The drive to the coast was filled with songs and string games as we cruised over the coast range and South to Beverly Beach.  We arrived, grabbed our lunches and ran out the the beach where we picnicked, played in the waves, had a mud ball fight, jump roped with seaweed and played games.  Wet and happy we returned to camp to rinse our feet in warm water and move into our three yurts. 

Once we settled in and got dry we headed inland to hike through the old growth forest where we found huge trees like castles that we could climb up and hide in! We played camouflage and made forest crowns.  After our hike we returned to our yurts to get ready for our costume party dinner where we had Ninjas, Boys, and Slumber partiers in attendance! We ate tostadas and built a fire to roast marshmallows on and make s’mores.  To run out our s'more energy we headed out to the beach where we lit sparklers and wrote in the darkness under the gaze of the Yaquina bay light house.  Back at the yurts we played games, told stories and talked into the night until sleep found us and the morning came, bringing us a glorious sunny day!  

After breakfast we packed up and headed to Otter Rock where the tide was perfect for tide pool exploration where we poked sea anemones, found shell treasures, and had hermit crab races! We decided to break up the drive home with a quick stop in Depoe Bay where we acquainted ourselves with with the local cuisine of many types of popcorn and salt water taffy.  Our last stop was Lincoln Beach where we picnicked and played games until all too soon it was time to load back in the bus and sing our way back to Catlin.  

  Saturday morning weather reports predicted a big snow dump so with eager hearts we piled into the bus in the Portland drizzle, popped in the Bob Marley tape we found, and headed up to Government Camp.  We arrived and found Govy gray skied, and lacking new snow.  Our spirits were not to be dampened as we checked into the Huckleberry Inn bunk room, ate lunch outside, and bundled up and set out for adventure.  First stop was a snow pile and an impromptu snowball fight en route to Skibowl.  The lack of snow on the ground may have stopped our tubing plans but not our fun.  We carried on to skibowl and went Zip Lining!  3 stories above the ground we zipped and whooped and hollered along the 500’ zip-line with Mt Hood in the sky above us.  

 Chilly and exhilarated we headed back to the Huckleberry for cocoa and games.  At sunset we bundled up again for some night time flashlight camouflage playing which ended in a Pizza party at the Ratskeller!

 Back at the Huckleberry we hung out, played games, talked, and wished for a snowy wake up. 

 Sunday morning: Snow! A small posse headed outside before breakfast to see how much snow was out there and ended up getting interviewed by the news before returning to the inn for breakfast and packing.  

 Packed up we set out to Trillium Lake with our sleds and hot picnic lunch for a little hike, take no prisoners snow battle and hot lunch picnic under the trees in the snow.  

  Full and happy we hiked back to the bus and headed back to Portland the weekend a success.   

We piled aboard our bus at 10am and headed out to the gorge, after less than an hour of hanging out together on the bus we parked, went over the trip and began hiking switchbacks up the gorge through the tall ferns to Ponytail Falls.  This 2.7 mike loop brought us over a bridge above Oneonta Falls (our final destination) where we could peer down into the chasm we would later hike up.  We stopped for snacks where the trail led us behind Ponytail Falls and then snaked back down through the forest, finishing our loop through historic Oneonta Tunnel. 

After a lunch by the river we began our chasm adventure.  The journey starts with a scramble over a log jam.  We helped one another over the massive pile of logs and came to our second challenge: chest deep water with sheer cliffs rising on each side.  Some of us scaled the walls as long as we could to stay dry, some of us waded the river.  Our reward for our bravery was arriving at beautiful Oneonta Falls where we splashed and played until our return to the bus.  

On teh ride home we had a storytelling competition for the best Oneonta folklore.  The winners were Josephine, Emma, and Hannah with tales of horses, turtles, bison, and snakes and how Oneonta Gorge came to be.  They won homemade cookies on Monday at school!

We couldn't have asked for a better day on the mountain!  The wintry weather that had started the month of June dissipated with a gentle wind, and the sun emerged early in the morning on Sunday and would stay with us for the enitre duration of our twelve hour climb.  Nine strong, and excited 8th grade graduates joined David Zonana, Mary Green, and Erin Goodling for this year's annual climb of Mount St. Helens.  Their hard work payed off, as everyone in our group reached the crater rim, where we soaked up the early afternoon sun and looked out to the surrounding Cascade volcanoes.  Mt. Hood, Adams, Rainier, Jefferson, and the craggy Goat Rocks were all exposed and draped in a new layer of late-season snow.  While the snow level was higher than last year's climb, the road to the Climber's Bivouac had not yet melted out, forcing us to start our climb from the Marble Mountain Sno-Park.  This variation on the climbing route - known as the "Worm Flows" - adds an extra one thousand feet of elevation gain and several trail miles to reach the summit.  But that didn't slow down this hearty group!  Another climber on the trail remarked to me, as I was literally running to catch the students in the front, "Is that your group way up there?....man, they are MOTORING!" 

And motoring, they were!  Marty did not sit down once in the seven hours leading up to the summit, Jacob carried a large snow disk to the top (that, at times, doubled as a sail), Sam neglected to wear anything more than a T-shirt, Hayle was simply having an easy time of it all, and Gregor made himself a commitment that "I am going to climb this mountain!"  The glissading on the way down was nothing short of spectacular, with one glissade chute even leading over a small cornice that resulted in some hang-time!  It was a tremendous effort on everyone's part, and a highly enjoyable day in the sun!  Please enjoy some photos from our adventure and a big thank you to Ian, Ethan, Parsa, Nic, Marty, Jacob, Erin, Mary, Hayle, Gregor, and Sam for making this such an incredible and memorable weekend!  Happy Summer!

An adventurous group of upper school students joined the Outdoor Program for an incredible three days in the sun on the John Day River in Eastern Oregon.  Over the course of our trip, we floated nearly seventy river miles and completed many side hikes on the second longest undammed river in North America.  On Friday, we met at 6am in the Cabell lot, where we loaded the bus with our personal and group gear for the weekend.  We headed out of the lot by 6:20, and Pat Selman drove us to the put-in in Clarno, OR, taking I-84 and then heading S on Hwy 97 through Shaniko and Antelope.  We met our rafts at the put-in at 10am, and transferred our equipment to dry-bags, coolers and other somewhat waterproof containers.  We were momentarily set back when we realized that the rafts needed much more air in them, and we only had small “wonder” pumps (as in, "I wonder why I brought this lousy pump") to top them off with.  Once we were loaded up, we had a long safety talk before starting down the river.  We put on the river a bit before noon, and started floating in the very swollen river.  There were many other boaters putting-in at Clarno.  Five miles downriver, we pulled out in an eddy to scout Upper and Lower Clarno Rapids, and to eat lunch.  Seth ran the gear boat through a hole in Upper Clarno rapid to see what we could expect with the paddle rafts.  It proved not to be a problem, and after spending some more time scouting, we loaded the paddle rafts and ran the most formidable rapids of the trip without any problem!  There was a lot of splashing and good excitement.  We completed 18 river miles on the first day, and the weather was partly cloudy and beautiful, but we were all getting a bit chilly in the afternoon, as the wind started to kick up.  We found a glorious campsite partway through Basalt Rapid, and set up our camp amongst the large juniper trees and beautiful basalt boulders on the shore.  We hiked up to a rocky outcropping above camp and took in the wild scenery before playing Bacci ball and feasting on a large spaghetti dinner.

Saturday was a big day, complete with two hikes and thirty-three river miles.  The river was pretty docile for this long section of river, but the canyon steepened around us and the scenery was dramatic.  The day started with some exciting waves on the remaining portion of Basalt Rapids, and we floated eighteen miles before stopping for lunch and our first hike.  We stopped at the eastern tip of Horseshoe Bend and ate lunch before hiking up to the saddle where we could see the river on both sides of us.  This was a truly magical place, and the combination of sun, exertion from the hike, and relaxation from the long float created the perfect recipe for a peaceful nap.  A few miles downstream Peter’s boat pulled out at Potlatch Canyon to see a panel of petroglyphs.  Seth’s boat missed the eddy, but pulled out a few eddies downstream.  Peter’s half of the group hiked to the petroglyphs and a side adventure that paid off with the discovery of an old settler’s home that had gone untouched for many years.  David and Seth led the other group up a jeep track that looked as though it would connect with Potlatch Canyon.  The trail passed a pretty spring and exited Buckskin Canyon before following a contour that headed toward Potlatch.  We discovered a full cow skeleton bleached by the sun, and Annika discovered a rattlesnake, up close and personal (complete with a warning rattle!).  The trail toward Potlatch looked long, and it was hot, so we headed back to the boats, and Peter’s boat appeared upstream in a matter of minutes.  The group pushed on and we floated many miles before pulling out at the distinct Hoot Owl Rock - an impressive formation that sits atop a sharp ridge on the canyon and looks like a hunched bird .  We arrived at camp at 6:30pm.  We played Bacci ball, cooked an amazing fajita dinner, baked a cake in the dutch oven, and had group refelection time around the fire before bed.

Sunday, we woke early and snacked on cinnamon rolls before breaking down camp.  We were pushing the boats off shore before 9am, and we had nineteen miles to cover before reaching the take-out at the Cottonwood Bridge.  There is very little whitewater on this stretch of river, and many interested students had the chance to learn how to steer and captain the rafts.  We stopped at Owen’s Plain and hiked up to an old windmill and stone corral in the (relatively!) fertile valley.  We stopped for lunch on a pretty gravel island where a group of Canadian Geese were lounging in the sun.  After lunch, the girls decided to skipper their own boat to the take-out, leaving the boys in the other raft.  We made it to the takeout at the Cottonwood Bridge, and Leroy was there in bus #23 again, and we arrived back at Catlin at 5:15pm, a bit tanner and with a wonderful adventure under our belts!

From the Winter 2011-12 Caller

By David Reich ’80, Challenge Course Manager

Catlin Gabel recently built a state-of-the-art challenge course in the wooded part of campus around the athletic fields. It is a great tool for hands-on learning in a beautiful natural setting and a new expression of the school’s commitment to experiential education.

 

Yes, my friends...that is a homemade igloo, lit up under the clear night's sky by the eleven headlamps of our incredible group.

Due to a forecast for over two feet of fresh (but unstable) snow up on Mt. Rainier, we made a last minute change to our itinerary and headed up to the Trout Lake area at the base of Mt. Adams.  With the goal getting into the backcountry, and avoiding the presence of snowmobilers, we headed to the more obscure Snow King Sno-Park, donned our snowshoes and tromped up the unplowed road before turning off into the woods and meadows of the area.  Each spot looked better than the next as we scoured the landscape for a prime spot to build our winter camp.  We settled on a beautiful meadow and tucked our bags in the tree wells so that we could roll up our sleeves and start putting in the hours of work that would be required to build a snow empire.  Mike Wilson had brought his igloo maker, and the so-called "ICE BOX" was put into motion as we built a 12-foot diameter igloo from the ground up.  Meanwhile, our kitchen area was excavated and tents were erected.  The snow stopped for the evening, and that the stars came out in force.  All eleven us packed into the igloo for a spaghetti dinner before we started a campfire outside in the snow. 

We filled Sunday with an off-trail snowshoe excursion up to the top of a nearby butte, snowball fights, sweetened condensed milk (poured on every food item we had - winter camping requires high calorie input!), and burgers in the friendly cafe in Trout Lake before rolling back into Catlin.

Here are some photos from one of the program's classic winter trips.  Enjoy.

Light, perfect powder blanketed the flanks of Mt. Hood as the small school bus headed up to the Skyline Sno-Park for an overnight trip to an old, abandoned fire lookout.  Our group of seven middle school students and two leaders donned cross-country skis and glided up an un-plowed road before turning up Clear Lake Butte for a steep, but rewarding climb up to the fire lookout.  The learning curve for skiing is steep, but the Catlin middle schoolers picked up the technique with surprising speed.  As we climbed, the clouds that had deposited the beautiful new snow started to part and we enjoyed filtered sun through the trees at each of our rest breaks.  Skiing with a backpack is a significant challenge, and we all welcomed the sight of the 40 foot lookout tower.  A wood stove and panoramic views awaited us up above! 

We melted snow for tea water, stoked the stove, and prepared a large pasta dinner to enjoy by the fire.  Our cookie-baking experiment on the woodstove proved to be only somewhat successful, if you count appearances for something.  Nevertheless, they were delicious!  An elaborate pulley system outside of the lookout allowed us to raise snow (to melt for water) and firewood up to the cabin, and also allowed us to lower backpacks and large items.

Everyone enjoyed each other's company, and we were all happy to see the long-awaited snow.  You couldn't help but feel deeply relaxed in the cozy lookout.  An egg breakfast, warm-up ski and a snowball fight started the next morning.  After enjoying ourselves at the lookout, we put our (lighter!) packs on and started the ski back down to the bus.  There was some requisite falling and flailing, but everyone did extraordinarily well.  Many first-time skiiers reported that they couldn't wait to try it again in the near future.  We had a wonderful trip.  Please enjoy some photos from this overnight adventure.

A hypothermic forecast forced us to abandon our original plan of descending an 8+ mile section of Opal Creek in the Willamette National Forest.  We put that plan (which would surely require some wading) on the shelf for a warmer weekend, and instead headed up above the freezing level for an amazing weekend in an old, abandoned fire lookout.  The Devil's Peak Lookout sits atop Hunchback Ridge outside of the small town of ZigZag on the flanks of Mt. Hood.  There is no particularly easy way to reach the lookout; one gradual path to the top requires miles of driving on rutted roads to reach the trailhead, while the other trail is easy to access but involves an unrelenting climb of over 3,200 vertical feet in under 4 miles once on the switchbacking trail.   This hearty group chose the short drive and steep trail.  We packed up our backs in the wet, old-growth forests off of the side of the road, and started UP!  We soon broke through into the snow.  A dusting turned into a few inches toward the top.  The footing was not the best, but the trail was easy to follow, and we were all pleased to be out of the city and in the peaceful quiet of the Cascades.  Once at the lookout, our boisterous group became task-oriented: gathering firewood for the stove, starting a fire, melting snow for drinking water, opening the heavy wooden shutters of the cabin, and preparing a massive and DELICIOUS dinner.  Hot drinks, cards, madlibs, stories and jokes filled the final hours before we filled every inch of floor space in the lookout for our night's sleep.  We awoke to views of Wy'East (Mt. Hood) in all of its sunlit glory.  We were so glad to have taken the forecast with a grain of salt and headed out into the woods, regardless.  A big breakfast, some more exploration, a speedy descent down the steep trail and some old-fashioned donoughts at Joe's wrapped up an outstanding weekend.  Please enjoy some photos from our trip!