Adventures at Table Rock

Howdy!

So to give a brief table of contents, some of my recent adventures have been:

1) Rerouting the Hawksbill trail

2) Intern Diversity Training at the Town Office

3) Beginning work!  Featuring preparing backpacks, gear, and food for people to take out on course

4) Exploring the Table Rock Region (featuring Bouldering and Exploring with Pip)

SAWS Trail Building

 After all staff we had a day off, but my supervisor (rightly) thought it would be a good idea for us to go out and learn about trail building.  We worked with SAWS (Southern Applachain Wilderness Stewards) and helped build a trail near our base camp.  One of the reasons we did this was to learn to build trails, but another reason was that we were trying to learn how to do this on our own.  I don’t think we know enough to do what SAWS does alone, but I think NCOBS may use SAWS as a service opportunity for future students.  Below are some pictures of us working

The (Day 1) Group

All 6 feet and 7 inches of Aaron

Workin

Table Rock. So good.

Our boss

Bouldering

Our Group

Day 2!  More of the same, so I didn't take many pictures.  I did, however, do some serious tree removal work today, so I took some pictures of those:

I chopped my way through this thing.  It was pretty sweet

Ben going to town on this monster

Jesse givin the tree his effort

The remains.  Sadly you'll have to tilt your head left, as I couldn't figure out a way to rotate the pic.

DIVERSITY TRAINING

After working with SAWS, we decided to devote a day to Diversity Training.  We met at the town office and did a few activities that helped us to better understand how to work with Diversity in NCOBS.  The information was interesting, but I honestly didn’t find it particularly helpful.

(Miscellaneous) Our all staff picture.  I really hope a digital version of this goes online at some point...

Talking about words (i.e. privilege, social power, etc...)

A BEAR! This was my first real life bear siting.  Pretty sweet.

 WORK!

After a month of training, it’s finally time to begin WORKING! Crazy right?!  And what was even crazier was the fact I actually enjoyed the work.  It’s one thing to have a monotonous 9-5 job packaging food, but it’s another to know that whatever you do, directly influences someone’s outdoor expedition.  The fact that every backpack I select will become someone’s home base makes the work a lot more rewarding.  Below are some pictures of the backpacks we packed, 

Packed by the pro's (aka 3/4 interns)

I didn’t get a picture of the gear we packed, but I did get a picture of us working in the food hut 

Food hut!

and a MASSIVE supply of Natural Peanut Butter.  It was 35 pounds folks.  And don’t worry, I tasted it for them, it’s safe to eat ;)

Three letters come to mind: Y-U-M

Miscellaneous pic: Bryan picking up a snake.  Sadly I snapped the pic just as he put it down, but it was pretty sweet.

OFF DAY ADVENTURES!

 AND! Then I got two days off! And fortunately for me, a course also started that day, which meant cooked breakfast (usually you just do your own thing in the morning).

You may be thinking: "Are those biscuits as delicious as they look?!" - the answer is YES!

 I was thinking of scouting an epic route that I planned for GORP, but I decided to just explore base camp a bit.  In the morning I went off to the boulder field which hasn’t really been used much,

Heading off to the boulder field.  Decided to bring my ipod as I was going solo.  Gave me something to listen to.

My route!  I created a V3ish and a V2ish, then combined them.  Should make the final route around a V3/4.
Either way it was a ton of fun!

I then went off with a fellow Instructor Buddy and we went off to explore Table Rock.  We started off by going to very scenic Chimneys, 

Pip heading up to the Table Rock sign

Love it

and then headed back North to explore some campsites.  We also passed a Unity Crew (Unicorn Crew to be exact, yes, they had one), and took some group shots for them so everyone could be in the picture.  We also packed out some trash some previous non-LNT’ers had left in their campsite.  We then headed up to two more campsites, and then headed back to base.

The trail

HUGE Shroom!

This rope ladder actually led up to a campsite

And that was it!  We got back to base, had dinner, and then I just hung out.

And that brings me to today!  If you're wondering what I did today, I could give you a hint: look at the date of the last couple of blog posts.  Yep.  I've been on my computer almost all day.  I really needed a rest day, so that's what today has been.

ANDDD tomorrow I go back to work, and I believe I’ll be starting pre-course for my first NCOBS course!  That is, the one I will be logistically (kind of) in charge of.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Next up, two posts are coming.  The first is about the fundamentals of my Thru Hike, and the one after that is going to be about the first part of the trail, GEORGIA!

Enjoy!

Chris

Base Camp Split and All Staff Training

HEY!

So to start things out,

The BASE CAMP SPLIT! 

 Day 1: We started off by waking up at 5:00 in the morning (no, you didn’t read that wrong), and multi-pitched up 5 pitches to the top of Table Rock (you didn’t read that wrong either!). I got to do three of my favorite things at once: Climbing, watching the sunrise, and hanging out with outdoor educators. When we got up there, we did some introductions (both people and Table Rock), then the interns split up and we went and did the mountaineers route to get up to the top of Table Rock.  It was a blast.  Sadly, I have zero pictures of it.  We then finished (way late), and came down for dinner and painting tiles (there are tiles that hang up in the library.  It's a leader's way to bring their 'flavor' to the crew.  Naturally I chose to rep GORP)

Aw Yeah!  It's gorgeous enough to hang up in a Museum, but it's destined location is the Table Rock Library.

 Making Tiles!

Day 2:  Today was not nearly as exciting as yesterday.  We got to sleep in! (until 7:30 AM!), ate breakfast, then the interns and new staff went down to get checked off on the High Ropes Course (or not so-challenging course as it would later be dubbed) which was fun.  We practiced lowering people, and sending people off the big swing.  Sadly no pictures of this.  In the afternoon, we practiced 15 passenger vehicle driving.  Again, no pictures, but it was pretty fun too.  At night we had dinner, then got to listen to some early figures of NCOBS talk about how NCOBS started and how it got to be where it is today.  I don't remember the exact names, but Rhea is the woman with gray hair in this picture, and she knew Marjorie Buckley (who founded NCOBS).  We also got to hear from a guy named Mike Fischesser who started Alpine Towers, and played a big part in helping transform NCOBS' safety program.  Mike is the bald guy standing up.  I forget the name of the last guy, although I'm sure I could find out if I talked to the people who have been around here for longer.

History Night

Day 3:  On day 3 we really didn't do very much.  We did do a Scavenger Hunt Photo Challenge, but sadly it had to be with NCOBS cameras so I don't have any pictures from that.  We also did get to do a TOGA PARTY! which was a lot of fun, and a Yankee Swap.  I got a backpack and a day climbing trees with the person who gave the backpack.  Awesome-sauce!

Getting our Toga on

Aw Yeah!

All Staff Training!

Once a year the base camps of NCOBS get together to do one unified training at the Cedar Rock Base Camp.

My hotel for the Training.

Day 1: This year we started off by listening to the director talk about where NCOBS is, what made it successful, and where it is going. We then listened to some other management people talk about their areas of NCOBS, and how things are going.  It was good to hear, but I wouldn’t call the information interesting.  We then had lunch, which was delightful, and then we went back outside to listen to a panel of people who had been involved with NCOBS for a long time.

Michelle's awesome hat!

Moose on the far left.  Carl Ronkey is on the second to right.  I don't remember the other names.

 They had a very unique perspective, and gave some great advice about how to lead a great course, and how to better ourselves as instructors.  (Namely, the students need to have the opportunity to completely fail, and instructors need to get outside the world of NCOBS to learn more about the world and themselves.)  We then had a lesson in group facilitation with Carl Ronkey, which was a lot of fun!

The piece of tape game.  Needless to say, it gets pretty epic in big groups.

We then had our banquet, presented the highest award of NCOBS (The Buckley Bearing Award), and then prepared for the next day where we would do ANOTHER 7 mile Personal Challenge Event! (First one was a week ago at the end of our Intern Immersion).

Jen receiving the Buckley Bearing Award.  Josh Allen and Ashley Gray also received awards at different times.

Day 2: 3 letters, P.C.E!!!!  I have no pictures of it, and I don’t have my time either.  I elected not to time myself, and just focus on how I felt, which was a really great decision.  I won’t bore you with 7 miles of race details, but suffice to say it felt great, and I placed pretty high.  (It’s funny, the PCE isn’t a race, but a lot of people think of it like one.)

Then, after killing my legs, we got to eat some breakfast and then listened to some more people talk. 

The assortment of beverages people chose when listening to talks (the alcohol was from (the party) the night before).

We then ate lunch, and did some workshops in the afternoon.   I elected to learn more about the NCOBS Wiki (LINK!) and learn about the repair kit.  Both were good decisions, especially the repair kit workshop, as I learned how to patch up not only NCOBS gear, but also a lot of my own gear.

After the workshops we had a little break, and then we had our final banquet.  About an hour after it started, the opportunity arose to share stories about personal trips people had taken in the past.  It was really cool to watch and listen to some of the places other leaders had been, although it did get boring after a while...

Then there was another party, then bed!  (and then I went back to Table Rock the next day.  More on that will be continued in the next post!)

Enjoy!

Chris