Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative

Scattered Showers & Peak Experiences –

Kurt Hahn Fellows Spend Eight Days on an Outward Bound Voyage of Self-Discovery in the Pisgah National Forest

Without self-discovery, a person may still have self-confidence, but it is a self-confidence built on ignorance, and it melts in the face of heavy burdens. Self-discovery is the end product of a great challenge mastered, when the mind commands the body to do the seemingly impossible, when strength and courage are summoned to extraordinary limits for the sake of something outside the self – a principle, an onerous task, another human life.

— Kurt Hahn

Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative Fellows include six teachers from The Galloway School in Atlanta, Georgia and six teachers from Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina – Henry D., Peter E., Lexi H., Thalley M., Mark M., and Wyatt P.; Andy D., Kristen O., Jim S., Julia T., Chalisa W., and Steve W.. We twelve backpacked through an Outward Bound course in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina from June 23 through 30, 2007. Our collective goal is to transfer some of our outdoor/experiential learning – environmental ethics, woodcraft, interpersonal dynamics, and Kurt Hahn philosophies and practices – back to Galloway and Myers Park, and we will pursue this goal over the years to come. Personal goals ranged from simply surviving the rigors of the course to mastering the complexities of expedition life to expanding our physical and human networking limits. All twelve of us came home, more or less intact, evidence of the mastery of the skills of wilderness living. We hiked approximately 25 miles through rough and spectacular country; we climbed rock faces and negotiated a high ropes course. All twelve of us are changed by the experience.

What did we learn?

First and foremost, we learned to trust our selves and our fellows. Secondarily, to leave no trace – no discernible trace. To find our position and chart our course using map and compass. We learned the vulnerability and beauty of the southern Appalachian rainforest. That it can hail in the mountains. That solitude is a blessing. We learned about red efts, the McCall family’s Long Branch legacy – real or imagined – the pros and cons of tarps. We learned to trust one another with our life stories; to trust one another and ourselves to find a route, to prepare a palatable supper, to carry the requisite weight. That cloud/sunrise on Pilot Mountain is tantamount to heaven. That the eroded, steepest portion of the Art Loeb trail is hell. We learned the phenomenal biodiversity of the temperate rainforest – mosses, ferns, rhododendron, laurel, tulip poplar, loblolly pine, and hemlock – and the sickening disease of the hemlock forest. We learned that a few square meters of forest floor can contain dozens of species of plants. We heard the plaintive call of the whippoorwill. And witnessed the glory of blooming flame azalea, buttercup, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhododendron, saxifrage, wintergreen, rattlesnake plantain.

There is a curious rhythm to expedition life. Time expands and contracts oddly. A dozen steps up and up a steep trail take forever, while hours of vigorous hiking pass in a seeming blur. Life is simplified, overall, yet the simplest acts become complicated. The elemental aspects of existence stand out in relief: relieving oneself, personal hygiene, cooking and eating, foot comfort, the seeking and protection of dryness, and the conundrum of thermoregulation. Quotidian tasks are carried out against a backdrop of spectacular natural beauty – grandeur that diminishes the human scale, starkness of rock contrasted with ecological diversity and strangeness, sporadic glimpses or hearings of wildlife (a fox ghosts through a solo campsite; the distant mating sound of the ruffed grouse is mistaken for one’s own heartbeat; the haunting call of the screech owl raises the hairs on the back of one’s neck). It is as if our hierarchy of needs is reduced to a mere two levels of existence, the fundamental biological and the transcendent. These coexist or are, perhaps, coequal. One trudges along and looks up or aside to see ancient, richly cloaked mountains broken up into grassy balds, stands of hemlock, rhododendron thickets; one absorbs the intricate plant community in parts and in wholes. One’s heart thumps along at 150 bpm while simultaneously, consciousness slows and expands and reaches into the dream landscape and apprehends it as if of a piece. The oceanic feeling overlies and almost obviates one’s burning calf muscles and tender knees. The two seemingly irreconcilable levels of experience are brought together by pure will.

None of us knew fully what we were getting into when we signed on for the Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative. We pored over the literature, met with one of our facilitators, and fantasized about what it might be like, but there is virtually no preparation for carrying a backpack containing everything one needs that may weigh in excess of one-third of one’s body weight.

The first day, after sorting gear and food and leaving North Carolina Outward Bound Cedar Rock Base Camp, we hiked less than five miles from Graveyard Fields in the Shining Rock Wilderness and exhaustedly set up our first camp. During this initial hike, we began practicing map and compass use. After we reached our first bivouac at Ivestor Gap, we implemented black bear precautions: cooking at a site at least 50 yards away from sleeping areas; stowing anything edible or sweet smelling (baby powder, toothpaste) with cooking equipment and food and then suspending it ten feet above the ground in a craftily engineered bear hang. We broadcast gray water (cooking/cleaning/ toothbrushing water) and left no food scraps lying about.

As day followed day, we mastered the Outward Bound food system, and each day our loads lightened as food mass was converted into ATP for trekking. Each morning, we consumed a high carbohydrate breakfast and divided up trail snacks – mostly dried fruits and nuts. Lunches were equally simple, but suppers were more sumptuous: falafel stew served on a tortilla (what a glorious ethnic crossover); pasta alfredo with carrots and pimento (?); the infamous chili-mac-n-cheese. We licked our bowls clean after such meals. We met the Pudding Goddess.

After evening meals, we formed a circle to talk about the next day, to share appreciations, and to exchange the “four pillar” ribbons (Kurt Hahn’s four educational pillars are self-reliance, physical fitness, craftsmanship, and compassion), a process that required us to think about who had exhibited what attributes during the day and to make difficult approach-approach decisions. Our instructors were both experienced Outward Bound leaders: Erin P. – a sanguine fifth-grade teacher who is empathetic, determined and funny – and Kelly M. – a former library/communications science professor with a passion for humane teaching and an intuitive knowledge of group dynamics – taught continuously during the early days, but gradually backed off to let the Kurt Hahn Fellows take responsibility for the expedition’s successes and glitches. We all shared observations as we moved through the country – of wildflowers, birds, scenic vistas, clouds and weather. We talked about our families, our lives, and about our home schools, as well.

Weather in the southern Appalachian mountains is nothing if not changeable. We experienced bright sunny days with mixed cirrus, patchy stratus, and towering cumulus clouds; we hiked, camped, and hunkered down amid drizzle, dramatic thunderstorms, and hail. Mostly it was warm and humid, which brought out the insects – no-seeums, mosquitoes, flies. Each day provided at least a little sun, so we were able to dry gear – wet packs, clothes and tarps weigh 10% more than dry ones. We relished sunny conditions. The rain and hail and bugs, we endured. We learned and practiced the Outward Bound lightning safety protocol.

Early in the trek, the dichotomous character of our crew was obvious. Some of us had significant outdoor experience; some none at all. Some of us moved slowly and determinedly through the landscape, one step at a time. Some of us strode forth to take on each new challenge. But as the adventure unfolded, the inexperienced metamorphosed. Woodcraft developed rapidly; fitness differentials were compensated for – as the less fit became better conditioned and as loads were redistributed. On the whole, we took very good care of one another; when we became aware that an individual was having a rough day, others filled in to carry some of their literal or figurative weight. The trek was characterized by collegiality among the Kurt Hahn Fellows and with our instructors, who increasingly deferred to our leadership. During the latter half of the trip, Kelly and Erin behaved as if they were just two other members of the expedition. They even allowed us to make some mistakes.

High points and low points came and went each day; however, for many of us, the paramount peak experience was solo – twenty-four hours in the woods by ourselves. On day four, each of us was blindfolded and lead by one of the instructor/facilitators to a solo campsite along bubbling Grogan Creek. Most of us chose to fast for the duration of the solo experience. When one is by oneself in the wild, one is forced into reflection mode, and each person took great advantage of this: journaling, meditating, looking at and into nature until she stood out in clear relief. The perceived risk of solo (no one was really more than a few dozen meters away from a fellow adventurer, although line of sight was cut off by thick vegetation) lends it piquancy, sharpens the senses. Solo also provided a welcome respite from hiking and an antidote to sleep deprivation.

On day six, we met Glenn, our climbing instructor, and we hiked with climbing gear to a sloping rock face on Cedar Rock. After top-belay climbs were set, individuals confronted their personal rock-climbing demons (several of our party had never climbed before) and ascended moderately easy to moderately difficult climbs. Thunder and lightning drove us from the cliff face before everyone had a chance to climb, but for those of us who did climb, the challenge was met with aplomb.

Glenn was also our high ropes course facilitator on day seven. He is a quietly encouraging fellow with obvious and impressive climbing skills. He urged us through the course, and all twelve fellows succeeded in meeting the challenge. No one fell (we were thoroughly protected by backup rigging, in any case), and no one even hesitated as we moved smoothly through the half-dozen ropes course elements.

On returning to NCOB Cedar Rock Base Camp, we felt greatly let-down by encroaching civilization, by the sense of the impending diaspora of our highly coalesced little community. Even the pond water shower was insufficient to bring us fully back into ourselves, but we participated, yeoman-like, in the educator workshops that will ultimately allow us to carry out the larger purposes of the Educator Initiative.

The first phase of the Kurt Hahn Educator Initiative – the eight-day Outward Bound course – was a great success. The first rule of expedition life is to come home, and we succeeded admirably in this regard, among many others. Each of us knows a little more about himself or herself, and we all know a great deal more about our Kurt Hahn fellow travelers. We are committed to bringing aspects of the Kurt Hahn philosophy of experiential learning back to our school communities, and we look forward to meeting again during Fall and Spring retreats.

— Mark M. – July, 2007