Part 1
June 10, 2010
This starts the beginning of my summer adventure. Today we arrived at “Screaming Eagle” Zip Line tours at three in the afternoon. We geared-up and set off for a course of rope bridges and 1500ft long zip lines.
At first the zip lines were short and not as scary as one would expect but after passing over a few bridges and average zip lines we came to “Big Daddy” which is a zip line that lives up to its name. Lets just say it was intense.
I am not one who is afraid of heights but if I were the guides would defiantly make me feel more comfortable. The group we went with was also very friendly. Everyone worked together to get every last person across the course. All in all it was a beautiful view, with a river below and the sky above it was by far a great start to my adventurous summer.
June 11, 2010
Day two in adventure land began with an early start at 7:30 in the morning. We all got our daypacks ready with first aid, water, and the other 10 essentials. We drive out to our starting point and began our 7mile hike. During the hike one of our adults fractured his elbow but we kept on trekking. We started at the bottom of the first mountain. We traveled through 7miles and three peaks of pure wilderness. There were no guides on this adventure we were on our own. We finished in record time. Exhausted and sore we went to eat then headed back for rest and sleep.
June 12, 2010
Tubing was on our schedule for day 3. We all got into our swimsuits and headed for “Cool River Rapids” in Helen Georgia. When we arrived we all picked out our tubes and headed to the river. Without thinking I plopped down into my bottomless tube. The water was freezing and the river bottom was rocky. The crew made out way down the river. It was a blast getting stuck and waiting for someone to float by so you could stick out your foot and be dragged out of your sticky situation. Halfway down the river we made a stop off at a water slide. When we were down with tubing we explored Helen, which is a German community, we ate wings and stop in many German shops.
Part 2
July 21, 2010
I arrived at Fort AP Hill for the Boy Scout National Jamboree. My crew and I were some of the few staff to show up that early for the Jamboree. Men from the army, for safety precautions, searched our car when we first got there. We then went through check in and received all our information. The tents we slept in were like nothing I have ever seen. They were huge army tents that fit up to ten cots. I set up my cot and trunk and headed to the venturing exhibit were I was going to work for the next two weeks. At the venturing exhibit I was immediately put to work.
July 21 (afternoon)-July 25,2010
For these three and a half days I was working hard. The venturing exhibit was in charge of building an entire western town and mine. I built walls to buildings, roofs, and much more. I painted a spinning tunnel and made it rain in a huge semi truck. Within these days I met everyone I was going to be working with. I met people from everywhere in the United Sates. Washington and California to Kentucky and Michigan, I made many friends. Though it was hard work it was extremely fun building a town from scratch. On Sunday we were finally finished building. It was amazing to see what everyone accomplished and I was proud to say I was pack of the building processes.
July 26, 2010
Today was arrival day for all the scouts coming to Jamboree. I woke up bright an early put on my class A and got prepared to greet thousands of scouts. The line of cars was unbelievable. What had been empty fields, since Wednesday, was now completely filled with tents and scouts. I stood in a sea of Boy Scouts screaming about how amazing our venturing exhibit was and how they should go visit it. I met scouts from England and Scotland. Jamboree was officially started.
July 27- August 4, 2010
At the venturing exhibit I spent many days dressed as a girl from the western era telling everyone what venturing was and how they could join. We had horse races on enormous blow up horses. We had night vision shooting and a mine that led to “the center of the earth”.
On Tuesday the 27th the Jamboree had its first arena show. There was army men jumping from planes and doing rifle tricks. We heard of the many events that were going to be offered. There was repelling, mountain boarding, zip lining, an Indian village, scuba, and so much more.
Wednesday 28 and Sunday 1 at night there was an Indian pow wow that I participated in. I dance Fancy Shaw, which is a form of women’s Indian dance. There were so many dancers that the arena was full. By ten at night I was drenched in sweat and ready for bed.
Saturday 31 there was another arena show. This show was the big one. It was during the night and there was a beautiful firework show. There were three bands there one of the being Switch Foot. Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” was there. He gave an amazing speech about how being in scouts got him to where he was today. Some WWE fighters were there and also two guys from the TV series “Survivor”. The show was so massive it blew my mind.
In the end we had about 45,000 or more scouts come through the venturing exhibit alone. There were about 90,000 scouts all together. This trip was defiantly a trip of a lifetime.
August 5- August 9
On the way home from Jamboree my crew stopped by Tennessee. Went to the world’s longest yard sale. This thing had anything your can think of. We also went canoeing and kayaking on a small river near where we were camping in Tennessee.
By the 9th I was ready to be home and relax. I will never forget this trip and I am so lucky to have gone on it. Thank you again for this scholarship that made this trip possible for me to attend.
The 2010 recipient winner was Jacklyn Bickford
she was presented the scholarship on Tuesday May 25, 2010
by Emilie Jones, Troy's stepsister.
We can't wait to hear her report and see photos of her adventure.
Good luck and have fun.
The slide show is from the NHS awards night
___________________________________________________________________
Julia Szilagyi was the 2009 & second winner, here is her story.
On Ice
by
Julia Szilagyi
To read this story when posted in a local paper click here
JULY 11-12, 2009
It was 11:30 p.m. in
Anchorage, Alaska, when I walked off the plane. At home it’d be 3:30 a.m. and I
was officially tired of traveling. Total travel time: 13 hours. Total delay
time: about 4 hours. Exhausted was an understatement.
As I retrieved my luggage and
looked for a place to sleep for the night, I caught a glare off the airport
windows. Sun? I knew that during summer the state saw 24 hours of sunlight, but
I didn’t expect it to be this bright. It was practically dawn! I quickly turned
away, trying to convince myself that this was somewhat normal. A few minutes
later I found a comfy, four-seat, plastic bench conveniently located across
from the men’s bathroom and attempted to fall sleep. I failed.
At 7:30 a.m. I was picked up
by a shuttle that was heading to Talkeetna, a little town about three hours
north of Anchorage, which is where the Alaska Mountaineering School
headquarters was located. We arrived at about 11 a.m., I met a guy named Tom
who was also on my trip to the Eldridge Glacier, and we hung around the town
all day. That night I stayed in a small bed and breakfast where I got my own
room and everything.
Even with the comfortable
isolation I could barely sleep; my nerves were getting the best of me. In 24
hours I’d be living on a glacier.
Oh, P.S. I’ve only seen
snow four times. What was I thinking?
July 13: Leaving Day
No phone, no Internet, no
communication with the outside world for 12 whole days. For a teenager of my
generation this wasn’t even comprehensible. I couldn’t stop crying. I had to
clean up quick and get downstairs by 9 a.m., which is when one of my guides,
Leighan, came to take me away for what would seem like a lifetime. I could
handle the phone, Internet deal. But not being able to talk to my mom, dad, or
anyone at all was going to be rough. I took a deep, reassuring breath and
headed toward the school.
9 a.m. — Arrive at Alaska Mountaineering
School, meet fellow climbers and guides (eight climbers including myself, three
guides). Check equipment, rent lots of equipment, pack equipment into too-small
pack. I am the youngest on the trip. Yikes?
11:30 a.m. — Prepare ropes, carabiners (the
spring-locked loops that connect components in safety systems) and other
climbing equipment. Learn how to ascend out of a crevasse (a large, deep gap in
glacial ice) in case I ever fall in unexpectedly. Start hyperventilating.
12:30 p.m. — Lunch. The most normal part of my
day.
3:30 p.m. — Arrive at airport
4:30 p.m. — Fly out of Talkeetna into the Alaska
Range. As soon as I saw the mountains, my nerves faded away. The most beautiful
sights I’ve ever seen, hands down.
5 to 8 p.m. — Set up camp on Eldridge Glacier,
surrounded by mountains. Complete with four tents, three kitchen tents, and two
bathrooms. It took so long because we had to carve everything out of snow and
ice: The tables, the seats, everything. It was astounding.
8:30 p.m. — All-camp dinner cooked over portable
gas stoves, pasta with melted cheese and pieces of salmon. It works.
11:30 p.m. — Bedtime
1:30 a.m. July 14 — Wake up in panic mode, wondering why
I am so cold and have so many layers on. Then I remember. Fall back to sleep.
JULY 14-15, 2009
Getting up there
On day one of our peak
ascents, we broke into three rope teams and belayed each other up the mountain
next to our camp site. Everything is so large that when something seems close,
trust me, it’s not. It took us around two hours to get to the top, where there
was a somewhat sturdy rock face for us to rest on. The view was incredible. You
know those backdrops in movies that look too good to be true? Well, these were
quite true indeed. We could see mountains for miles. The mountain on the other
side had a 3,000-foot drop that I wasn’t too keen on seeing, so I just took in
the beautiful view ahead of me and it was no problem at all.
Day two was a gorgeous one as
well, so we roped up again and headed down the glacier toward a huge bowl in
the mountains. The only problem was that this bowl was full of large, deep,
undetectable crevasses and our guides had no problem taking chances. Great. It
took around two hours to get there as well, probing the snow along the way just
in case. We finally found a “good” crevasse — one we could repel into. As some
of us set up the anchors, the others got their harnesses and ropes on, ready to
go down.
After witnessing a few of my
peers try their luck, I decided to go down. Getting over the ledge was the most
exhausting/heart-pumping part of the whole endeavor. As soon as I, well,
slipped over the ledge, the descent became easy. Until Brock, a fellow climber,
held onto the rope so tightly that it became a zip line and he raced down to
the bottom. At that point, I began my way back up.
By this time in the trip, I
had acquired about five nicknames: Florida, youth, high school, frosh and
Naples. By the end of the trip I didn’t even respond to Julia anymore.
July 16
Made my first snowman, snow
angel and had a snowball fight. The weather was crappy so the group dedicated
the day to my acclimation to the snow. Great success.
July 17
Whiteout — where up, down,
left and right is completely white. No sense of direction = no traveling.
July 18
We moved camp a little down
glacier. The sun was up, all day long! On a glacier you forget how much you
enjoy warmth. Just kidding — you don’t at all. That’s all I would crave.
That day we went to the
noonatak, a large rock that juts right into the middle of the glacier. It was a
pretty steep climb and we were surrounded by crevasses so any slip was kind of
risky. We made it to the top, though, and hung around there for a long time. We
found a small pond full of freshwater and filled our water bottles with the
delicious liquid. Later we hiked towards this large ice amphitheater and our
guides taught us how to ice-climb! We used picks and we were tied up to another
person so if we fell they could catch us. The wall was about 50 feet high. It
was a busy day but it went by pretty quickly.
When we got back to camp, I
attempted to run my fingers through my hair. But then I decided that maybe I’d
just wait until we got back to civilization for any kind of self-primping.
July 20
On this day, rock climbing
was on the schedule, but it went from sunny to snowy in all of about 10
seconds. We ended up hiking anyway, the most difficult hike of the trip. We
snowshoed our way up this hill going back and forth so as to not find any
crevasses. There was another rock face a little ways away so we went there,
too. It began to snow and white out so we were stranded for a while there. It
was pretty when it cleared though. I couldn’t get used to where I was,
everything was so big and just looked so calm. After a solid four hours, we
went back down to camp.
July 21
We moved camp back up
glacier. It snowed insanely the next day. I like to compare the weather on the
glacier to that of Naples. You wake up to tons of sunshine and the promise of a
gorgeous day, then out of nowhere, BAM! — rainstorm. Except that instead of
rain, it’s sideways snow and wind chills at about 18 degrees. Not so tolerable.
July 22
Not great climbing weather at
all this day, but because it was so close to the end of the trip, my guides
decided to go out anyway. I’m telling you, fearless. Our plan was to climb a
large, volcano-like mountain that was a little bit away from our campsite. The
way up took forever. Three and a half hours twisting and turning so as to not
hit any crevasses or unsettled snow packs that could cause avalanches.
Our journey was not a calm
one. The wind was fiercely forcing us around. It could easily knock you off
your path. The snow was coming in at every direction and so our vision wasn’t
very great. Eventually we reached a summit, we aren’t sure if it was the one we
were aiming for, and rested there for a while. It was a complete whiteout and
everyone was miserable. We decided to 86 the rest of the journey and headed
back down the slope.
I was voted to lead us back
to camp, which seemed easy at first, until the snow started pelting my eyes and
the only way to find the path we took before was to look for any snowshoe track
or ski pole divot and follow that as far as I was able. Eventually we made it
back, though, in half the time and without everyone freezing their tookuses
off. One day left. Insane.
July 23
It was time for our 2009
Summer Winter Olympics. Team Noonatak (boo) vs. Team Cider House Rules
(woohoo!). We chose Cider House Rules because we really, really liked the apple
cider that we were given for our hot drinks. We even bargained some of our
bacon just for four extra cider packets. It was a good deal. Anyway, we
competed in eight events including avalanche beacon search, glacier trivia and
hot cocoa making, which I won because I added a peppermint for style points.
Not too shabby.
July 24
We were scheduled to fly out
at 10 a.m. The weather was horrible the whole entire day so there was no window
for the air service to come get us. Many of us played cards, built snow
shelters (similar to igloos), or slept, hoping the weather would break. It
never did.
July 25
The weather was horrible in
the morning again, so we decided to go sledding! The whole day was just
miserable, and I had to catch a flight that same night. I was freaking out. I
remember thinking I was never getting off this glacier. I fell asleep, just
like the rest of camp.
At 3:45 p.m. we were awoken
by one of our guides, Melis. There was a break in the weather and the air
service would be here soon. We had to break down camp, immediately, or else
we’d have to stay longer. Needless to say, we all jumped to our feet and got to
work
The air service arrived at
around 4:15 p.m., we hopped on the planes, and flew back home. The pilots told
us that if we hadn’t called at that time, we might not have been picked up for
another three days due to bad storms coming through.
Oh, Mother Nature. How I
respect you so.
This adventure was one I will
truly never forget. In some people’s lifetimes they never see the things I
have, and I am forever grateful to have been able to experience it firsthand.
Most, if not all, of my
gratitude goes towards the Troy Goode foundation, which funded my entire trip
and honestly changed my life forever with this journey.
If anyone ever gets the
chance to just get out there and see the world that you haven’t yet seen, do
it.
The world is ours for the
taking.
How
to build an igloo
The quite
simple and watered-down version
Materials:
Shovel, ice ax, hands.
1 Use the
shovel to dig a small, somewhat deep trench around the area where you want the
igloo to be.
2 Use the
shovel again to scoop off any powdery, soft snow off of the plateau you formed
and throw it to the side.
3 The ice slab
in front of you should be about 2 feet high, 2 feet in width, and how ever long
you want, depending on the size of the structure you want to build.
4 Use the ice
ax to cut the slab.
5 Then place
the ice ax on top, starting at one side, and mark off where the ice ax ends.
That’s how wide each ice cube should be.
6 Slice where
the marks are all the way to the bottom and take each cube out.
7 Start by
placing the cubes in a circle, leaving a space for an entrance. Make sure the
cubes are tilted in a little bit.
8 Place the
cubes on top of each other with them angled so that they progressively get
tighter to the center.
9 Place snow in
the cracks so the blocks are touching each other.
10 Voilá! Step inside
your igloo
In this photo we are moving camp from down glacier back up, which explains the sled. The climber shown is another girl on my trip named Julia. We had to be on rope teams belaying each other everywhere so as to not fall into any unseen crevasses. Julia Szilagyi
This photo
was taken at camp during the first week of being on the glacier, and
it was
probably the only time anyone ever saw me without my hood up and zipped.
The
sun was out so I was incredibly happy. Typical Florida girl. Julia Szilagyi
On the second day of the trip, our guides decided to hike to this snow field surrounded by mountains about a mile away from camp. They found the "perfect crevasse" to repel into in that field. Don't let the smile fool you, I was scared to death. The crevasse was about 40 feet deep and about 5 or 6 feet wide. Julia Szilagyi
Our camp down
glacier getting hit with a splash of sunshine. The sun usually wouldn't show
itself until late night so when it was out, as you can see, we made it a group
ritual to just stand there and let it hit us. Julia Szilagyi
The inaugural winner and 2008 recipient was Kyle Roesser.
