This weekend was our first overnight trip together. Take a few minutes and reflect on this unique experience; not many high school students are given the opportunity to head into the mountains for two days with classmates and instructor. When you look back on this experience I’d like you to rank, in order of their importance on our overnight trip, the concepts below and provide your reasoning for each ranking. Before you do this, think about the following questions and how the concepts below relate. Did you take care of your own needs, allowing yourself to help the
group when necessary? Were your personal emotions/feelings (negative)
a distraction for you? Did those feelings prevent you from being a
functioning member of the group? Were the ‘comforts of civilization’ on your mind often? Did social dynamics play a role in
the success or failure of our group? Did the weather make you miserable or did it make you adapt? What was your mental state going into the trip and what was it coming out of the trip? Did others communicate to you their wishes, needs or concerns effectively? Did you communicate to others effectively?
Gear/Food
Attitude/Personal Feelings or Emotions
Social Dynamics/Communication
Weather/Natural Conditions
Please take your time and spend a few sentences explaining your ranking for each concept. Remember, check for spelling and grammar (absolutely no lower case pronouns! "i saw that i was being…")
Thanks.
Jon Endicott
I had a pretty good time on this. I wouldn’t say that the luxuries of civilization were really weighing on my mind much at all. The only thing like that would be the sleeping situation, which kind of made me feel claustrophobic and very anxious for the night to be over. But once people started getting out of the there in the morning, the quinzhee was most comfortable.
I felt communication was pretty good between everybody. People were helping each other out with projects and what not, telling each other stories and cracking jokes.
ranking:
1. Attitude/ Personal feelings
This was most important to me. If I was able to keep myself feeling good through having a good time with the people or just making sure I was happy, than I was able to stay distracted from issues that might have been cause for complaint.
2.Social Dynamics/Communication
Number 2. Making sure that everyone around me was having a good time helped me have a good time.
3. Food Gear: Food was good. Gear was warm for the most part.
4.Weather and natural conditions
Outside of the annoyance of sinking into deep snow, and being chilled a couple times during the night, this wasn’t that big of a thing.
Heather
Gear/Food-9-I think that my group was very good when it came to bringing food but it might be better to bring a little more next time. It’s better to bring more then less. As far as gear went I was pretty much set, I stayed warm the whole trip but I think face masks are a good idea more so at night when we were sleeping. I also brought too much extra clothing which made my pack weigh a lot more.
Attitude/Personal Feelings or Emotions-7- My personal feelings didn’t really affect my work (I didn’t really have any) but I felt bad that the guys had to dig out our quinzhee because the log sort of messed us up. When other people get negative though it makes it a lot less enjoyable.
Social Dynamics/Communication-9- social dynamics were good. I liked connecting more with people I never talk to and having the experience as a whole with everyone, it was really nice.
Weather/Natural Conditions-8- The weather was really nice, our quinzhee got slightly cold at night but other than that every thing was good.
robert the wise
1. Social Dynamics/Communication
2.Attitude/Personal Feelings or Emotions
I believe that communication and team work are the fundamentals to surviving. If you keep a positive mind frame and stay optimistic then working together will arrive in the group with ease
3.Gear/Food
The gear you bring up in important but not essential (my opinion). Food on the other hand is probably the most imperative of all. As long as your body is receiving lots of carbs and proteins it will act as fuel for your body.
4.Weather/Natural Conditions
The weather can play a huge roll in winter camping. If you do not have proper shelters or food or gear, then you probably won’t even last three hours. Luckily we prepared ourselves ahead of time.
john quinn
I was pretty miserable on this trip. But it still taught me a ton of things. One is that I should have drunk a lot more water. I also had a very negative attitude towards the end of the trip. We all worked pretty well as a full team. I think I totally could have communicated better with my group members.
Torie Salley-Rains
Gear/Food- I feel that I was well prepared as far as gear. With food I thought I brought too much but you need a lot of food up there! and I ended up bringing a good amount. A tip would be to bring lots of snack foods. I would put food/gear second or first because it effects your attitude/personal feelings which effects your communication.
Attitude/Personal Feelings or Emotions- I would say this is thirds because it is hard to control what you are feeling inside. You can still have an all around good experience even if you are not feeling so great on the trip.
Social Dynamics/Communication- communication is second because if you were having a poor attitude or not communicating during the trip then so much of the experience is lost.
Weather/Natural Conditions- This is probably number one because it affects everything. How cold it is effects how much you eat and your attitude…
Hayley
My feelings before going on the overnight were a mix of excitement, curiosity and fear of the unknown. It didn’t matter how much discussion we had in class about what to expect, I don’t think that I could have been 100% prepared for the overnight. It was nothing I had ever experienced before so that made it hard to judge what clothes or food to bring.
I think Attitude/ Personal Feelings or Emotions for me would rank the highest because no matter what the weather is like or what food or gear you have, you can still have the worst time if you aren’t in the right frame of mind and able to let yourself experience new things no matter how scary.
Social Dynamics and Communication is also very important. While building our Quinzhee it was important that everyone in the group knew exactly what we were trying to accomplish and how we were going about doing that. It was hard being in that environment in one way because you had to look after yourself for your personal needs but you also had to look after yourself for the sake of everyone else who had to be around you.
Gear and Food are next because, as we spoke about, you can go X amount of time without proper gear or food and still be able to function, but after the X amount of time, food and gear do become a big part in your comfort and survival. I found that being in a small food group was really good. We had a lot of communication of what we needed to bring and how we were going about using it wisely.
And last, Weather/Natural conditions, I understand that if we had a blizzard then it would be a pretty bad trip but I think because the weather was pretty good it did make the trip easier and more adaptable.
frances brown
I got a lot out of this trip, some of the things I learned will stay with me for life. I was a little disorganized so I was not as free to help others as I would have liked but I did a few small things for other people. I had a good time on the trip so I was always happy and never distracted by my personal emotions. I think that social dynamics played a part in the success of our group, I got to know people a lot better on this trip and it made my time more enjoyable. I liked the weather and adapting took a while but I have learned a lot from doing it. I had more than enough food but I did very well in the gear department. The communication on the trip was a little weak and there where a few mix-ups but we got out alright.