff, we headed for Utah where many things were in store for us.

    When entering Utah which I was somewhat familiar with in certain parts, I gazed at the towering  cliffs lining the outside of the highway and then automatically changing into rural deserted land with nothing to be seen, then right back to the mountain scene. We pitched camp right outside the town of Moab which we hoped to explore later. The next day we knocked out our second food buy for this expedition, which was followed by a trip into arches national park which help many great surprises. To us, even the drive through valleys and mountains wasn’t enough. WE NEEDED MORE!!! So we parked at a rest area for lunch and took some time to climb around on some of the great rocks we were surrounded by. It reminded me of my time in Joshua Tree National Park in California.  During lunch hour we had another great surprise of some German chocolate cake to celebrate the birthday of one great group member Mr. Aaron Cabiness. After lunch our tummies may have been full with food, but they were still only almost half full with the beauty and some once of a life time experiences of the National Park.  So we all loaded back up in the van and drove through more amazingness and majestic vistas until we came to a parking lot where there was a trail head to a quarter mile long walking trail through the great rocks we had been seeing from a distance. Many pictures and much indulgent in the pure beauty of the sites later we made were hit with the great chance to eat out at paradox pizza for our teammates birthday which was a blast beyond belief.  The next day we had to make a few stops to try to replace some personal gear that got damaged then, we were on the road again.

      We did some van school, jammed out to some music and slept. After a while we stopped for gas and restrooms. When we came out there was a very nice dog waiting to be pet but, since we did not know the owner we could not pet him.  After a few minutes we found out that he was a stray and bought him a can of dog food to chow down on which he devoured in seconds. Feeling good to have helped the dog we loaded up into the van and headed down the road. At this point in time we had crossed into Arizona and headed for Grand Canyon National Park. We stopped a few more times one of which was really cool in my opinion with it being an awesome Indian reservation.

   Sometime later that day we finally arrived at the National Park and set up camp at a place called Mathers camp ground inside the park limits. With the knowledge of having to pack into the canyon the next day we tried to make it a quick evening and get to bed early.

    The next day we woke up, packed our personal/ group gear and food and then headed out for the canyon. It was about a 45 minute drive to the trail head and by then we were stoked to get going. So we double checked that our gear was ready to go and headed off. After about 20 minutes of hiking I started to feel kind of crappy but I didn't take it into account. A little later my hip (which was operated on 2 years ago from breaking it in 5^th grade) started to give me big problems for this being the most strenuous thing I have done on it since surgery. Along with my hip hurting I started get kicked in the butt by my pneumonia. So after about an hour and a half, maybe a little more, my hip gave out and I didn't feel I could continue. So the team considered the situation and decided to head back. I still feel a bit frustrated by having to do it. After we got back it had started to get dark and we hurried to get camp packed up and eat dinner in a timely fashion.

    The next day we still needed to explore the Grand Canyon in any way we could think of so we decided to hit up the visitors center in the park. When we got to the visitor’s center there was a I max movie about to play which we slipped into and got a lot of good information. After the movie we took a walk on a paved path to view a little bit of the canyon from its rim. Again, as in Utah, many pictures and indulging moments later we, of course, had to visit the gift shop where some of us picked up some souvenirs and where we all bought post cards.

 From not being able to do the hike into the canyon we still had to do some sort of hike. So we looked around and found a nice day hike around the rim of the canyon with magnificent views and vistas. We enjoyed the views, listening to music, and convincing people that we were actually from Australia by using their accent.  We took a bus back where I continued my previously set goal of trying to find Oregon license plates. As many times before we got back to cam and tried to have as quick an evening as possible, more needed that night than any other since we were going to need to wake up at 3:00 am to make it to Vegas to be able to make our flights on time.

  Over all I believe this to be a very successful expedition even if I had to start it off in bed. I learned many good lessons and so much knowledge about a place I believed to be not as grand as it turned out to be.