Outdoor Experience Program

Program Background:

The Outdoor Experience Program is designed to offer MCCPS students outdoor experiences combined with shared leadership opportunities. Three times a year MCCPS staff lead groups of students through various outdoor adventures. Because many of our students increasingly come from environments themselves increasingly disconnected from the natural world, these kinds of opportunities are exciting and necessary. Surroundings change. The pace of life changes. Students are presented with new sets of tasks, questions, responsibilities, challenges, and discoveries. Communities and groups take on new shapes and, in such settings, students are required to work together in ways not frequently asked of them. It becomes a shared responsibility that allows a group to summit of mountain together. Groups and individuals often grow and deepen as a result of such experiences.

Trips:

Lonesome Lake Trip:

For our second trip will travel to Lonesome Lake in Franconia State Park, NH. Depending on the conditions this will be a snowshoe or bareboot experience. We will be getting a little slice of winter hiking, and hopefully will be able to break out the stoves for some hot chocolate and dessert. Here's the permission slip.

Welch-Dickey Hiking Trip:

Our inaugural trip - on September 19, 2010 - was to the Welch-Dickey Loop Trail in the Southern White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was an amazing trek, taking us up over Welch Mountain, where we stopped for a scenic lunch, and up over and down the ridge from Dickey Mountain, which tops out at 2,734 feet. The photograph below looks out from the broad, sweeping ledges just below the summit of Welch Mountain. (You can view the permission slip here for future reference.)

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. -Edward Abbey