Outdoor Education During a Pandemic

I am an outdoor educator, during a pandemic, with a mandate to shelter in place. You can imagine that it would be difficult to find ways to stay relevant with my students and the defined outcomes of our outdoor leadership program.

In talking with other instructors I opened up a dialogue with my students to get their input on how to make this experience worthwhile. We settled on an experimental model where they can use a web interface to share the things they have been learning, link to resources they have found, add pictures, videos and texts, and then comment on. Turns out they wanted a blog. We can do that. So we set about create a blog structure in our LMS (Learning Management System... oh digital education you are so sexy.)

I created a page as well, to get in the spirit of things, and I realized how much I enjoy this medium. I have decided to also post my process here. Last week I listened to a podcast that made a strong case for documenting this time in our lives. In that light, I give you my first HREC 139 Outdoor Leadership and Ethics COVID19 Blog Post:

Wednesday April 8, 2020

A Brave New World Indeed

We just finished class and are trialing a new form of self directed learning. The goal is to take the work we are already doing for self study and improvement around the outdoor industry and compiling our learning into an editable Canvas Page blog for the students in our class. For this first post I want to identify my current search goals and link some things I have found and/or that are keeping me sane.

My search goals revolve around how we are recreating amidst COVID19, how to effectively teach outdoor skills in an online environment, and what other enthusiasts are doing/thinking about outside.

First, we are in week 3 of online learning and I have a new office helper:

He doesn't have a name yet because we have a 3 day rule for naming pets. At the animal shelter he was known as Hiccup.

Second, I saw a great post on the Gossamer Gear Blog, 25 Indoor Activities for Outdoorsy People During Self Quarantine It has some good ones. Gossamer Gear is an ultra light backpacking company so she is focused a lot on ultra light hiking concerns (like #2 Weigh EVERYTHING (it’ll help you make some gear list comparisons for your trips)) but there are some other great gems like #5, 8, 12, 16, 18 and more.)

I have been really interested in what This Guy has to say about recreating in the time of COVID in direct contrast with what my friends Sean and Paul are doing. I also respect what they have going on at the City, there mindset is to be low profile and self contained, enjoy remote work from their vans, and work hard projects.

One of our adjuncts, Jonathan Preuss, has a stellar personal website he uses to document his professional life at https://www.jpadventures.com/ I think this is an awesome way to present yourself to prospective employers and clients. As an up and coming outdoor professional you all could take control of your narrative and claim your place as a professional.

This is my first run at the blog and I would encourage everyone to give it a shot. You can see the discussion that led to this endeavor on this Canvas site under ZOOM-> Previous Recordings-> April 8th if you missed this session.

Feel free to edit this page and post comments below. Remember to own your edits by identifying yourself ;-)

Mike

A retrospective from 22 Hours Pre Smoke n' Fire

She'll be comin' 'round the corner when she comes. Race day is fast approaching. It's funny when I try to track back to when I committed to this race. I've come down to 3 specific instances. The first is sometime in January when I was building out the fall schedule and left an open weekend for September 12th-15th. That was the big move, creating an opportunity to race. I don't think I was committed then, more like interested and leaving my options open. But, had I not done that I wouldn't be sitting here with a pile of clothes, food, and gear in my living room.

The second instance is when my badass wife decided to run the Scout Mountain Ultra. When she started training in earnest it made this race seem like a no-brainer. At that point we were a couple with lofty endurance goals. Of course, Nat is way more disciplined and forward thinking than I am. I assure you she did not have a pile of gear, clothes and food in the living room the day before the race.

The third instance was mid June when I had the privilege of working a  NOLS course with Kait Boyle. Kait is a mountain biker. She rides her bikes fast and far. She, in fact, gets paid (not enough of course) to ride her bikes really fast for a really long time. I believe her title would be Professional Ultra-Endurance Mountain Bike Racer. It was serendipitous that I got to work with Kait for a lot of reasons, but in the context of that pile of clothes and gear in the next room she helped galvanize a vision for how I would actually do the thing. Over the course of a week, Kait helped me understand what it was I was actually going to attempt. She patiently answered my questions gear, food, mental planning, strategy, and training. Most importantly she made it seem like an event I could actually complete. By the end of our hiking course I had motivation and a training plan. Up until that point I had only a vague understanding of how I was going to get ready to ride.

Well, over the next 3 months I faithfully plodded along with the training plan, slowly acquiring bits and bobs to put on my bike and my person for this attempt. By the time school started I was a few weeks out, tired, and worried about getting sick. The last 3 weeks has been a balancing act of "cross training" on the river for classes, and trying to keep the fall sinus infection/cold train at bay. This put a major damper on my final ramp up/taper of the training plan, but I figured I wouldn't do anyone any good if I just imploded. So, here I sit on the eve of the race wondering if I put in enough time, if I am bringing too much gear, if I am not bringing enough gear, or if it doesn't matter because my body is going to self destruct either way.

I have been assured by people I trust that I am going to be fine. I bet they are right. There is a well established pattern of anxiety and stress before a trip that settles down once all the other options and responsibilities slip into the rear view as the trip commences. I am patiently looking forward to that sense of inevitability tomorrow as I roll down the Boise greenbelt in a pack of 60ish riders. If all else fails, I hear that the food is great out at Smoky Bar.

Mike

Smoke N' Fire 400

Training at the County Fair

The Smoke N' Fire 400 starts in one week. I am in preparation mode, and looking for a place to
chronicle the last week of bumbling around.

As it stands, I will be riding my incredibly durable and very heavy Surly Krampus. I find myself struggling with just how much storage to put on the bike. Long experience backpacking and traveling has taught me that I will fill any space that I have so I might as well limit my options.

The Steed

The race started calling to me a few years ago. I was camped on the Payette River outside of Garden Valley. Three bikers came rolling into our campsite at dusk. Being a social creature and a lover of bikes I ambled over to the water spigot and chatted them up. They had just descended the pass from Lowman  and were looking at the last arduous leg of their ride. It turns out they were racing the Smoke n Fire and were in 8th, 9th, and 10th place respectively. They were covered in dirt and ash, obviously exhausted and strangely exhilarated. I watched them roll out of camp down to Garden Valley and the Subway. I had no idea what they were doing but I marked it as something to look up later.

Idaho is covered in potato fields. Potatoes everywhere. Nothing but potatoes, except a few meager creases that have some water, and some topography. There are even a few hot springs in far flung corners of the state. It is a rather dull state what with all of the potatoes. That being said a few optimistic souls have tried to spice it up a little bit. Some of these souls are cyclists and they made a little loop that follows some water, climbs some of the meager topography and connects a few hot springs. As these things go, someone else decided to set up a race to see how fast they could ride the loop, thus the Smoke n' Fire. Those riders I saw that night were trying to squeeze some excitement out of the dull, repetitive nature of Idahos potato country. Now, 2 years later I am going to try the same.

Winter Wonderland

I started "training" in January when I set the goal of riding my bike to school once a week for the spring semester. This was one of those masochistic goals that catches on when you are warm, dry, and rested, often drinking something delicious and relaxed. I believe these impulses come from the lizard brain deep inside us that is primed for terror and discomfort. My theory is that this part of our brain is bored. The rest of our more developed reasoning skills are engaged in enjoying the warmth and delicious drinks and while the lizard brain quietly goes about its work. Before you know it, you have turned to a few friends and confidants and made some comment that you can't in good faith un-say like "I think it would be a good idea to start doing a winter bike commute to work" these friends might get concerned and say something like "but the road is pretty dangerous!" "oh! No! who would ride the road? I am going to ride into the canyon, then out the other side. I'll call it the Rim to Rim commute, it will be great..." And then you're stuck. It has a name, you have to do it.

Route Map from the Smoke n' Fire 400 Website

This early training was perfect. It was cold, wet, dark, difficult, and no one really cared. Great training for an even more audacious effort. The lizard brain had me. Before long I was telling friends, confidants, complete strangers about this race I was going to do. 400ish miles, no support, no entry fees, and 1000's of feet of climbing. What could go wrong?

Lucky for me, I met a few friends this summer that got me pointed in a more coherent training trajectory. I have a training plan, I have some sort of a game plan, I have a goal, and I have a loving wife who would prefer to funnel resources to an ill-conceived endurance race as long as it increases my chances of living forever.

So, here I sit in a coffee shop, avoiding actual work, typing up my thoughts pre-race, on a blog that has not been updated in 5 years.

Sometimes we are just drawn to exercises in futility, perpetual Don Quixote-esque quests, tilting at our windmills.  But to document is a way of making sense of the world. I won't make any promises, but stay tuned for more.

Mike

I lost a friend, mentor and uncle

Yesterday, I woke up to the news. I was flat, it didn't click. "Your Uncle Robert passed away this morning from a heart attack..." Ok, shit, well, shit.
I didn't know what to do with it. Uncle Robert is always there for me to call when Lola won't start. He's always at the house when I come to San Antonio. He's the guy to call when you need a last minute limo for a bachelor party. He taught me how to ski. He is my youngest uncle. We look so much alike at times it's scary. I can't complain he was a good looking man. He was always smiling, always good for a laugh.

So what do you do with that news? What can you do. You do the only sane thing, walk into the kitchen, start grinding coffee, then curl up on the couch and cry, in huge racking fits. Because, well, shit what else can you do? I loved that man. I always assumed I would see him again, I used to joke about being next in line for his bus if he ever died, it's not funny any more. I'd much rather have him here. I don't cry much, Natalie had never actually seen me cry until yesterday, then it happened twice. The second time was when my sweet mom called me and neither one of us could hold it together, I almost wrecked the car. Good thing Natalie is asleep now, or she would have seen me crying again. If you see someone cry three times, then it is an expected response. Lucky for me she's asleep.

Robert loved cars. We both love cars. More specifically we love Volkswagens. Sure he had a Porsche he was redoing, the occasional Beamer in the yard, I think there was an old MG and he always asked me if that little hunk of metal under the tarp on 7th was an old Mini (editors note I think it was an early Honda) but his pride and joy was "my bus." I have Lola, he had his bus. We love our old, finicky, beautiful cars. We loved talking about them, dreaming about next steps, showing them to people, even occasionally working on them. I always new I could call Uncle Robert, with no pre-amble, without talking for months, and get straight to car talk "Mikey what's happening?" "Oh no much, so Lola won't turn left when it's raining..." and off we'd go, long distance shop talk. I can't tell you how many times that happened.I'm going to miss him.
Uncle Robert was a pivotal figure in my life. He loved his family so much, and we are all reeling with the loss. I'm going to miss him.

.settling...eventually.

mike has come and left again since the last post.  it was so good to have him here, to have home.  we love it.  his course in wyoming with NOLS went splendidly, and he is now kayaking and rafting in Utah with the school until the beginning of september.  autumn is shaping up to be busy in the youngster world.  mike will head out mid sep to austin to pick up the rest of our stuff, we'll take a trip or two to "city of rocks" to soak in the gorgeous climbing weather then off to yosemite in october for what is guaranteed to be one of the best open elopements i've EVER had the pleasure of crashing (thx jersey and becky) ......

on the home front, i finish orientation with the hospital this week and move to nights!  as a researcher, I have fully informed myself of all the tips of owning your circadian rhythm, surviving and yes, even enjoying, the life of a night shift worker. I s'pose the trick tends to be nutrition, routine, discipline and a happy heart.  those things, i can do. the perks? higher pay, slower pace and breakfast for dinner . . . . always.  i would love to hear wisdom and victories from other night shift workers. keep the negatives, though - i need all the help i can get :)

In the in between, there has been compost building, cucumber pickling, pesto canning, bread making, car fixing, trail running, owl watching, friend making, music listening, job learning, adventure planning, curtain sewing, coffee drinking, spouse cuddling and dream mapping. life is good here in twin falls, idaho . . . . . mikeynat

"climb the mountains, and get their good tidings."

- john muir

twin falls, idaho

the mrs. here. 

you can usually tell me by my lack of capital letters, overuse of commas, love of ellipsis (look it up, i won't tell) and pensive statements or dramatic quotes (usually involving adventure, simplicity, wanting to be home but never wanting a home . . . yada, yada, yada ......) guilty as charged.

i find myself in twin falls, idaho, with mike in the field as an instructor with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).  he's been gone for three weeks now, with two to go.  just as with all other courses, we have no contact except for the letters i so eagerly receive mailed to me from the ration planes, donkeys or bears that visit him on the course (ok, not bears).  this has made relocation to the US and settling in idaho quite interesting.  he is guiding in the Wyoming Wilderness and i am starting my new position as an ICU Registered Nurse at St. Luke's Medical Center. Idaho has blown me away, and will continue to do so i am sure.  between the beautiful people, winding trails, rushing waters, small town charm, endless fields and rugged mountains..... i believe we have decades of adventure to be had in this grossly underrated state.

from our cross country travel of Australia to the relocation across the United States, with so many unknowns, it feels good to be here.  i have recently moved us in to a charming two bedroom, one bath home on endless acres of farmland about 20 minutes outside of town, with mike joining me this week.  the space generously provides us with kind neighbors, room for chickens, gardens, baking, creating, canning, preserving, slack lining and hammock napping - all thanks to the generosity of beautiful friends.  i will post images soon, but you can also find us on instagram as @mikeynat ........

welcome to our adventure.  never neglect your own,

nat

Treking in the Van Down Under

Ausralia

Vanlife

For the last five months we have been traveling around Australia farming, fishing, diving, hiking, climbing, and sailing. Our travels have taken us from the south coast of Tasmania to the Northeast coast of Queensland. We've documented the trip through photos on Instagram @mikeynat though we have neglected the blog.

Climbing Mt. Arapiles

 In July we will be returning to the US, I have picked up a contract with NOLS in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Nat is in the process of applying for nursing jobs, there is a real possibility that I will go into the field not knowing where I will be returning to until I get back out.

Catchin' Sharks

On our travels we have met some amazing people and been recipients of bottomless hospitality. We've come to appreciate the value of a good meal and a welcoming home and look forward to sharing our home and table as we return.

As always, you can contact us through our Facebook, this blog, Instagram, or email. We hope everything is well in your world. Share a laugh, share a meal, and sit on your porch.

Byron Bay Sand Art

Love
Mike y Nat

Cold casa greetings

Hanging at Ma Young's Boarding House until the weather stops chilling out...

From the Mountains to the Furnace

I just rolled in from the Wind River mountain range in Wyoming where I taught a 30 day wilderness backpacking course for the National Outdoor Leadership School. We had a great course and I think the Winds is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever traveled through, with giant granite cliffs, high mountain lakes and wildflowers everywhere. 

The students were great and we ticked off 110 miles of hiking. We summited Wind River peak and Mount Victor, crossed the continental divide at Hailey pass and navigated a variety of lesser peaks, passes, and drainages. We saw a few moose, several deer, a set of bear tracks, and a heck of a lot of trout. We got rained on occasionally, but no snow. 

The mountain lakes were absolutely perfect and we swam in our fare share of them. Most of the lakes were full of trout and our course greatly improved our fly fishing success rate over the course. By the time we got to the last lake we were eating more fish for dinner than the food we brought with us!

I am home with my beautiful wife now, relaxing after a day of diving at Lake Travis. She is getting geared up to be a certified diver so we can take the Great Barrier Reef by storm in a few months. Life is speeding up since we decided to head out on a Great American Roadtrip in October. Stay tuned for a new Rosie ad coming up!

Mike

.onward.

it has been quite a while since our last update. the past year has been intense, but beautiful.  we have moved into the back half of a duplex in ATX with our pup and a wonderful roommate named merrell.  our dear rosie's being primped up to sell and we're moving on.  she is a beautiful part of our family and we're excited to see where this next step takes her and whose life she'll influence

as for the youngsters?  onward.  we have been approved for working holiday visas to the great country of australia beginning in january.  the initial length of visa is one year, with room to reevaluate after that.  nat has courses lined up for scuba certification this summer, so she can join mike in all the radness, as well as applied for her AUS nursing license as an option.

until then?  until then, mike will be headed to wyoming to instruct a backpacking/flyfishing course with the National Outdoor Leadership School during June and July.  he is then hoping to take part in a canoeing seminar to be setup for possible employment with NOLS australia as a guide, once down under.  nat's continuing her work as a nurse with St David's Physical Rehab Hospital, and adoring it, while atlas mostly sleeps.





we'l be keeping news/events/goodness posted here for the viewing, enjoy!

all our love,
the youngsters

L.E. Taylor

i have been most fortunate over the past few years to have the opportunity to meet, know, love and invest in individuals with intensely fertile talent. one such source of talent has been ms. L.E. Taylor of denton, tx. lauren has been a dear friend and subject of my admiration for some time. her voice and unity with instruments brings about peace in her listeners and a strange craving for a cold glass of fresh squeezed lemonade and lush fields of green.

enjoy . . . nry

Road Trip

Natalie and I are winding down a huge 5 week 7000 mile road trip from Austin, Texas through southern California to Seattle, Washington and back home. We visited 5 different national parks, 9 states and over 20 friends along the way. I feel like it happened in the blink of an eye but here we find ourselves on the tail end looking back.
Maybe over the next few days I will try to write up some short posts on highlights of the trip, for now I am just happy to be reunited with Atlas after his adventures with Ma and Pa Young. The poor pup was un-invited from the trip after we realized that most of the national parks prefer that dogs don't go into the backcountry. He is in good spirits and ready to go home tomorrow.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the weather.

love
mike y nat

The Statesman loves Rosie

For Those out there on the web who didn't stumble across a facebook link to the Article we were interviewed last month by Nancy Flores with the Austin American Statesman. Nancy wrote a great little article about our home for the life and style section of the paper complete with pictures by Ralph Barrera. The online version can be found here with a photo gallery here.

I get fascinated with the web and how stories spread, but in deference to my wife won't go through and talk about where the story has popped up except to mention that it got picked up by a blogger who appears to be located in Malaysia.

Thank you all for your interest in our life and the kind words of support we have gotten from everyone. The neatest part of the whole experience for me is seeing how many friends in distant places have stumbled upon the story and contacted us. We love you all.

peace love and old buses
m y n

"Rosie": for Natalie and Michael

Steven Wilbur is a slam poet, teacher, and musician in Seattle Washington. He is also a longtime friend of one Natalie R.W. Young and consequently now one of my favorite people. This is most relevent to the blog because he gave a toast at our wedding in the slam poetry style that blew me away. Luckily for everyone, we got to have lunch with him last week in Seattle and subsequently got a copy of the poem. So, without further adieu, Mr. Steven Wilbur...

"Rosie"

a wedding poem by: Steven Wilbur

"Love is a rusty red school bus named Rosie.

At first glance, you doubt a commercial drivers license

could prepare anyone to drive this colossus.

It’s scorn for tight corners and parking garages

cased in loudest forty feet in the county, and while you could turn back,

you’ve always been homesick

for wide open spaces,

and

Michael, in the morning light, Natalie is a refined silver key,

blinding you with hope of her years.

Natalie, Michael is a gallon of gas, which is to say,

potential waiting for a spark, waiting

for you,

and together you say to the knowing wind, let’s see how far we can go.

The door folds open like a page,

The furniture knows your names,

The steering wheel speaks in a tongue you barely understand.

Rosie says allons-y, which, in English, means, go.

She says,

The bold brazen way

a bus opens its throttle,

sings the highway’s songs,

and raindrops leave home,
oak seeds dare to become - this

is the way you love.

which is reassuring to you, because if love were a bus,

that bus would certainly write haiku poems about love.

Your hands folded in an allegory for aspen groves

around the wheel, you will drive

to Maine in the fall,

to Ketchikan (which is impossible)

And you will wake up

in Kansas beneath electric skies,

in Austin to seven hundred pedestrians.

You will take them to God. You will take them to their fathers.

You will wake up in towns you never intended, knowing

this means that you are in Rosie, which is to say,

in love,

you will plant a seed in the ground,

hold each other like home

within the infinite symmetry of your rings.

You will drive across three state lines on empty,

write rivers into the desert.

You will learn cacti pour themselves out

for anyone brave enough;

you are brave enough.

On the days you’re not, you know a

Mechanic who splits his time between Jupiter

and Abilene and where you are

who is,

and you may wake up to envy scrawled in paint cans. You might have to

push-start Rosie when the engine is tired,

and it might take all your friends.

You may find yourself West-Texas-stranded twenty miles from the nearest gas,

cooled in the shadow of your love before you walk

400,000 steps with the best definition of beauty you’ve found.

Trial may disintegrate the tires into flames, rocketing both of you

through those windows like the eyes of your youth.

There on the pavement, blood-and-gravel-toothed, you

will stand and stare down that axle, shouting,

I have come this far.

Not even death could make me look back.

But after that moment

you might ask, Do I have something in my teeth?

because you do, and the pavement peppering

your smile is the fabric of songs

sweeter than any engine hum or cicada symphony or pine

after the rain.

O the magnificent songs you’ll sing

with gravel in your mouths."

. . . thank you, steven

<3 mikeYnat

Pictures from the Road

Hey all, we are starting week three on the road in beautiful Joshua Tree National Park. We started with some hiking in Big Bend, climbing in Red Rocks Nevada, driving (and some short hikes (and Christmas!)) in Death Valley and now climbing in Joshua Tree! I am going to throw some pictures up and let them speak for themselves (1000 words and all of that.)

And the Dog has a Vest

This little number was dogified by my beautiful wife N Are Dub, and is all the rave in pup circles this year. It helps him sleep.

.and.we're.off.

an evening of stove-top chai, experimenting with the possibilities available to one living in a metal home (SO rad by the way), tent repair, conversation and puppy coat sewing (he's about to embark on a month long winter climbing trip, cut us some slack) has brought us to a lovely and much welcomed end to the fall semester. new to rosie is a 6x6 foot magnetic fabric insulation partition that separates the living space from the bedroom space. the idea is that it is much easier and more efficient to heat half of a bus than a whole bus . . . turns out we were right. the winter has come on suddenly to the ATX area, but we refuse to be caught off guard. in addition to the cozy partition is the seasonal insulation sheet window blockers on the windows surrounding the bedroom. it also turns out that a dozen windows in a 100 square foot metal space during 30 degree temperatures doesn't help with heat retention either. good thing the mr. is a genius and had us warm and frost tight in no time. thanksgiving was a most gorgeous occasion at the m&n young abode, complete with approximately 25 tabletop feet cram packed with sweet and savory goodness, and family from all angles

having the honor of hosting two thanksgivings in our mere year of being together has most certainly contributed to my deep appreciation of the dynamics and richness of the crew and how well they function as one even if they don't always see it. my mother fit in perfectly, as she always does, and pie and music were had well into the night. with life overflowing and bellies almost as full, we are grateful beyond words

















this next week will find us dehydrating food, sorting gear and wrapping up life in rosie until mid january. the youngsters3 are headed to washington to scope out possibilities for the future - by way of big bend, red rocks and joshua tree, ca.




- warmth, spice and dreams run wild-

blessings from our home to yours,
mYn

from our bus to . . . . yours?

i am so very proud to have the honored title of guest blogger this week as we prepare for a beautiful thanksgiving celebration, the end of a school semester and the beginning of an epic winter break road trip. our days have been filled with friends, food, new family additions (miss jolene "cutie patootie puppy" walsh) and tying up small projects, including th

e exciting resurrection of our little "puch" moped, moshibby.

I have begun flirting with the art of aerial dancing thanks to our dear and talented friend, susan harkey, and mike is continuing on his journey

learning the ins and outs ofsolar energy, the mastery of electricity and green living.

we have most recently remembered a sorely missed brother, stewart jason wofford, on his birthday - welcomed a new little cousin, natalie claire marlow, into our family - and said goodbye to a beloved and magical grandmother, mary sue wofford, as she joins her cherished husband (our granfather) eddie louis wofford. its most certainly a time of beginnings, memories and endings . . .strengthening, stretching and adventure.

thank you for your love - you have ours

la paz, el amor y la familia,

nry

(our beautiful friend, mackenzie rollins, has finished our wedding photos! they can be viewed @ mackenzierollins.com, go to client proofing, password:young . . . enjoy!!)