A visit to the Turret (Nov. 29-Dec. 11)

Wow. Just wow. The final two weeks of UWC have been absolutely incredible. As I write this, I'm sitting on the plane heading east once more. I can hardly wait to get home--4 months away has been really tough.

Last week was pretty rough academically--I had 4 exams and an Individual Oral Presentation to do in English. Between the two, I had an assessment on every day that week. It was challenging and I was pretty stressed for a good portion of the week, but ultimately, the week came off pretty well. There's a lot to cover, so in this post, I'll just be talking about Monday.

Monday was a really special day--during assembly, Linda and Lisa, the Dean of Students and the President of UWC-USA, respectively, told us that all students could go into the turret that morning. If you don't know, I've put a picture of the turret above so that you can get an idea of what exactly the turret is. We were allowed to go into the top of the turret, just below the roof. To get there, we had to take the main staircase all the way to the 4th floor.

We had to go through a very small door at the top to get there--it was quite exciting! After entering through the 4th floor door, you emerge into a minimally finished area. The 4th floor of the castle was never fully finished, although there are plans in the future to finish it. The basic safety systems, such as fire suppression systems, were installed, but other than that...it's pretty basic. See below for a few pictures.

As you can see, it's pretty basic. Most of the time, bats are the only residents up there but for a few minutes, we also occupied it. Upon entering the fourth floor, one enters a sort of communal area with hallways leading off in nearly every direction. One of the doors leading off this common area had a metal-barred door in front of it. It was this door that we were interested in. The director of maintenance, Fernando, unlocked the door (and the wooden door behind it) to reveal a staircase heading up again.

As you can see from the photo above, not every trace of the vandals that damaged the castle in the 70s has been removed. On this floor and in the staircase, you can really get a good idea of just quite how old the castle really is. It's pretty well hidden on the lower floors, due to the extensive renovations, but up on the fourth floor, it's quite noticeable. We headed up quite a narrow, steep staircase to finally emerge at the top.

We emerged into the turret itself. The view was absolutely incredible! The castle itself sits on the sit of a mountain, and the turret just gives you an even better view...so beautiful. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to go up and see the turret. Just to give you an idea, I've posted some of my pictures from the top.  

All in all, it was a pretty cool experience to be able to go up and see the turret. It was a very nice break from my initial stress in preparing for my IOP. The Individual Oral Presentation is a requirement in every A1 (native) language in the IB. Hannah, my English teacher, has us do the presentations in the final two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My presentation was the second presentation to go in our class. I was pretty nervous, because this presentation goes into our final IB grade. Fortunately, it went really, really well--I was really happy!

The week carried on pretty intensely...more to come on that. For right now, however, my plane is preparing to land in Raleigh (HOME!!) and I can't wait to see my family. Posting from 35,000 feet--Harry.

NAD 2010

When I left off, I believe I had just finished covering Thursday. As Friday started, I felt like a total zombie. I hadn't clawed my way into bed until after 1...making me very tired. I did make it through my classes though and at the end of the day, I felt quite pleased with myself for making it through the week. Friday afternoons are always something that I look forward to. For the past 5-6 weeks, I have gone into town every Friday afternoon. Rather than go into town for shopping, I go to Traveler's Cafe. It's very reminiscent of some coffee shops at home. It's a very comfortable spot to go and relax for a couple of hours and it has reasonably fast internet, something that can never be underestimated. When I got back to campus, it was time for a brief rest while I ate dinner, then it was off to NAD Global Issues. Every cultural day runs Global Issues the day before to raise awareness about a pressing issue within that region. For our global issues, we had three presentations, one about immigration in America, another about finding identity as a minority in America, and finally about marginalization and oppression in modern American society. While I attended the presentation about immigration, I hear that all three were enlightening and very constructive. The global issue that I attended was actually a movie about an immigration battle in Prince William County, Virginia. The movie was very interesting and extremely representative of what is going on in Arizona at the moment.

After Global Issues, I dashed back to my dorm to get checked, at which point I returned to the theater once more to play the NAD movie for that evening--Back to the Future. The show theme was very closely based on that film, so we played the movie to ensure that everyone would understand the show theme. Everyone enjoyed the movie and I was just about to lock up the booth and leave for the night when Kevin, the Lighting CAS leader, came sprinting up the stairs. Apparently, the lighting cues for the show still hadn't been programmed into the board, so we needed get them in...fast. For the next 2.5 hours, we sat in the booth, in a totally dark theater, programming the cues into the board. Needless to say, the security guard was quite surprised when he saw us working on lighting. It was a necessary sacrifice, however, to ensure that the show had good lighting...not that I saw it that way as I crawled into bed at 3 AM.

I was up bright and early Saturday morning (well, for me), in anticipation of a busy schedule. My schedule on Saturday started at 11 AM, and ended at 2 AM Sunday morning. That's how insanely busy I was. First up, at 11, was setting up the after-NAD party. Most parties here are held in the student center, a pretty big room underneath the dining hall in the castle. For NAD, however, we really wanted to do a "house party", and so we needed a house or something that looked like it. In fact, we were very close to being granted permission to use our President's house. Unfortunately, the house, which belongs to the school, has white carpets...and we did not want to ruin them. Instead, we managed to get hold of the Sasakawa Center on campus, a lovely building next to the library on campus...which happens to be our teacher lounge. Yes, we did party it up inside our school's teacher lounge...we were quite pleased with ourselves. Typically, students aren't allowed inside the Sasakawa Center, so being allowed to have a party in there was quite an achievement.

It took us about an hour to set up all the sound equipment and prepare the DJ table. At cultural day parties, the DJs are typically from that region. Unfortunately, none of our normal second-year DJs were from NAD. Instead, we had to go to first-year DJs from NAD...which meant Eric and me. Somehow, I found myself accepting the offer to DJ...and so I was slightly nervous as I set up the party. DJing can either go very well, or very badly. After I set up the party, I had a slight rest while I ate brunch. Immediately after brunch, it was time to go to yet another rehearsal...this time specifically for tech. We worked our way through the show, getting used to the transition, and working with the cues that we had programmed in the previous night. We also had a couple of skits do some last-minute rehearsals, so that we could sync up tech with the performers. By the end of the rehearsal, the whole tech crew felt reasonably good about the show after feeling very nervous about it earlier that week.

My next engagement was with the kitchen. As part of NAD, the NADers cook a big dinner for the whole school and then serve it. In order to pull off this massive effort, a whole bunch of NADers worked in shifts starting on Friday afternoon and stretching through Saturday. I had signed up to help with the cooking and thus was given a shift on Saturday afternoon. I arrived at the kitchen slightly late (due to the tech rehearsal), but I was immediately thrown into the final preparations for dinner. It was pretty cool working in the cafeteria kitchen, which is a massive industrial kitchen, producing a lot of food each day. Working in a commercial kitchen is a very different experience that a small home kitchen. The experience was pretty positive overall, and I enjoyed it a lot. Once my cooking shift ended, I sprinted back to my dorm, so that I could get changed into my server outfit. I was actually really excited about serving. I have never waited on tables before, so this experience was going to be an interesting one. All the servers had to dress in a 1920s style, which meant white shirt, black pants, and a half apron. The theme of our dinner was a "1920s Speakeasy". To pull this theme off, the dining hall had to be decorated. To prepare the decorations, we placed old alcohol bottles all over the cafeteria. Combined with some simple table decorations, dimmed lights, a live student band, and a really cool entrance, the dining hall looked amazing. To further complete the speakeasy theme, we closed off the main entrance to the dining hall and let everyone in through a side door. To get in, students had to utter a "password". Just inside the entrance, in a little antechamber, sat Don Morgante and his mobsters playing poker. They "ran" the speakeasy. Ultimately, everyone loved the theme, and the dining hall looked amazing. Serving was pretty intense, as we had to get all the food out and then cleanup inside of an hour.

We had exactly an hour between dinner ending and the show starting. Needless to say, that was a fairly hectic hour. I had to get changed out of my formal clothes and back into jeans and a t-shirt for my first skit. Before long, I found myself sitting in the tech booth, awaiting the start of the show. The beginning of show came off without a hitch, with all the tech coming together. My first skit was only 3 skits in, so I had to leave the booth only 15 minutes into the show. During one of the transitions between skits, I sprinted down the stairs and out a side door...and ran around to the back of the theater. As I waited in the wings for my skit, I was incredibly nervous. My performance was pretty easy though: It was a skit on High School Stereotypes and I was the loner...I only had one line. I managed to get through it and soon I found myself back in the booth, with the entirety of Act 1 to relax. The show progressed really well and by the intermission, nothing had gone wrong! I mentally prepared myself for the next two skits that I had to do.

Act 2 started off well and before long, it was time for me to go backstage to get ready for my next two performances. I changed into jeans and a flannel shirt ready for my square dance skit. I had somehow gotten involved with square dancing early on and had actually come to enjoy it. My partner, Hannah, is a really good friend of mine, so we actually had a really good time performing it. The dance came off without a hitch, but immediately after the dance, I had to sprint back to the changing room in order to change for my next skit, which was one after the square dance skit. Dressed in all black, I made my way onto the stage, mentally ready to perform in the most mold-breaking skit ever. As the music came on, the curtain opened, and we moved to our positions, I couldn't think about anything but the dance. Why was this skit so nerve-wracking? Well, I must say, Lady Gaga certainly has some....overtly sexual dances. I mean...just watch this video and you'll understand. (I'm the person on the right) Once I'd finished that skit, I felt incredible. Doing something that different just gave me an amazing feeling...I certainly smashed some stereotypes that night!

The rest of the show went very well and the audience clearly loved it! The finale was great--it featured everyone in the cast and crew dancing to two very simple dance. All in all, the show came off really well and everyone was very impressed. For me, so many of my friends were impressed, pleased, and surprised at my Lady Gaga performance that I don't think they'll ever think the same of me again! (That's a good thing!) Immediately after the show, I headed back to my dorm to prepare for the after party. (Keep in mind, at this point, I had been on the move for nearly 12 hours and counting). Dressed in jeans and a hoodie, I got to the Sasakawa Center at around 10:30, ready for the party at 11! I had never realized quite how much fun being a DJ is...we played all-American music and got a lot of compliments for it. Several people I spoke to after the party absolutely loved the music, the atmosphere...everything really.

The party ended at 2 AM, a grueling hour even for the most rested of souls. By the end of the party, I had made my way through 6 cans of Diet Coke in an effort to stay awake. I was awake, but only a faint margin. The party organizers (which included myself) stayed behind after everyone had left to help clean up. The Sasakawa Center was a MESS! We did our best to clean up and once everything was back in its normal place, the center looked a lot better. If we had had a vacuum, it would have looked even better, but alas, there wasn't a vacuum available for us to use.

I left the Sasakawa at around 2:30, and made my way back to my dorm. I was exhausted. I was finally starting to feel the strain of the past week. Although I was tired, I was so happy. The day could not have gone better and I had survived NAD! The experience will remain part of my UWC memories for a long, long time. I don't think I could have imagined a better outcome.

With this post, my blog is going dark for at least a week. I have semester final exams coming up this week, and alas, I don't have time to post until at least next Saturday. Wish me luck on my exams!

Pre-NAD 2010

By now, it's been exactly 2 weeks since I last published on my blog...a sad situation by all accounts. There's a lot that I've missed since my last proper update post. Over time, I promise that I'll get everything in, but for right now, I'm going to focus on the defining event since my trip to the Grand Canyon. (Other stuff happened, but this was, by far the most important event that happened.)

NAD 2010, needless to say, was a lesson in time management, an experience in smashing stereotypes, and a fairly sleepless week, if I do say so myself. NAD, or North American Day, is officially only one day, but there are a whole week of activities which occur before then. For the actual NADers (Americans or Canadians) themselves, NAD is an even more stressful experience. To understand why, just follow my week.

"Hell Week", or what we like to call the run-up to NAD, began on the 4th of November, about 12 days before NAD proper. That evening, we had our first tech rehearsal. UWC students are busy people, and so the only time we can rehearse is from 9:30 PM to Midnight. The first tech rehearsal wasn't bad on the whole, but it definitely indicated that we needed to work on the show. Fortunately, our next full rehearsal wasn't until Sunday (It was Thursday), giving some of our skits some much needed time to rehearse. Friday and Saturday were actually semi-normal days, with very little actually required of me. I took the opportunity to get as much work done as possible, before everything really hit me. The only NAD event that I coordinated on Saturday was Capture the Flag--always a traditional favorite. The only difference was that we play UWC-style. Rather than play on a boring old field, our campus is surrounded by woods...so we played in the woods. It was a lot of fun (and quite hard work)!

When Sunday rolled around, I braced for the full onslaught of NAD. The day was pretty relaxed (a very nice thing), but we did have rehearsal from 3-5 in the afternoon. This rehearsal was definitely better than our previous rehearsal on Thursday, but it still indicated that we needed work, especially on tech. For the actual show, not only was I acting in the show, but I was also helping to run lights. I spent many evenings running between the stage and the tech booth. As we left the auditorium that night, we were all slightly nervous about what Tim, our theater teacher, would think of the show when he saw it the following night.

Monday was a very pleasant surprise. On Saturday night, daylight savings time has ended, so our clocks had gone back one hour. While this hadn't affected me that much on Sunday (I wake up in daylight on Sunday), Monday was a shock. Previously, when I had been waking up on a weekday, it was dark outside. On Monday, when I woke up, it was sunny outside! The speed at which I got out of bed was incredible. I was very annoyed that I had clearly missed my first class. I wish you could have seen the expression on my face when I looked at my phone, only to see that it was 6:45 AM, 15 minutes before I normally wake up. I collapsed back into bed to try and snooze for 15 minutes. About 15 minutes later, my alarm went off and I started to get out of bed. Suddenly, I heard someone sprinting down the hallway, shouting "FREE DAY!!!". I was totally incredulous...I honestly thought I was dreaming. When I checked my email, however, true to what I had heard, there was an email in my inbox from Lisa announcing a free day. Rather than celebrate, I immediately jumped back into bed and went straight back to sleep! At UWC, rather than have scheduled holidays, the administration will occasionally declare a free day, where we have no classes or CAS. Obviously, this sort of holiday is only possible at a small boarding school, where all the students and the majority of faculty live on campus.

After rising at the very agreeable hour of 10, I made my way up to Brunch. When I came down, I envisaged a very relaxed, peaceful day where I'd get some work done. Wrong. In that spirit of UWC, I was chatting to a couple of people in the patio outside my dorm when Ben, a friend of mine, appeared. He asked for help building the Delorean, our major prop for NAD. I'm not quite sure why, but I offered to help. I suppose that I thought that it would be an hour or so. I was terribly wrong. When I left the workshop 6 hours later, I was tired, but pleased with out progress. We'd had a couple of dicey moments, but on the whole, it was a pretty fun way to spend my free day. I did end up getting some work done, but on the whole, Monday was a fairly NAD-orientated day. Of course, after check that evening, we had the (by now) ubiquitous rehearsal...but with Tim. All in all, it wasn't bad considering that we'd had very little preparation. Tim was actually pretty nice about the show, and it left us feeling more motivated that we were.

We didn't have rehearsal on Tuesday--a nice treat. On the whole, Tuesday was a pretty quiet day and I was actually able to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Wednesday and Thursday were much the same, but with rehearsals each night. By Thursday, the show was looking much better, although there were still tech mistakes and a lot to work on. I spent a good portion of Thursday evening in the auditorium, mostly because I had to help finalize the lighting for the show. As I jumped into bed at 1 on Friday morning, I was totally drained. I wasn't sure how I was going to make through NAD.

I'll cover the actual NAD day soon, as well as the Friday before. Look for a post before Sunday!

Blog Update

Well, I know it's been a while since I posted properly on my blog, and I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer to get a serious post. I'm currently very heavily involved with NAD (North American Day). I think I explained the premise of the day in one of my previous posts, but I'll explain it again briefly so that you know what I'm doing.

At UWC, the world is divided into 5 regions--NAD, CLAD, END, AND, and MADD. Needless to say, these are acronyms that represent each of the 5 regions. Each region has a culture day (bi-annually) which is a very big deal. It's the only opportunity for people from that region to express and show off their culture to the rest of the school and the community. There are events the week leading up to the day (it's usually on a Saturday), designed to get everyone really excited. The day itself consists of a meal and a show. The meal is cooked entirely by students, and showcases that region's foods. Immediately after the meal comes the show. It's the culmination of NAD. The show is about 1.5 hours long, and it produced, directed, prepared, and acted entirely by students. We create all the material for the show--there's no "script". It's a very intense, tiring, and stressful process to prepare and pull off the show.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, NAD is this Saturday, November 13th. I'm currently in the middle of "Hell Week"--the week prior to a show is called "hell week" by all of the participants due to it's stressful nature. This week, I have rehearsals everyday from 9:30 PM to midnight. I also have to help prepare dinner, make props, lead events...the list goes on. As such, I have very little time to post on my blog. Once NAD is over, I'll have a lot more time to catch up and post about the end of October and November.

Wish me luck in NAD!

“Fun time is over. Now it’s time to get down to work”—Campus Life, October 2010 (Days 47-77) PART ONE

**This post covers Days 47-54**

After a little bit of thought, I’ve decided to do some reorganization of my blog. I really liked the format I used for my Grand Canyon post (i.e. breaking up a very long post into small, more manageable chunks). I’ll continue using that format for special events, but I’m also extending it to my posts about weekly campus life. Henceforth, there will be one overall article for the month, broken up into several parts (and hopefully posted over the course of the month). Unfortunately, my blog generally tends to come below my schoolwork on the order of priority. This format allows me more freedom to post when I can—I might only post once over a fortnight, but then post twice in the following week. As I’ve began actually working in earnest here, I’ve realized that I don’t always have a consistent schedule each week. One week, I might have a fair chunk of free time, the next absolutely none. If you have comments about this format, please don’t hesitate to comment on this post or email me at Harry.Lambert2@gmail.com. Now, onto the details…

I left off with the conclusion of the Grand Canyon trip. The following day, Monday, was a very quiet day indeed. The school had sensibly given us the day off school to rest and recoup after our Southwest Studies Trips. For me, the day had rather more significance than just a simple day off of school—my mum and aunt were coming to visit! The first half of the day passed by in a whir (Mum and Nancy (my aunt) weren’t scheduled to arrive until late afternoon). Starting in the early afternoon, I began to receive regular text messages from Mum, updating me on their whereabouts. Meanwhile, I knew that I couldn’t present my room as it was—I had promised Mum that I was actually keeping my room neat at UWC (a far cry from my room at home). Thus a frantic blitz occurred—I needed a spotless room!  Finally, it was time. Walking down to the Welcome Center, my mind was filled with all sorts of thoughts…simply put, I was nervous! At first, I didn’t recognize the car as it came round the corner—I was half expecting Minxy to appear! It was absolutely incredible to see them—weird, though, given that I hadn’t seen them for a month! I had a wonderful time showing them around campus and going out to dinner (a welcome respite from Caf food…). I’ll certainly look forward to seeing them over winter break!

The remainder of the week flew by! It was tough getting back into the routine…especially after such an amazing experience at the Grand Canyon. To add to the difficulty, my teacher decided to kick it up a notch. We’re now fully into the swing of things as far as academics go, and it is starting to test my efficiency. In English, we’re now reading Nickel and Dimed, a really fascinating look into the American poor. My other classes are starting to pick up as well, but not quite on the scale of English. (As with everything, English always has to be that much more difficult!!) All in all, I’m really starting to enjoy my classes—going to school with highly motivated students from all over the world isn’t something you find everywhere, and it is both extremely rewarding and very interesting. A great example is my history class. We’re currently studying World War I in history, something that is pretty common in most history classes. But in how many history classes can you find a German who presents the other side of the argument? That’s the brilliance of UWC…it’s something that I’m reminded of, day in, and day out. 

On the whole, the weekend was pretty normal—I got quite a bit of work done, and just generally relaxed, preparing for a much more difficult week ahead! I’ll cover that and more in my next post.

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) POST-TRIP

                After we reached the top, my mental and physical health sharply improved. It’s amazing what a bottle of pure, cold water can do to improve one’s mental outlook. I think we all felt better because of it. We sat around for nearly 2 hours, debriefing and talking about the trip, as well as listening to our guides’ feedback about our performance. Once we’d finished with the debriefing, it was time to get the bus. The school hadn’t arranged to pick us up, so we were expected to use the NPS buses to get us back to the main campground. Right as we were waiting at the bus stop, it started to rain. Most of my team members decided to take off their shirts and go running in the frigid rain—an interesting experience. Once they had had their fun, we got our stuff together and waited once more for the bus. 

                Riding on the buses was actually quite fun. Naturally, walking on with big packs and a slight eau de hiking is bound to cause attention, so we actually met quite a few people on the bus. Once we reached the campsite, we put away our packs and rested for a little while. When Tom arrived with the big bus, it was shower time!! (We had packed all of our shower bags on the big bus). Even though the showers were pretty primitive, I don’t think I’ve ever had a more satisfying, cleansing shower. I felt AMAZING after that shower. It was wonderful. I honestly can’t think of any more adjectives to describe it—the feeling it gave me is beyond words. 

                The school provides a cold meal to all of the Grand Canyon hikers, but what I really needed was something hot and filling. I still hadn’t had any proper food since our “breakfast” that morning. Along with a bunch of other UWC students, I walked over to the supermarket. It was wonderful to see that supermarket again (the last time I was there, I was with my family!!). In the adjoining café, I had a delicious bowl of chili and a sandwich. I don’t think I’ve had such a wonderful meal since coming to UWC—the value of a proper hot meal after wilderness is something that I shall never forget again. 

                We had a pretty quiet night, getting up at 4 AM to pack up and start our return trip back to campus. On the return journey I slept and read Nickel and Dimed, our assigned English reading. It was a pretty uneventful journey—we got back to campus around 4 PM, and went about cleaning up all the wilderness equipment. Thus, at 6 PM, on Sunday, our Grand Canyon Southwest Studies Trip came to an end once and for all.

                What did I learn from the trip? Well, this trip certainly tested both my physical and mental capabilities. There’s nothing quite like taking a 24 mile hike into one of the most unforgiving environments on earth to learn about yourself. I discovered that I do have limits, but that through teamwork, the side effects of these limits can be truncated. I learned about the importance of nutrition and hydration on wilderness—a lesson that will stick with me throughout the remainder of my time in Wilderness at UWC. Finally, I learned that nothing suffices better than working together as a team, creating an atmosphere of accepting each other’s physical limitations, and ensuring that everyone can do the trip, no matter how unfit they may be. I’ll be the first one to say that I should have been fitter and more realistic about my limits before the trip even began. Sadly, this didn’t happen, and it’s a lesson I’ll take away with me for future use. In sum, I actually went to a canyon, and I learned that it’s pretty grand. 

**End of Post-Trip. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART THREE

**This is part 3 of my Grand Canyon series. I kind of misjudged the division of the trip, I had to subdivide once more…even then, this post is pretty long (There is a post-trip post)**

 

After taking an hour-long break at the river, it was time to hit the trail again. We started back up the way we came—it was going to be a very, very long 12 miles. By this time, it was late morning (around 11:30 AM) and the heat of the day was coming into full force. Down in the lower canyon, this meant temperatures approaching 105 degrees F. It was HOT! We hiked slowly, taking plenty of water breaks, and making sure to rest in the shade. Regardless, it was hard work. Around 12:15 PM, we arrived back at our creek side rest stop, where we’d left some of our excess equipment. 

Our team then had a pretty serious discussion. Since the beginning of the trip, we had been debating how our schedule would work. This trip was the first one where we had to plan our hiking times, meals, etc. Previously, we had had second-year wilderness leaders who planned nearly everything for us. Thus, this trip was a slight shock. We had NOLS guides on our trip—NOLS stands for National Outdoor Leadership School. Thus, they let us “lead” and choose our own schedule. Unfortunately, we all wanted to be leaders, and that meant that we argued a lot about our hiking schedule. Southwest Studies (Grand Canyon) had come a lot earlier (about 3 weeks) this year. This earlier date meant that we had to deal with much hotter temperatures in the canyon. Correspondingly, it meant that we couldn’t hike easily during the heat of the day, and thus we had much less time to hike. Scheduling our hiking so that we weren’t hiking during the day was proving difficult; by the time we sat down to plan the remainder of our hike, we were already into the heat of the day in our second day. Our guides had flatly told us that we would face an extremely difficult hike if we weren’t out of the canyon by 11 AM the following day. Thus, we had a little less than 23 hours to hike out of the canyon. Keep in mind that it had taken us 16 hours to descend to the creek. Do the math, and you’d notice that we had a bare 7 hours of rest time, including breaks and sleeping—a pretty difficult schedule. As a final factor to consider, our guides told us that it is standard in the Grand Canyon to take twice as long to hike up as it does to hike down. 

What would you do? Sitting there, in the bottom of the canyon, with these seemingly impossible schedule issues…how would you choose to schedule your time?  We ultimately ended up deciding on the following schedule (Keep in mind that it was 1 PM by this time):

Rest until 3:30 PM (wait out the heat of the day)

Hike 2.5 miles to White’s Butte (our original campsite)

Arrive by 7 PM; Pack up our camp and leave by 8.

Night-Hike to Yuma Point (a 4 mile journey)

Camp at Yuma Point

Get up at 4 AM the following day

Hike remainder of trail; be out by 11 AM.

                As we sat there discussing it, the plan sounded more and more doable—I was becoming complacent as to just how hard the hike back up would be. We rested as our plan dictated until around 3:30, and then we began the hike back up. On the return journey to our campsite, I didn’t carry a pack—something I felt slightly guilty about. I was so tired by this point though, I needed a rest—the rest of the journey was going to be difficult enough. The hike back up to White’s Butte was actually a really big turning point for the team. We started working together, setting a sustainable pace for all, and most importantly, hiking faster. Our improved hiking pace meant that we reached the top of White’s Butte in just under 2 hours—the same amount of time it took for us to descend the same stretch. That piece of news was a huge morale booster for our team—I felt like we could actually keep to our schedule this time. 

                We packed up our White’s Butte camp, and set off for Yuma Point. As we left White’s Butte around 7, the sun was just starting to set—it was going to be a long night. We made pretty good progress completing the flat section in the lead up to a pretty tough climb. We reached the bottom of the ascent as the sun set—it was time for headlamps. Before I continue, let me explain something about night-hiking. It’s a very, very different experience from day hiking. For one, it’s at night, which means that you can’t see any further than the beam of your headlamp. It’s also cooler, something that everyone on our team was glad for. You don’t really realize it in the desert, but the amount of water that you sweat is incredible. By the time I reached the top of the canyon, I could lick my arm and literally gag from the amount of salt on it! 

                As we night-hiked, we began to climb. By this point, I was pretty tired—the trip had become one, long endless day that spread out like a kind of endless hell. Some people on our team really enjoyed the night-hike. I found it very challenging, however; generally, to motivate myself while hiking, I look at how far I’ve come, and how far I have to go. At night, however, this method isn’t really possible because you can’t see anything beyond the reach of your headlamp. Thus, for me, the hike just seemed like an endless torture…I had no idea when it would end. Fortunately for my sanity, the night hike did eventually end. We rolled into Yuma Point at around 11 PM, having completed that section of the hike in the same amount of time that we descended—again, another morale booster for our team. 

                Although we were really tired, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep, our guides insisted that we eat a proper meal. Marc, one of our guides, cooked a delicious pasta meal for us—sadly, better than both of my meals combined. It was a really good idea, and we all went to sleep on full bellies. Wake-up call: 4:30 AM; six hours to sleep.

                That pasta was a little bit too good—the following morning, we overslept by half an hour. Three members of our team set alarms…and we slept through them all! I, funnily enough, was the first person to wake up—I woke up with a desperate urge to use the facilities. I looked at my watch, saw it was 5 AM, uttered various words that shall not be repeated, and set about waking everyone up. We all rose pretty quickly—we all knew that we had a deadline to meet—11 AM was only 6 hours away. We packed up and got on the trail pretty quickly. Again, that team spirit which had helped us so much the day before came back to help us again. We moved quickly and efficiently along the trail, making excellent time. We reached the junction with Dripping Springs Trail a little bit before 8 AM. While stopping to eat breakfast, our guides decided to give us a mini-lecture on proper wilderness eating. Our breakfast consisted of left-over snacks that were not that filling. Our guides proceeded to explain that meals in the wilderness need to be high-calorie, high-energy meals (Bagels and Cream Cheese, for example). I began to notice that poor nutrition was adversely affecting my hiking ability. 

                We hit the trail again just as the sun was beginning to hit us. We had made excellent progress thus far, and our pace didn’t slow much as we smoothly slid into our teamwork-mode. We rounded Dripping Springs in a little under an hour, and reached Hermit Trail around 9 AM. The final section was before us! We didn’t rest for long—our water supply was beginning to run dangerously low, and we needed to get up the hill before the sun finished us off altogether. At the top of every Grand Canyon trail, there are the ubiquitous switchbacks, and so we threw ourselves head-first into those. By this time, the day was really starting to get hot—and we were very exposed on the side of the canyon. We hiked slowly, and took plenty of breaks—although there wasn’t much water to go around. I haven’t really talked much about my feet on this trip, but I must say both my feet and my boots are troopers. My feet ended up with a lot of blisters/bruises/cuts/calluses on them, but they got me to and from the Colorado River and back. The same goes for my boots. 

Now, back to the side of the Canyon…At one break where we stopped, I felt very dizzy and disoriented. I don’t know how bad I looked on the outside, but I clearly looked bad enough to give my guides concern. I realized, once I thought about my symptoms, that I was severely heat-stressed/bordering on heat-stroke. Our guides made us take an extra-long break to allow all of us to cool down. Fortunately, after that brief brush with severe illness, we left the difficult switchbacks and started up a gentle slope that took us around the side of the Canyon and up towards the trailhead. The remainder of the hike was fairly uneventful—except for the growing optimism that we were nearly at the top. Finally, at just after 11 AM on Saturday, October 2, 2010 (incidentally, my brother’s birthday), we reached the top. There wasn’t any massive celebration awaiting us; just the knowledge that our hike was finally over.

**End of Part 3 of 3. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**

“We’re actually going to a canyon. I hear it’s pretty grand.”—Grand Canyon 2010 (Days 41-46) PART TWO AND A HALF

**This is part 2.5 of my Grand Canyon series. I kind of misjudged the division of the trip, I had to subdivide once more**

In my last post, I discussed our team’s difficulties in getting down the Grand Canyon. The second half of our journey is a different story.  I left off just as we were making the turn onto the Inner Canyon trail—to begin our final descent to the Colorado River. What I didn’t mention was that by that turn, I was feeling pretty rough. Due to our shortage of water, I was pretty dehydrated. I was also starting to feel that familiar ache in some of my muscles. After descending nearly 9 miles, my body was starting to feel pretty tired and sore. Throughout the remainder of the descent, I tried to keep the thought of climbing back out of the Canyon at the back of my mind. The trail down to the Inner Canyon wasn’t actually that bad—we completed it in just over 30 minutes. When we reached the bottom of the trail, low and behold, we stumbled upon a creek! Tom Lamberth, the head of Wilderness at UWC, had warned us that Boucher Creek could very well be dry. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t! We had beautiful, clear spring/creek water. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a creek before.

We rested for a while so that we could fill up our water bottles and get the water properly sanitized. In the Wilderness, the procedure for purifying water varies wildly. Some hikers choose to buy proper water filters, other choose to use chemicals. Water filters are very expensive and somewhat fragile, so UWC prefers that we use chemicals. In our case, our chemical of choice is iodine. Iodine has been used as a water purifier for quite a while. To purify 1.5 liters of water with iodine, the following procedure is used: 

1.       Add 8 drops of Iodine to water bottle

2.       Screw on cap, and turn water bottle upside down.

3.       Holding the cap, slowly unscrew the water bottle

4.       Watch the bottle until a few bubble float up through the water

5.       Screw lid tightly; wait 30 minutes

6.       Drink water!

The procedure is fairly simple, and it means that we have totally pure water to drink. The unfortunate side effect of using iodine as the purifying agent is that the water has a rather interesting taste. Some people like it, other do not. I’m fairly ambivalent towards it all—it’s water, I’m thirsty, and I can drink it. It’s a fairly simple decision. While I was filling up the water bottles, I actually ended up stumbling across a scorpion. Or rather, he stumbled across me. I was minding my own business, filling up my water bottle, when he started crawling up my leg, the bastard. Our guides were pretty worried about whether or not I was bitten—a scorpion bite here would have been nasty. Fortunately, I was not bitten.

After relaxing, cooling off in the cool stream, and filling up our water bottles, we set off again, this time following the creek bed towards the river. We wound our way through the Inner Canyon—slowly, but surely. The heat was pretty intense—it was nearly 90 degrees F down there. The hike seemed pretty endless—we thought that the river would be behind each bend in the trail. Finally, at around 10:15 AM, we arrived at the Colorado River!! 

It was a wonderful, beautiful sight. Something that had seemed so remote from the rim now stood before us, a wild and fast-rushing mass of water. Even though the water was totally brown, it was still a wonderful river to see. We sat down on a beach and relaxed. I set up our stoves and got ready to cook while everyone else jumped in the river. We had a delicious meal of quesadillas with cheese (lots of cheese!), chicken, salsa, and parsley (cilantro). They were really tasty and improved everyone’s spirits considerably. Once I’d finished cooking, I went for a dip in the river. Boy was it cold!! The river was incredibly refreshing after a day and a half of solid hiking. While we were at the river, our team mutually decided to start a new “pass down” (At UWC, a pass down is a tradition that is passed from one class to the next). Our new “pass down” was taking a mud bath in the river; I slathered myself with fresh Colorado River mud, and you know what? It was really refreshing—I felt totally clean! 

**End of Part 2.5 of 3. Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Harry.Lambert2/UWCAlbum02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDKzaGfnMjc2AE&feat=directlink**