Talking to the Scouts

For the last part of my product I went and talked to cub scouts about the importance of saving the environment and keeping forest natural. I started by emailing Nancy Story, a leader of a local troop. She then agreed to allow me to talk to the pack. I did the presentation on April 24 at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. After the meeting we have juice and cookies. Yum!

Mark Holland- one cool guy!

Mark Holland was my mentor. I don't think that I could of found a better person to help me with my product. In 1983, he thru hiked the whole Appalachian Trail and has either hiked and/or backpacked on stretches of the Pacific Coast Trail, the John Muir Trail, the Chilcot trail in Alaska and in more than a dozen of our national parks and national wilderness areas throughout the east coast. Mark has been a Leave No Trace trainer instructor for 5 years and has been a beginner and intermediate backpacking instructor since 2000. Mark has also lead hikes and backpacking trips on behalf of the National Park Service in Shenandoah National Park and on behalf of L.L. Bean's Outdoor Adventure schools. He now lives in Warren County right outside of Shenandoah National Park and hits the trails as often as he can.

Having Fun in the Shenandoah Valley- LNT trainer course

The first part of my product took me six and a half hours away from home to Shenandoah National Park. It is hard to believe that such a huge National Park would lay only 75 miles away from our nation's capital. After staying the night at a little Days Inn in Luray I meet with my mentor and the other people taking the course at the trail head. Then we hiked our way 2 miles into the the valley and set down camp.I quickly set up my tent- "home sweet home".

But no time to rest. We still had to set up the kitchen and get everything ready for dinner. Camping is some hard work. Although not every second was work and after getting the campsite done it was time to sit and enjoy the wilderness. I could not believe how lucky we were that the weather was perfect. It had rained that whole week and the weather channel was calling for some serious rain. And dinner was incredible we had chili and macaroni. It may not sound appetizing now but when you are out camping everything taste good. The day went without any problems until the simplest of projects gave us the most problems. Hang two bags of food up in a tree- sounds easy right, but it took us at least a half hour to sort it out. When it was time to sleep we all retired to our tents and as i zipped up my tent it started to rain.

In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had put down my tarp wrong and i was sleeping in a puddle of water. It was safe to stay that it was a the beginning of a pretty rough day. And of course as we packed up our campsite and turned to the trail it rained. Everything was just wet and as we came out of the valley the wind started to blow and the fog and mist thickened. But none the less it was still a beautiful hike. when we finally reached the cars i was relieved to say the least but I did not know then how much I would miss hiking and hanging out with all the people that went with us. A special thanks to Mark Holland- thanks for being so cool and patient with me.

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