The reason why I choose The Wild as my intensive is because I love the outdoors. This is likely because where I grew up and the people around me at an early age. Ohio has lots of outdoor spaces and many parks and my own house has some woods behind it, so there was no shortage of being outside. In addition, my dad used to go deer and turkey hunting in western Pennsylvania at a house that members of my family owned. While I was there as a young child, I fished, hiked in the woods, and just relaxed. On the property there was a pond that I caught my first bass in. For many summers before high school, my parents signed me up in numerous outdoor camps to keep me occupied. I believe that through these camps, my love for the outdoors was really revealed just because I was opened up to activities that I had never done before, such as kayaking and creek hikes. I continue many of these activities today. Another outdoor activity that I enjoyed from an early age was riding my bike. I remember one of the neighbors’ kids taught me how to balance and I spent the rest of the day on my bike. I also remember the first time I went mountain biking with my dad at the Cleveland Metroparks Bedford Reservation with my Diamondback 24. I remember that because the shifters were twist and not thumb shifters, I sometimes changed gears on accident. Now I have gotten more involved in mountain biking and have a better quality bike and I still go mountain biking with my dad. Another activity that has brought me closer to the outdoors that I have done with my parents since a young age is hiking. We still go on hikes occasionally in the local parks. Last summer, we went to Montana for vacation to see some friends, our former neighbors, who are also lovers of the outdoors. While we were in Montana, we went on lots of hikes such as the Highline Trail and Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park, and the Finger Lake Trail. These hikes really changed my view of nature and my connection to it. Before this, I had only hiked in wooded areas and mostly flat trails around Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. While in Montana, at least one part of every hike was in a wooded area, I was exposed to beautiful vistas and views that I had never seen before. Not only was I was seeing new things, but these were long and strenuous hikes. The Highline Trail was about eleven miles long with lots of uphill and downhill in the beautiful mountains of Glacier National Park. The Avalanche Lake Trail was almost completely uphill until you got to the beautiful aqua colored lake at the top for your reward, and then had to go back down, enjoying the gorgeous view we had just seen. Normally when we went on hikes in Ohio, I was a little tired but in Montana I felt like this was a real workout more than an activity which helped me see the extent what nature could throw at you. While we were hiking in Montana, the scenery was completely different from anything I have ever seen. Even though there were wooded areas like Ohio, the heightened elevation and decreased humidity made it feel completely different. One particular place I remember was on the Avalanche Lake hike was an area with lots of downed trees creating an opening. The opening was quite large and you could see the face of a mountain. On the Highline Trail, we were hiking on the face of the mountain near the start and there was a thin rope nailed into the rock on the side of the mountain for your safety – and the path was only 3 feet wide, with a huge drop below. While we were on the Highline Trail, we saw animals such as deer, big-horn sheep, grouse, marmot, and the same mountain goat about five different times. I also remember seeing the mountain covered everywhere in tall, cone-shaped white flowers called bear grass, which feeds the deer in the summer. When we were coming down the mountain after we rested and had a quick lunch at the Granite Park Chalet, it started storming and hailing when moments before it was sunny with clear skies. I was worried if we would get hurt in this storm, but it didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes, and then sun came out as hot as ever. We also hiked around our friends property and found deer bones. While we were in their house we saw American kestrels and deer through a telescope. We also went to one of their friend’s houses to kayak on their lake, where we saw bald eagles in their nests, and beavers. These outdoor experiences changed my perspective on nature because I had never really seen or done anything like it. When I was in Montana last summer, that was arguably when I was most connected with nature. I saw the wild in an untouched state and in one of the places where it is more separated from the rest of the world when compared to a Metro-park trail. I could see the bald eagles in detail with my binoculars and paddled up to one so that I was around ten yards away from it. The reason I say that when I was in Montana was arguably the time I was most connect to nature is because the Hawken Outdoor Leadership trips are a close second to when I was the most connected to nature. The OL trips can be even more strenuous than my Montana hikes because not only do you have a thirty-pound pack on your back, but you do not have a house to go back to afterwards to relax comfortably and there aren’t many people. When I go on a trip and am hiking, I see places that I would never normally see and experience new things. An example of these new experiences is just going on trip. On my first OL trip, which was the winter trip, every experience was new to me. I never camped out in winter and hiked with a backpack. I never thought that I would camp outside in winter and want to come back and do it again. Even when I am not on a trip or at OL practice, I feel connected to nature. Throughout the years my experience with nature has changed but with this intensive I believe it has widened the scope in which I see nature by exposing me to nature in literature and using nature to improve upon my learning. I knew that there were books written about people climbing Mt. Everest or Jack London’s books like Call of the Wild, but I had no knowledge of Thoreau before the intensive. After reading some parts in Walden, I found very interesting his philosophy of only needing the bare minimum and his comments on the society of his day. One comment of his is that it would likely take longer to work to get enough money to get a train ticket to Boston from Concord than it would be to walk there. I thought this was very interesting because it really showed to me how Thoreau thought. It was very interesting as well to read Into The Wild by John Krakauer on my solo because it made me want to go to Alaska or someplace remote and see how I fared. Not to the extent of Chris McCandless but I still wanted to do it. I felt reading these texts made their main ideas a small part of my own and I took these ideas with me, which really just opened up some new ways of thinking. For example, I began thinking more about how do we treat the earth and how it treats us. It also broadened my knowledge of the scientific view of nature especially with names of plants and animals. Whenever I heard a bird call, I looked out on my feeder to see what bird was there. In doing this, I was able to identify an animal that I had seen for so long but never known the name of, which is the fowlers toad. Before this intensive I thought of myself as always needing to do something and keep my mind occupied, but I was able to sit down in my hammock and just relax for an hour, which is something I never do. In conclusion, The Wild helped me to see much more of what nature has to offer and just what you could do with it, and really you can do anything. It is mine to explore and experience as I wish.
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