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2/7/03

This past week I spent my time with Mandy of the Yosemite Institute (Y.I.) and went out with a group of high schoolers from Planada, California. I was a little nervous on Tuesday when I first met up with them. I didn't know how they would take to me and I wasn't sure how I would do being in a leadership position. But I seemed to do just fine.

Tuesday I got introduced to the group and we did a bit of a hike up to the "Royal Arches" waterfall where we had the group do some wilderness survival stuff. Then we went to the "Spider Caves." That was so much fun. I've never been in the caves before and I had a blast. You're not aloud to use a light, it's completely dark, and you have to rely on the person in front of you to get you through the cave. Everybody seemed to enjoy that.

Tuesday night we all went out for some stargazing. But the sky was a little cloudy so we didn't get to see too many stars. But I was able to have a couple people from the group help me find some of the constellations that I knew. That night was a little hectic, one of the students fell and cut himself. Since it was dark and it was bleeding pretty good they took him to the clinic to get it checked out. Needless to say, the night didn't exactly go as planned.

Wednesday we took the shuttle down past El Capitan Meadow and hiked up a trail to the look out point for Bridalveil Falls. Beautiful. The falls was running and the group loved it. On our way back down and over to El Capitan Meadow we made a stop along the trail and I was able to perform my first group challenge it went well and they did great with it. Then we headed off to El capital Meadow where we spent some time talking about things, had a little bit of a snow ball fight and took time away from the group to sit down by ourselves and collect our thoughts. Then we headed back to Curry Village.

Thursday was our last full day together. I was able to lead another group challenge and then we headed off to Happy Isles and took the Vernal Falls Trail. We stopped at the beginning of the Mist Trail, because if was closed and proceeded to go out onto the rocks. Three others and I walked almost to the waterfall itself, but on the way a member of the group fell waist deep into the water, although he claimed not to have been cold. It was great getting so close to the waterfall. It seemed like such an adventure climbing on all of the rocks, jumping over the water, and hiking up to the falls.

Once we got back we did some stream biomonitoring in one of the rivers near by. They all seemed to enjoy getting into the water and looking for bugs. Later that night we went to a campfire. We played games and goofed around in our little hut with a heater and a flash light for out fire. But it was fun nonetheless.