BOSS Day 1
Note: I've linked to photos and sites throughout the writeup, so you can tell what pics go with what places, etc.
So finally, the great BOSS write up begins.
On the 9th of June I headed out to Salt Lake City by way of Detroit AND Minneapolis. Thank you, Northwest. Fortunately all my luggage/gear made it out there with me, and I had little trouble getting myself to my shuttle to Provo.
I scooted on down there (with some guy and another girl about my age who was going to BOSS for the 28 day field course. Yipes. She'd still be on it as I write this now... We arrived in Provo around 9, and there were a few students lurking around, including three Canadians on my course who had lost their luggage (Thanks again, Northwest).
They did get it very late that night though, fortunately, because early the next morning we headed down to Boulder.
Day 1 - June 10th, 2007
About 7am, I was pretty much ready to go (my body thought it was 9am, which worked in my favor), and I dragged all my stuff down to the hotel's entryway to meet up with the other students. There were about 20 people, about as many guys as girls.
We were met by Ana and Emily, two really nice girls (well, women.. i'm sure they were about my age) from BOSS who drive the shuttles back and forth each week and who also teach courses. Everyone piled into the two burgundy BOSS vans, with the luggage in a little trailer behind one of them. Somehow, all the girls ended up in Ana's van and the guys in Emily's. ^^;
The drive to Boulder, Utah takes about 4 hours and goes from relatively developed regions between mountain ranges to sparsely-populated scrubland that is closer to desert than anything else, but not quite the desert you'd think of. I noticed that living in the Salt Lake area you have some gorgeous scenery to look at no matter where you look.. there are the Rockies and the Uintas, some topped with snow. Suburban housing creeps up the hillsides and kind of spoils the view a little, but it's kind of nice to see the place nestled in the natural nest the valley provides.
Anyway, we drove along through the center of Utah and made several stops along the way for snacks and restroom breaks. We enjoyed packaged food and toilets, being pretty sure we wouldn't see either for a while once the course had started (we were right).
Ana is a soft-spoken woman with long brown hair and dangly primitive-art earrings. She's married to Jeff, the field director at BOSS. I sat up front with her to keep her company, and we talked for quite a while. She talked about living in Boulder and the seasons, and she gave us dried persimmons. They're really good btw.. I wish I could find some again. *___*
Around 11:30 or so, we arrived in Boulder. It's a pretty small place, dotted with farms and a couple of businesses. BOSS is not easy to spot along the road, but I noticed there's a goat farm directly across the street. Now, describing the main property at BOSS (called simply "The Property" by the staff) would take a lot of time, since it's about 41 acres and absolutely fantastic. The main camp is covered with sandy ground, and has tons of full leafy trees, a creek, a man-made pond, and several primitive living structures (yurts, teepees, a wickiup, a subterranean hideout thing, a ramada, and God knows what else). One yurt serves as the BOSS store; they sell gear and souvenirs. There's another yurt and I think a small trailer for administrative purposes, and teepees behind there for staff to live in during BOSS' teaching season. Chickens strut at their leisure throughout the camp; they live in a little house next door and are kept for their eggs.
Near the entrance road there are three porta-potties. I never learned such love for these stupid things as I did when they were taken away from me. :D
When we arrived, everyone had to get their stuff and drag it down to the ramada area for orientation. We heard from Field Director Jeff (AKA Long-haired Guy #1) and met up with our instructors; we separated into groups by course and spent time playing silly games with pine cones to get to know one another better. Silly, yes, but they worked anyway.
After lunch (everyone else got to the meat before me and I had an early introduction to no meat for almost a week), we laid out our gear on our wool blankets and learned to wrap and tie them up into backpacks, using a length of cotton seatbelt webbing to make shoulder straps. I have to say, it’s pretty ingenious, but that doesn’t mean that I still wasn’t suffering from a huge gap between my back and the pack. Arcteryx it wasn’t.
Our group piled into one of the BOSS vans, and we drove off to our home away from home, Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, which is about 40 minutes’ drive from Boulder, over some crazy rock ledges and around curves that made me feel like I was back on the road to the temples at Nikko. O_o; Eventually we went off the main road onto a jeep road, which is slang for “Really, really bumpy, and you’re going to break an axel.” We pulled off and parked, with Dave catching up in the supply truck behind us. We unloaded our stuff and started carrying water, food, etc to the site.
Our camp was a vast expanse of red sand and brush, Juniper trees and rocks. And Cryptobiotic soil (“Crypto” for short), dark crust on the sand that is the accumulation of 50-200 years or more of bacterial or algae growth. This stuff is good because it holds the soil together in an environment which otherwise would not be able to support plants or anything else that needs a firm hold in the ground. We were given an intro to all this, and warned not to step on it if we could help it, given its importance and long-term recovery rate (I’m not sure how much luck we had with this at night).
After an extremely entertaining lecture from Dave on how to take a dump in the wilderness, we worked with Susan and Bryan to learn how to make our ponchos and blankets into tents. We girls (four of us) built ourselves a shelter to share and we all crammed into it comfortably. The guys had two shelters of their own, and the three instructors built theirs up in the site’s “main” clearing.
Finally, it was starting to get dark, so we had to get dinner going. The instructors did most of this that first night, but we would be responsible for it later in the week. ^_^ We ate (the food was good but I have to say it’s not what most people would eat… I was lucky cuz I already eat things like lentils voluntarily) and then when it was good and dark, we hiked up to the mesa above our camp to view the stars.
And that was about where I started to love the desert. Other than freezing to death in the brisk night wind, it was heaven to lay on the rock and stare up at the clearest, most brilliant night sky I have ever, ever seen. It was so clear you could see depth in the band of the Milky Way, and make out Nebulae with the naked eye. You could see the whole sky over you like a big domed wheel, rather than a 2-dimensional picture in a science book or on a TV screen.
But it was very, very cold that night, and we shivered as we tried to sleep in our shelter. I was excited about what was going to happen the next day, but I would have given my arm for a real sleeping bag and another hoodie.
Day 2 is next... when I write it. ;;_;; Sorry i'm so slow.
So finally, the great BOSS write up begins.
On the 9th of June I headed out to Salt Lake City by way of Detroit AND Minneapolis. Thank you, Northwest. Fortunately all my luggage/gear made it out there with me, and I had little trouble getting myself to my shuttle to Provo.
I scooted on down there (with some guy and another girl about my age who was going to BOSS for the 28 day field course. Yipes. She'd still be on it as I write this now... We arrived in Provo around 9, and there were a few students lurking around, including three Canadians on my course who had lost their luggage (Thanks again, Northwest).
They did get it very late that night though, fortunately, because early the next morning we headed down to Boulder.
Day 1 - June 10th, 2007
About 7am, I was pretty much ready to go (my body thought it was 9am, which worked in my favor), and I dragged all my stuff down to the hotel's entryway to meet up with the other students. There were about 20 people, about as many guys as girls.
We were met by Ana and Emily, two really nice girls (well, women.. i'm sure they were about my age) from BOSS who drive the shuttles back and forth each week and who also teach courses. Everyone piled into the two burgundy BOSS vans, with the luggage in a little trailer behind one of them. Somehow, all the girls ended up in Ana's van and the guys in Emily's. ^^;
The drive to Boulder, Utah takes about 4 hours and goes from relatively developed regions between mountain ranges to sparsely-populated scrubland that is closer to desert than anything else, but not quite the desert you'd think of. I noticed that living in the Salt Lake area you have some gorgeous scenery to look at no matter where you look.. there are the Rockies and the Uintas, some topped with snow. Suburban housing creeps up the hillsides and kind of spoils the view a little, but it's kind of nice to see the place nestled in the natural nest the valley provides.
Anyway, we drove along through the center of Utah and made several stops along the way for snacks and restroom breaks. We enjoyed packaged food and toilets, being pretty sure we wouldn't see either for a while once the course had started (we were right).
Ana is a soft-spoken woman with long brown hair and dangly primitive-art earrings. She's married to Jeff, the field director at BOSS. I sat up front with her to keep her company, and we talked for quite a while. She talked about living in Boulder and the seasons, and she gave us dried persimmons. They're really good btw.. I wish I could find some again. *___*
Around 11:30 or so, we arrived in Boulder. It's a pretty small place, dotted with farms and a couple of businesses. BOSS is not easy to spot along the road, but I noticed there's a goat farm directly across the street. Now, describing the main property at BOSS (called simply "The Property" by the staff) would take a lot of time, since it's about 41 acres and absolutely fantastic. The main camp is covered with sandy ground, and has tons of full leafy trees, a creek, a man-made pond, and several primitive living structures (yurts, teepees, a wickiup, a subterranean hideout thing, a ramada, and God knows what else). One yurt serves as the BOSS store; they sell gear and souvenirs. There's another yurt and I think a small trailer for administrative purposes, and teepees behind there for staff to live in during BOSS' teaching season. Chickens strut at their leisure throughout the camp; they live in a little house next door and are kept for their eggs.
Near the entrance road there are three porta-potties. I never learned such love for these stupid things as I did when they were taken away from me. :D
When we arrived, everyone had to get their stuff and drag it down to the ramada area for orientation. We heard from Field Director Jeff (AKA Long-haired Guy #1) and met up with our instructors; we separated into groups by course and spent time playing silly games with pine cones to get to know one another better. Silly, yes, but they worked anyway.
After lunch (everyone else got to the meat before me and I had an early introduction to no meat for almost a week), we laid out our gear on our wool blankets and learned to wrap and tie them up into backpacks, using a length of cotton seatbelt webbing to make shoulder straps. I have to say, it’s pretty ingenious, but that doesn’t mean that I still wasn’t suffering from a huge gap between my back and the pack. Arcteryx it wasn’t.
Our group piled into one of the BOSS vans, and we drove off to our home away from home, Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, which is about 40 minutes’ drive from Boulder, over some crazy rock ledges and around curves that made me feel like I was back on the road to the temples at Nikko. O_o; Eventually we went off the main road onto a jeep road, which is slang for “Really, really bumpy, and you’re going to break an axel.” We pulled off and parked, with Dave catching up in the supply truck behind us. We unloaded our stuff and started carrying water, food, etc to the site.
Our camp was a vast expanse of red sand and brush, Juniper trees and rocks. And Cryptobiotic soil (“Crypto” for short), dark crust on the sand that is the accumulation of 50-200 years or more of bacterial or algae growth. This stuff is good because it holds the soil together in an environment which otherwise would not be able to support plants or anything else that needs a firm hold in the ground. We were given an intro to all this, and warned not to step on it if we could help it, given its importance and long-term recovery rate (I’m not sure how much luck we had with this at night).
After an extremely entertaining lecture from Dave on how to take a dump in the wilderness, we worked with Susan and Bryan to learn how to make our ponchos and blankets into tents. We girls (four of us) built ourselves a shelter to share and we all crammed into it comfortably. The guys had two shelters of their own, and the three instructors built theirs up in the site’s “main” clearing.
Finally, it was starting to get dark, so we had to get dinner going. The instructors did most of this that first night, but we would be responsible for it later in the week. ^_^ We ate (the food was good but I have to say it’s not what most people would eat… I was lucky cuz I already eat things like lentils voluntarily) and then when it was good and dark, we hiked up to the mesa above our camp to view the stars.
And that was about where I started to love the desert. Other than freezing to death in the brisk night wind, it was heaven to lay on the rock and stare up at the clearest, most brilliant night sky I have ever, ever seen. It was so clear you could see depth in the band of the Milky Way, and make out Nebulae with the naked eye. You could see the whole sky over you like a big domed wheel, rather than a 2-dimensional picture in a science book or on a TV screen.
But it was very, very cold that night, and we shivered as we tried to sleep in our shelter. I was excited about what was going to happen the next day, but I would have given my arm for a real sleeping bag and another hoodie.
Day 2 is next... when I write it. ;;_;; Sorry i'm so slow.