Hello and welcome to outdoor adventures. We have had a GREAT first two weeks. Our class has a stunning 14 youth and 4 mentors ready to learn about the outdoors. Our goal in the outdoor class is to learn about the outdoors and ultimately have an adventure at the end of the semester.  There are many places we could choose to visit for our end of the year hike, but due to the amount of snow in the mountains and the timing at the end of the semester we are looking to hike Lower Lena Lake. http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lena-lake There are many things to love about this hike. The distance is about 3 miles with a 1300 foot gain. The lake itself is beautiful and it has a giant rock that overlooks the lake where we can sit and have lunch. The hike back out is easy, because it is all downhill. We still need to talk about what Saturday will work for this.

     Some of our other plans for this semester is to learn some basic outdoor skills. We will try fire starting without matches, cooking with a Dutch oven, cooking with a backpacking stove, water purification, practice setting up tents and many other things, time permitting.

     Our first week, we played some getting to know you games and talked about what we wanted to do for the semester. Our second week we watched a National Geographic Special about a national treasure that runs through Washington, the Pacific Crest Trail. The kids learned about the 2650 mile trail that starts in Mexico and runs to Canada. We got to see some of the many different points of interest along the trail and get a glimpse of the planning that goes into thru hiking the trail.

     For our third week we will talk about the ten essentials. What ten things should we carry if we plan on going on a day hike out into the wilderness. Should I bring water or Mountain Dew, or should I just leave everything behind, because carrying stuff is hard.