Expedition- Day 2

(Nothing much happened on August 13th, as we just drove to Jasper. So we're starting on Day 2)

August 14^th, 2010

The vehicle loaded with our stuff!

 

We started the big Jonas Pass trail today. We had to pack up our base camp and move vehicles to the ending trail-head, and so by the time we left the trail-head, it was 1300hrs. We hiked about 8 kms to the Poboktan Campground. The trail is a typical mountain trail, muddy, rooty and constantly going uphill!

 It follows Poboktan Creek almost all the way and so the sound of the water is always nearby.

We made it to camp in good time and had the whole evening to enjoy the campground. The creek nearby is lovely, and the perfect temperature for soaking my feet after a day of hiking as my Plantars Facisitis always makes them painful.

 Cooking supper.

Our campground is really quite nice. There are 4 tent pad sites, a main area with a fire pit, two picnic tables, a bear pole and a “green throne” privy” (I’ll explain just exactly what that is in another post. :P )

The bear pole consist of a wooden pole nailed horizontally between two trees, with four loops of wire hanging from it. On each line there are two clips, one at the top, one at the bottom. You clip your bag of food to the bottom clip, and use the pulley system to host it to the top. The (formerly) top clip is now at the bottom, where you can clip it to one of the trees, leaving your food hanging at the top. It’s a simple, but very effective system.

The bear pole at work.

Our camp.

These are our tents. They are very light, and very small. They fit two people. Just.

We spent the evening enjoying the creek, and planning out the next day, an as it was our first night on the trail, figuring out exactly all the things involved when we get to camp. 

Jasper Expedition- Prologue

So, this past August, I went on a backpacking trip to Jasper National Park with my Venturer group. Our Company had been together as a group for the past 4 years, and so this was the final trip as a group. We'd been working up to it for a long time, and so
we were as prepared as we were going to be.

Our timeline looked like this-

August 13- Drive
August 14-18- Jonas Pass trail
August 19- Rest day
August 20- Day hike
August 21- Small day hike and driving home.

I'm planning on posting one post per expedition day every now and then. So hope you enjoy!

When will this stop?

I have to get this out.

 Perhaps you’ve heard about the four teen suicides in the past 3 weeks. Haven’t heard of them?

“Tyler Clementi a freshman at Rutgers University jumped to his death last week off a bridge a day after authorities say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.
Seth Walsh, 13, committed suicide last week after years of being bullied. The police interviewed several of the students who teased Walsh but determined their actions did not constitute a crime, news reports say.
Asher Brown, also 13, shot himself after being harassed at his middle school in Houston. According to news reports, his parents said they had complained to the school authorities, but the bullying continued. The school reports that no complaints were made.
Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old in Indiana, hanged himself Thursday after being bullied. He never told anyone he was gay, but his classmates acknowledged that he was teased because students assumed he was.”

(quotation from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blogpost/2010/09/suicide_of_gay_teenagers_four.html)

But this really isn’t even a gay issue. It isn’t even just a youth issue. This is an issue, because people all over the world, (although especially young people), are being told, sometimes indirectly, that whoever they are, whether they’re black, white, gay, straight, male, female, Christian, Muslim, is wrong, that they don’t matter, that they are something that can be laughed at, something that doesn’t have to be taken seriously.

Who you are is NOT WRONG. I don’t care what your “friends”, adults, Churches, classmates tell you. You are NOT a mistake, and you are exactly what God wants you to be.

People notice little things. If you think that somebody isn’t going to notice being called a retard, faggot, nigger or slut, think again. Let’s step up to the plate here, and make a change.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to accomplish by writing this. Most of the people who are reading this probably aren’t guilty of intense bullying. But as long as we stand back, and take the attitude of “not my problem”, this problem will honestly be all of our problems.

Peace.
Daniel