Tristan's bush wacking experience

I wake up at Sylar Bald shelter. My combat boots completely frozen, I stuff my sleeping bag.  I slowly put on my boots, which sends shivers up and down my spine! I say to myself “Today is going to be a long day”. I open the tent; there is a scent of coffee in the air. I am the third one to wake up, stuff my sleeping bag, and get out of the tent; I go over to the shelter. Nat, Sophie, and Preston are all drinking coffee.  I make breakfast. Applesauce, trail mix, and peanut butter. Yum. We all think that we were doing a two-mile hike. We had no clue what was about to happen! I scarf down breakfast. I pack up breakfast and get my pack on! We start to take the fire road off the mountain. A fourth of a mile later the road ends! That’s where the bush whacking experience happens! I start to walk on the ice-covered mountainside! I feel and slide 20 feet down and had to traverse across the mountainside! I finally joined up with the group after .25 miles walking across the side of the mountain! Sophie chuckled long time no see and helps me up!!! She looks up at me and says your going to have to slide down the side of a mountain!!! My first thoughts were you are crazy. She looks at me and says I’m not kidding! So I slide down the side of this mountain and I am thinking what am I doing? I get to an old logging road. I say to my self “thank God”. I hiked on the logging road for 3 miles and get to a paved road and fall to my knees saying thank you God.

And that’s my bush whacking experience!!

Thank you mom for all you have done for me!!!!

Evan Harr's blog for the final AT hike

This expedition had hikes that were pretty hard, but it was cut short due to an injury. One of the kids had broken his ankle from tripping on the trail because his shoelaces were untied. It snowed during the hike, it got below freezing at night, and we even slid down a hill off trail to get back to the road. There were also things like climbing up to the top of a hill, and going on top of a watchtower to see an amazing view. We also had to watch out for hunters looking for bears or deer. Lastly, we got to go into the town of Asheville to eat at a restaurant and stroll around.

The hikes were hard because of how long and what type of hiking we were doing. We were ridge walking for a lot of it, and it was usually right over a steep cliff. Sometimes we even had both sides as a drop off, even with the snow. A lot of the time we would be looking for the next shelter to stay at and setup our tents at. We did get to stay in tents this time, but it was harder to carry the extra weight around. This was nice though because it kept us warm at night when it got to freezing temperatures.

Climbing to the top of a hill called Albert was a fun adventure. I was with the first group, and we climbed up to the top really fast. It was faster then we expected, and then when we got there, it was a really awesome reward to see the view, especially from the watchtower. After that, we had to go back down and it was right around the corner from one of the shelters that we stayed at. We built a nice fire that night.

The last thing we did in the woods was going off trail and sliding down the hill. We didn’t exactly know where we were going, but it was fun for the most part because it was like a ride down a hill. We didn’t exactly know where we were going, but we eventually made it to the road anyways. When we finally got there, we went and hiked up the road a little to a park where we waited for the van so we could restock on food. When we got back to base, we got to shoot bows and arrows and throw hatchets at a target. Some people got bulls eyes, and both of the targets got taken down by Preston. Apparently there is a bear on base, and he broke into and tore up one of the staff’s car!

Overall it was an intense, but shortened expedition. We hiked with a lot of elevation gain and loss. We hiked the whole way through, even with the cold snow, and finished off with someone who had a broken ankle. It was a pretty hard hiking expedition, and in the long run we made it through. We did it fairly well, and had some fun along the way. It was our last week in the woods, and it was well worth it to finish it off. Our next stop is Washington D.C.

Isaac’s expedition 3

Isaac’s expedition 3

Hi, it is me Isaac again. We just came back from our third and n final expedition the woods. It ended a lot earlier because Coley broke his foot. We got to go off trail on the longest bushwhacking trip that SOAR did with students, and one of the staff made some of the best food.

When we went off trail all of our trust was put in Nat and Sophie. I hoped that we would get to the road or the A.T. which Sophie and Nat called our guide rails. We got to slide down the side of a mountain, which was really fun and I went really fast.

The food was some of the weirdest and best food all semester. The apples cooked over the fire with butter and cinnamon and bran sugar were yummy. 

The last at trip

was very fun, hard, and cold. We hiked a mountain. It was called fat Albert. It was fun and hard but once we got up to the top it was cool.  At 5,000 feet up we could see forever. Then for the first time on the trip it snowed. It was very cold that night. I got to make a nice fire, it was hot. My boots froze that night; it was very hard to walk in them. The day we decide to have the longest hike. I fell and broke my ankle and had to hike on it. I did not complain until I got to camp.

The next morning I got to hike four miles on the side of a mountain and slide down it.

Over all SOAR is an ok place.

The Amazing day by Alec Thompson

On HRMDC’s final AT trip, we had lots of action packed days. We roughed snow, wind, and high altitudes. Also we made a fire in the cold.  We made a cold day a good one. Here are that day’s events.

Before our last hike of the trip, we needed to repack and go to the cabin on base. We had a long hike through wilderness and tons of altitude gain. It was snowing the night before the morning hike, and the wind was super cold in the morning when we started to hike. Once we got to the sign that told us the shelter was close, we hiked our way to it. When we turned the corner there was a big gust of wind in our face. It was really cold and it made us hike faster, which helped a lot. We made it to the shelter at 7:54 p.m. and were freezing cold. We put on warm layers and started to make camp.

Once camp was set up, Tristan and I went to look for birch bark for the fire. Nat said he wanted a lot. We collected bark for about 20 minutes and came back and tried to start the fire. Nothing worked, so I pulled out my paper for the fire. Nat tried with paper and it lit up. We started blowing on the fire non-stop to make it big. Tristan and I continued until we got it big enough. We finally had a nice fire going so the chefs started cooking a meal for us.

When I came over I saw a meal that I had never seen before. It looked amazing. It contained a few ingredients that I had never thought about mixing. It contained pudding, cinnamon swirl bread, and some other ingredients mixed together.  Once they served it out it was amazing and warm. I decided to clean the pot out for Sherpa. Once we finished the meal and were cleaned up we went straight to bed.

Over all the expedition was a fun filled week. I believe that we will remember this expedition for years to come. This was one of my favorite expeditions on the AT. I hope D.C. will be this fun.

Alex Wilds 2nd AT blog

Alex Wilds 2^nd AT blog

On Sunday (11/7/10) we went on a bushwhacking trip. Bushwhacking is when we go off trail for a while. We were going to take a shortcut but we got a little lost on the way down a mountain. We could not find a trail or good way down. The staff then got out there compasses and led us down, up, and around mountains. We got to a point where we had to go down a very steep slope. Some people tried to walk down and fell the slowly slid down. I fell at the top and slid about three feet really quickly. That was really fun so when Isaac fell behind me I slid down the slope really quickly. Isaac and I went down that mountain at a scary pace. I got stuck on vines and Isaac passed me. Then I got unstuck and flue off the final cliff. We did the same thing another time and I made a really cool and amazing video on the way down. It was a really good video so when we went down another slope I made another video they were great. We finally came to a road and we were out. We had gone four miles off trail and Coley had done this with a broken foot and never complained at all.

On the trail I made a quote book. It is a few quotes that are really funny that people I know say around me. This book has a few really funny ones already. “Would you like to know where I chafe?” Kyle. “I like sketchy falls! Do you like sketchy falls? Bananas are good!” Alex. Stuff like that, it’s really funny.

I also made up a new group song.

Highly reflective multiple diagnostic coalition

By Alex Wilds

We lost our rights and its,

Not right!

But we are all here and were,

All right!

We lost our rights and its,

Not right!

But we are all here and were,

All right!

Here we go!

What have we done?

I’ll tell you straight up!

We’ve hiked and run.

And we’ve made our way up.

How did we get here?

We are all HRMDC.

We have lost out fear.

Of this new reality.

I love the new strength in me.

We are all new you see.

In this place a piece of us will be.

Now on fun we feed.

Get it into your heads we need this.

We will demo straight this.

You cannot be led astray.

We will blow you away.

I love the new strength in me.

We are all new you see.

In this place a piece of us will be.

Now on fun we feed.

I love the new strength in me.

We are all new you see.

In this place a piece of us will be.

Now on fun we feed.

We have, learned, a lot.

We have, changed, a lot.

We will continue to tell you.

 That we are completely new.

We lost our rights and its,

Not right!

But we are all here and were,

All right!

We lost our rights and its,

Not right!

But we are all here and were,

All right!

Billy Cullity's Blog

Billy Cullity                                                              11-15-10

                                        My Blog

        Our previous expedition was in the Nantahala National Forest on the Appalachian Trail. One of my favorite things we did was hike Albert Mountain. Another one of my favorite things was the snow; it was beautiful. Probably my most favorite thing was building a giant fire by myself without anybody’s help. I thought that throwing the hatchets and firing the bow and arrows were really fun to.

        Albert Mountain was a very hard hike it was very steep and the tallest mountain we had to hike the whole trip. We nick named Albert Mountain fat Albert. The top of Albert Mountain was very cold and it was snowing, but at least there was a beautiful view for us to stop and look at. It was very cold at our campsite that night because we were very close to the top of Albert Mountain. Luckily we got to sleep in tents so we didn’t freeze our butts off in the middle of the night.

        The snow was amazingly beautiful. I wished that there had been more snow so that we could have a foot of snow or something, that way we could have huge snowball fights. We only had about a half an inch of snow, but in some places there was about 4 inches of snow. The only bad thing about the snow was that it got our boots wet therefore when we woke up in the morning our boots were frozen. The best and worst thing about the snow was that it was very slippery.

        My fire was huge, it was so hot that when you tried putting more wood on, or fixing it, it would burn your face. It was almost as tall as me! I loved it. One of the best things about it was that I made it by myself and got to enjoy the peace by myself too. I loved it so much, my design on it was the perfect set up, but it’s kind of hard to explain; I’d have to show you.

        The hatchet throwing was great. Preston knocked down both targets. The bows and arrows were great too. A few kids hit the bulls-eye. Sophie also made a big fort with a few other kids.

 Overall the whole expedition was great. Even though a few parts were miserable, the rest was so great it just made it even better. The worst parts weren’t so bad after all because the experience wouldn’t have been as good without the miserable moments. So all together I had a great time during the previous expedition.