Expedition One: Colorado (The Rockies, and more!) By Evan Harr

So, I had a lot of fun on my first expedition exploring a lot of Colorado! We did things like hiking in the backcountry of the Rocky Mountains, bugling at elk, playing/ hiking at GIANT sand dunes, and more! All of these things were really fun, but my favorite part of the whole trip was the Great San Dunes, because I went on a cool hike with Tim and Anne up to the top of a giant ridgeline, and then we ran down it. It was just Anne, Tim, and I hiking while everybody else was jumping down a giant hill. Tim taught me some science lessons, and Anne and I took some really cool pictures.

Anyways, it was a really fun expedition, and I thought the first expedition alone was way better than all the expeditions at my first Fall semester at SOAR, The Appalachian Trail. We started out at a couple cool campsites that we camped out of the van and took some cool day hikes. At the last campsite before entering the back country, we literally saw some elk like 200 feet away from our campsite, and there were roughly five of them! I was sleeping in my new OR Alpine Bivy or my new REI Quarter Dome T3 with Mitch (oh and by the way, thanks mom and dad for buying those for me!). We had a lot of laughs and fun times hiking out of our vans in the front country, but then we all packed our giant “expedition packs” with what felt like something like 50 pounds of things like food, personal/ group gear, and personal clothing.

The back country was much better than any of the back country on the Appalachian Trail. We started at a trailhead called Green Mountain Trailhead, and on our first day we hiked to a campsite called Big Meadows, and the name of the campsite is pretty self- explanatory. It had a giant meadow with a stream of running mountain water right next to where all our tents and tarps where set up. Actually, the field staff, Anne and Tim, set up their tent in the field close to where we had our evening meeting. The next morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, did school, and then took of to our next campsite, Timberline. It was a long hike from Big Meadows to Timberline because we got started late, and then hiked in the rain/ pitched black night. We went to bed right away as soon as we got all set up. The next day it was raining all day so we got to lie around in our tents or under the two giant group tarps and Tim and Anne were literally being a waiter/ waitress and cooking food for us in 30 degree weather/ rain ALL DAY until there was a few hours of warm weather and no rain. This let us go on awesome day hike!

Tristan's first blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tristan (puma) Carroll’s first blog!!!

Hello my name it Tristan Carroll, but my trail name is Puma, Pumba, or Pumbi as Mitchel calls me. Lol… I was born two months early which was on January 29th 1996 at 2:02am. I have short black hair, hazel eyes (my eyes switch from green and blue), and I am around 5 foot 7.
My hobbies are rock climbing, bouldering, white water rafting, and scuba diving. In my spare time I like to go to the beach, go on YouTube and watch viral videos, and hang out with my cousin Greg. Greg has to be my best friend ever, call me lame but we always hang out . We usually just play Mortal Kombat, watch funny YouTube videos or share music. Yup me and my cousin Greg are close considering my mom and I live in the same house as them. Their basement is an apartment so my mom and I rent it from my Aunt Dawn who is my mom’s sister.
You are wondering what I would like to do for a living. Well that is a simple question for me. I want to be a wilderness paramedic in Alaska. I also want to go in to the Air Force and go into aeromedical evacuation.

MIles Gibson blog1

Miles Gibson
Blog September-24-2011 Colorado rocky mountains National park

My favorite experience in Colorado on the 1st expedition was probably going to the sand dunes in the Rocky Mountains. One day I would like to go back and share it with my family and friends, because I know that they would love it as much if not more than I did.
The reason I liked it so much is because it gave me this wonderful and indescribable feeling of openness and carefree beauty that just came with the feeling of just being there. It was gorgeous and everyone got along…for the most part.
I loved the dunes because of the vast never ending natural beauty of it and yet at the same time it is so large yet at the same time so touchable. The feeling of being there makes you feel like you won’t die or get hurt ever again…it’s beautiful and I wish that everyone who gave a crap could go and see them too.
End

Nicolas Jackson A Note from the Editor

Due to technical difficulties, one of our most promising and aspiring writers and students, Nicolas Jackson was not able to post his blog this week. Nicolas is a writer of immense talent, who writes with such detail that you could imagine yourself walking in his shoes on his many adventures at SOAR.

We hope to have his equipment up and running by the 2nd base phase, so look forward to 2 posts from this up and coming author in just 2 short weeks.

Mike
Academic Director
Teacher
Editor

Mitchell Harrison Blog

This Expedition we went to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado for two weeks. We went out in the backcountry for five days and we got to go sliding down on sand dunes and we got to use cardboard to slide down the sand. It was hard to walk up the sand dunes because the sand was falling down all the time when you were walking up it. I got to dig a big hole in the sand and it was super cool to build a hole in the sand. One of the days we went to the visitor center to learn about the area that we were staying in. We got to go flying into Denver Colorado Airport and we got snacks and drinks on the plane and I got some coffee. It was so good to have coffee the first time in my life. One of the nights we had dinner at this campsite that we were staying at. One of the days we did some homework and we went rock climbing and after we were done with the rock climbing we drove to Sand Dunes National park. One of the days when we were packing up the van we went to a pizza for lunch one day on the expedition. When we were in Colorado we had some good days of weather and some bad days too. Tim almost ran off with the gas pump in the gas tank of the black van it was so funny to see. I very had a good time on this expedition because we were going to the Rocky Mountains. Evan and I were sleeping in tents for two weeks out on expedition in Colorado because it was sweet to sleep in tents in the backcountry again. The last day on expedition we were staying in a crappy campground. We had to get woken up very early to get to the Denver Colorado Air Port to fly back to base. I had a great time in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains with my new team on this expedition.

andy blog # 2 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >......

What I would like to see in Yellowstone National Park is Old Faithful in action.

Here is a link to a site of what I would like to see.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWrklFuYnb0


i would also maybe a byson in action and rutting.


That’s all for now. Andy is peace out.

Nikolai

 Nikolai

9/21/11

Hi my name is Nikolai. We are doing a semester. I am 14 and  I am from Russia. I was adopted when I was 2 so I live with my parents. I live in North Carolina in a small town called Walkerton. I was homeschooled. I was sent a private school for six years. After that I was homeschooled so now I am at an Academy school which happens to be really cool. Its name is Soar. I have been here for three times. This is my fourth time here. My Favorite truck is a super duty Ford truck .My favorite bike is a crouch rocket.

''andrew jonathan saunders's fun times on first expedition!!!

My favorite thing to do in expedition was seeing elk, and also being 25 feet away from a huge bull.

Another thing that I like to do on my expeditions is, hiking and being in the wilderness for at least three days a time.

One more thing I like to do in expedition is on the next one I will get to shoot guns and see Old Faithful in action.

Here is a picture of one or 2 of the things I saw and would like to see.

Those are two pictures of what I would like to be doing on this expedition and the next one too. One more thing I am looking forward to is being with my  team and then laying low for a while.

P.S. Soar was probably the best choice I ever made.