Backpacking Class

I offered a backpacking class this spring as part of Chrysalis’s Friday afternoon electives. One thing I enjoyed was the way in which the kids began to play with the natural surroundings. I led three different hikes to three quite different campsites (beside a river, along a plateau’s rim, and beside a lake). Each location led to a different kind of play that was responsive to that location—by which I mean they did not play the same kind of game in each place. By the river they practiced skipping stones. They played among the rocks on the rim. At the lake, they sat out on a promontory and drummed on a fallen log, making music together. Each trip was composed of kids of different ages, several of whom would not, at school, hang out together but within this context, they worked and played well together with an improvisational intensity, responsively evolving to each occurrence of something different. And at every campsite they wished to build a fire. On the two trips where we could build a fire, I imposed a 25 stars rule. It had to be dark enough out that they could count 25 stars first. They had never counted the stars coming out before.

But my strongest impression happened a mile into the first hike. We encountered a small stream flowing across the trail. The kids were stopped by this flow of water 1-2” deep and four feet wide. “How do we get across?” There was no bridge. There was no “official” answer. They turned to us for the answer – but the real answer is “Anyway that works.” Step on rocks in the stream. Go up or down the stream until you find a narrower spot. Jump. It’s up to you to figure this out. The world is full of problem-solving challenges but most of the time we are semi-mindfully following along on paths developed by others. Such paths are easy to follow but they don’t develop our sense of capability, of self-reliance. As we hiked on, over other stream crossings and challenges, the empowering delight shone brighter in their eyes. As we waded around later in the river, one boy exclaimed purely, “I feel like I can do anything in the world.”