Outdoor Education Part Two: At Camp

On the Monday that we left for camp the students were beside themselves with excitement. After the long bus ride, we would arrive at camp and get our cabin assignments. Soon we would be on the trail for our first hike. After a short break, we would meet at the dinning hall for our first meal at camp. Then there would be a meeting at the campfire circle. The week would fly by with hikes to the redwood forest, a night hike to the scared buckeye groove, the beach day, and then the last camp circle meeting. Friday morning the students would put on skits and before we knew it we were on the bus heading back for home.

The students arrived early Monday morning with their suitcases and sleeping bags. We would send a couple volunteers to help camp truck driver load the truck with the student baggage. My students would start pairing up for seats on the bus. I’d collect the last of the parental permission slips, check out at the office, and line the kids up at for the bus. The high school counselors rode on the bus so we would meet them for the first time.

We would make a quick stop at a park in Hayward for a restroom break and a quick lunch. After a sweep of the park to make sure the students cleaned up their mess we would be off again.

Once we crossed the San Mateo Bridge and headed for route one, the students would peel their eyes to the window catching a glance of the ocean, and the marshland on the other side of the rode.

The head counselor, who for some twenty years our more was a wonderful lady, Annie, would greet us at the bus and escort us to the camp fire circle near headquarters. There we would meet the naturalists, go over camp rules, and be given our trail group and cabin assignments. Boys and girls were mixed in trail groups. Each trial group has twelve students, a high school counselor and a naturalist assigned to it. Teachers would alternate among the trail groups. We tried to work it out so we could spend some time with each of our students.

Boys and girls had separate cabins with six students to a cabin. There was a high school counselor assigned to each cabin. The naturalists would call off the names of their trail groups. This was a really exciting moment for the students as they listened for their names, and lined up behind their naturalists when their name was called, sometimes jumping for joy when they saw that friend had been assigned to their group.

Teachers were assigned segregated cabins also. I was assigned to Dinky, a small cabin on the far end of camp a number of times. It was a small cabin with two little rooms, so I often had a room to myself. After dropping off our sleeping bags and baggage at our cabins we would take a short break to unpack and then head off on our first hike.

One of the things I loved about camp is that I was no longer a teacher. On the hikes, I left the naturalist in charge. I was always amazed at the knowledge and enthusiasm of the naturalists. They were usually young, fresh out of college, and loving their work. Most naturalists only stayed at camp for two or three years so they never lost their enthusiasm and energy.

I would usually walk at the rear of a trial group to hurry up the stragglers. When we would stop to examine a decaying tree or a banana slug, I would ask questions even if I knew the answers to bring out a little more knowledge on the subject that the naturalist was exploring. If I saw something worth examining along the trail, I would quietly point it out to a student and have he or she bring it to the attention of the naturalist. The hikes would usually last a couple hours, though some naturalists would plan at least one all day hike where we would bring along packed lunches.

Our first meal at the dinning hall set the tone for the rest of the week. Students sat at tables with their trail groups and high school counselor. The naturalists usually ate together at a separate table. I would take turns sitting with different groups so I could spend time with each of my students. We ate family style with platters of three four main dishes. Each table had an assigned hopper who would bring the platters to their table. All the hiking in fresh air made for a lot of hungry campers.

The first rule of dinning was take all that you want, but eat all that you take. Conservation began at the dinning hall. The naturalists would weigh the waste that we produced at each meal, and chart how it dropped during the week, which it always did. At the dinning hall and through out the day, we discussed various means of conservation. Students learned how much water they could save if they turned off the faucet when they were brushing their teeth using the water only when they needed it. They learned that they could save gallons and gallons of water if they cut their showers down to no more than two minutes. With six students to a cabin the counselor enforced the two-minute rule.

My favorite hike was the hike though the redwood forest. There were ancient redwoods there some three thousand years old. By the end of my teaching career, I had hike through the woods thirty times or more. Yet each time I was thrilled by the splendor of the giant redwoods. Two of the favorite trees were Big Red, and Dead Fred. Big Red was so big around that a whole trial group could circle it holding hands and still leaving room for more. Dead Fred was a redwood that had been burnt in a forest fire. It’s shell still stood and a whole trail group could fit inside it. We would mark our forehead with the ashes of Dead Fred and could not remove the mark until someone asked, “What’s that?”

Redwoods grow in a number of different ways. The can grow from the seed of a mother tree. Many sprouts come up around the circumference of the mother tree. Each sprout can develop its own root system forming a ring of trees around the mother tree that is called a fairy ring. The fairy rings added to the mystery and magic of the redwood hike.

The night hikes were really special. On a clear night, we would hike to the meadow and often see deer grazing along the edge of the trees. The stars were ablaze in the sky and often students would experience the vastness of our galaxy for the first time. The naturalists would point the various constellations and tell stories about how they were named by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Students were awed by the clearness of the star filled sky as it appears away from the city lights.

Another night hike that was memorable was the hike to the sacred buckeye grove. Usually we would first visit the grove in the day light and the naturalist would explain how the Native Americans had felt the buckeye grove to be sacred, and would feel the presence of the spiritual world among the trees. They would pick the buckeye nuts and wash them in the creeks to cleanse them of their poison. They would make flour from the nuts and use it for making bread.

On the night hike to buckeye grove we could understand why the Native Americans thought that they were sacred. The moonlight and starlight gave a luminous glow to the heavy green moss that grew on the trees. In that luminous glow, we could almost sense the presence of the Native Americans who lived in the area for centuries.

Beach day was one of the highlights of camp. We would first visit the marsh and hike along a narrow trails where though the tules and cattails we would see ducks, great egrets, snowy egrets, blue herons, and yellow-throated warblers. There are near a hundred and eighty different species of birds at the marsh. The naturalist would point out dozens of unusual plant life along the narrow trail.

The marsh was a good place for an ecology lesson as the naturalist explained that how the community had fight an effort by real estate developers who wanted to turn the marsh into a shopping center.

The tide pools were usually next on our beach day trip depending on when the low tides came in. If the low tides were late we would make the side trips to pebble beach to see the millions of pebbles and take none home. Or we would go to Ano Nuevo State Reserve where we would see the elephant seals close up.

At the tide pools students would spread out among the slippery rocks and study the small pools that they would find among the kelp and plankton. As soon as a student found an interesting specimen he or she would hold it up for all to see. We were instructed to always return the sea life to the very exact spot where we found it. Once in awhile someone would find a tiny octopus. Sea stars were always a good find. There were crabs, and sea cucumbers, and sea urchins to handle and share. And of course, there were loads of barnacles.

The students loved to find sea anemone. They could stick their fingers in the anemone’s mouth and feel its light suction. We had to constantly warn them to face the water and watch for incoming waves. Everyone got soaked to the skin before the day was over, but the soaking was worth the hand on experience that we received.

Thursday evening was our final campfire. Annie and the naturalists would go over the lessons that we had learned during the week. Then there would be the blazing fire and the quiet of the night. The naturalists would break into the quiet with campfire songs. I was always amazed at how well the naturalists could sing. And every year there was at least one guitar player or more. The students joined in with the singing with a lot more gusto than they showed the first night. They would be dismissed by cabin and our week was nearly over,

On Friday morning after our last breakfast, the students would put on little skits that they worked on by trail groups. Most of the skits would involve a conservation lesson. After the skits we would bid the naturalists good-bye and take our leave. There was hardly a dry eye on the bus as we pulled out of camp.

We were always amazed at how fast the week flew by. Almost every student had crammed in a wealth of knowledge and hands on experience. For many, it was the most memorable week of their elementary school years.