By Craig Brinkerhoff
& Alok Ganguly
Staff Writers
On Wednesday, December 12th, several students who are part of Cirrus, the outdoor adventure club, went on their solo experience.
“The Cirrus solo is basically after we have done some other Cirrus events. People go out in the woods. We put them in the woods Wednesday evening and they are on their own, they build a shelter and they hang out in the woods until Saturday morning,” said math teacher Zachary Brumbaugh, the advisor of the club.
The kids also have no technology on their person, not even a flashlight.
“It’s an oppurtunity for people to be out in the woods and see what it is like to not have cell phones and people around you all the time,” said Brumbaugh.
The students are not completely alone, however. Student instructors and an adult supervisor are located in a rustic cabin nearby the spot of the solo camps. The supervisor checks on the students every two hours to make sure that they are safe.
Two freshmen, Carter Hill and Peter Trainor, went on their own solo trips recently.
Trainor’s first priority was to build a shelter. He found a log that was about twice his height and a Y shaped tree. The log needs to be leaned against the Y and then a tarp was draped over the log to create a shelter.
“It was pretty cold during the night. In the mornings, you just have to get up and start a fire,” said Hill.
They passed the time in different ways, from reflecting on life and reading books to whittling and meeting some wilderness critters.
“I met a porcupine, his name is Quimbly,” said Trainor.
In addition, they slept a lot during the trip, and their personal sleeping patterns were altered. They went to sleep when the sun set, around five P.M, and would wake up at midnight, unable to fall back asleep for the rest of the night.
“You just kind of sit there until sunrise,” said Hill.
The kids also did not have that much food. Some mints, two bagels, a bag of hot chocolate, and a bag of tea were all they had for the three days. They could provide peanut butter themselves if they desired.
Both Hill and Trainor agreed that the solo was worth experiencing, and that they plan to do it again in the spring.
“The solo is the graduation from the Cirrus program, but we start over in the spring,” said Brumbaugh.
