The Rising Hawks Snowshoeing Trip to Mt.Washington!

The Rising Hawks (full-time blended learning program, ages 12-15) EPIC snowshoeing trip to Mt.Washington!

We got up early, ate breakfast, packed our lunches + prepped for day of snowshoeing. It was -8C on the mountain + we were all bundled up as we started our hike from Raven Lodge to Lake Helen Mackenzie. There was 13 inches of fresh snow which made for a winter wonderland!

We hiked through the forest on backcountry trails, being careful for tree wells. We were unusually quiet while hiking, giving a lot of space for silence, observation + awareness of our surroundings. When we stopped for a break, some Whisky Jacks (AKA Grey Jays) visited us, which clearly had been well trained in the art of getting people to feed them. We had a lot of fun putting our palms up with little nuts or bits of crackers for the birds to land + eat them.

We finished the last part of our hike to the lake (about 1.5hrs one way) + as we got there, one of the teens invited us to notice how silent it was. This was a highlight moment of soaking in the white abyss of silence all around us... We ate lunch + wandered around the frozen lake; playing + laughing, while digging into the snow + falling face first into the snow. We could have stayed there for hours, but we had to make it back in time to return the rentals.

The next day we drove to Nymph Falls, where we did some tracking + played in the snow. We tracked mice, squirrels + small birds. We climbed large fallen logs, wandered in the forest, built mini snowmen at the side of the river + kept going on side quests that caught our curiosity. Afterwards, we went to Simms Park in Courtney with the intention to build a snow shelter, but we ended up having a riot sliding down the toboggan hill on garbage bags! Back at the house, we did school work + had an easy going evening: hot tubbing + watching Monty Python + the Holy Grail.

On the last day of our trip, we shared gratitude + recounted our story of the whole trip. Then we did 20 mins of writing about our experiences before starting our trip home with a quick stop in Duncan for a snowball fight... What a magical few days with this awesome group of teens!