Reflection: Weeks 9 & 10

These past two weeks have been less eventfull than the previous weeks. It was a helpful transition back from spring break! :)

Week 9:

We learned a little about advocacy which is the active promotion of a cause or principle. It is just one of our 7 Responsibilities as a Health Educator. There was an advocacy post where we found the names and contact information of our political representatives in Duluth. It was pretty interesting realizing how I am really not up to day on my political leaders. I thought it was a good learning experience for me to challenge myself and look a little deeper into political issues. We also talked a little bit about our photo essay that was due the next week and the ethics of taking pictures.

Week 10:

There was no class this week due to the AAPHERD conference held in Florida (I so wish I could be in Florida!!) Although we did have a photo essay that was talked about the week before due. I think this was one of my favorite assignments. I chose to do the Appalachian trails and the volunteer efforts that are put forth to keep the trails maintained. I went there for spring break so I knew ahead of time to find things that might work well with the photo essay. I really wanted to find the similarities and differences between the trails around Duluth..but unfortunately due to the nice weather that was dropped on us I just decided to do the Appalachian trails.

Once again these weeks flew by! The end of the school year is creeping up..it sure doesn't feel like it with all this snow we keep getting though!

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Over spring break I went on a 50 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT). I thought it seemed like a lot of miles, but compared to the whole trail being about 2,178 miles from Georgia to Maine, it's just a tiny mark on the map! We started at Sams Gap North Carolina and went south bound to end in Hot Springs. It was an awesome experience! Going into this, I knew we were doing this photo essay so I decided to find things on the trail that I thought were interesting and I could share with the class. This post mostly focuses on the maintenance of the trail, clean water sources, and my experience compared with everyday "convenient" living.

As we were walking along the paths I often wondered... who managed the paths and how could they keep up with it?!

About the time I took this picture is where we ran into people (workers and volunteers) who came around to monitor, maintain and protect the trail.They were often taking care of vegitation that was coming onto the trail, storm over blow, maintaining overnight shelters, marking boundries etc. After starting this essay I decided to look a little deeper into the maintanance of the AT. The trail has been around since 1937. It is protected by all 14 states that it touches and is a unit of the National Park Service. The volunteers and workers came from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC). It's basically a HUUUGE organization full of over 6,000 volunteers per year, plus year round employees with a mission to preserve and manage the natural, scenic, historical and cultural resources associated with the trail. This website provides a lot more in depth information on it.

There were many signs along the way giving credit to the wonderful volunteers.."over 2100 miles maintain by local volunteers". I thought it was really cool just showing that little things making a big difference.

I also thought this sign was perfect for explaining a little history and who the trail was protected by...

We averaged anywhere between 6-12 miles a day carrying probably a little over 40 pounds because of all the food we had to pack. We made most of our meals just by adding water to things such as oatmeal, malt-o-meal, chili, macaroni etc. It wasn't too great but after a long day of hiking anything is good. Going on this trip also made me realize how lucky I am to have clean water! We had to hand pump our water from little streams and waterfalls that were few and far between.

Drinking the water "raw" from the stream can be dangerous, it really put things into perspective for how lucky we were to have resources available to make the water clean to drink.
We actually all ran out of water our second night! We had been hiking for too long and had to ration about 2-3 waterbottles between 10 people at our campsite. I swear I have never been more thirsty before, we were all dreaming of water that night!

It was almost worth it though because we woke up to this amazing view at our campsite (when we arrived at the camp site there was a lot of fog so we couldn't see out)

As for sleeping, most of the time we slept in tents, but along the trail there are shelters about every 5-10 miles apart. Usually there is a water source and bear hangs (to hang your food up at night).

These shelters are really convenient to put things out to dry in. It's a first come, first served basis until it is full. They were my favorite because the nights got reeeally cold so the more people huddling in those things the better! At night I would literally wear everything in my suitcase. It put heat into another perspective as well! The shelters are maintained by volunteer groups that repair and build these shelters on a regular basis. Without the help of these volunteers these shelters wouldn't be available. You'd be surprised how a little shelter can really make a difference when it's raining!

This trip was really challenging at times. There were days where we would go up 2,000 feet within a couple miles. I think I learned a lot about myself and the little things that we never really stop to think about during the day..such as clean water, warm food, shelter, warmth..it really was an eye opening experience.

Here was me on my favorite view of Blackstacks Cliff..We could practically touch the clouds!

Going on this trip was a little out of my box and I encourage everyone to give it a try. Superior Hiking trails are close by..they're great for day hikes or backpacking with about 205 mile long footpath. Also UMD provides great equipment that you can rent! If anyone is intersted in volunteering and getting involved. All the information is provided at these websites!

We had a quote that we all liked it was "Not all who wander are lost"..so wander on and make a difference!