In February, the "F" is for FUN!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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Posted by: Blythe Everett
Each February, Marvelwood students are offered a number of entertaining options to help ward off those "winter blues." This year has been no exception!
In addition to a variety of on- and off-campus activities including ice skating, Chinese New Year (for which Yi Yin Chao '12 and Haolin Guo '11 painted the impressive banner at right, celebrating the Year of the Tiger), Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, the winter concert, UConn women's basketball, International Night, the Panama trip, and Eric Clapton & Jeff Beck at Madison Square Garden, February fun for Marvelwood students included a trip to Disneyworld over the long weekend break and a Polar Bears winter camping trip in Massachusetts on February 19-21.
Enjoy these photos from faculty chaperones Dennis White (Disney) and John Russell '88 (Papa Polar Bear), as well as John's journal entry-style recap of the Polar Bears' escapades.
(l-r) Dennis White, Kassandra Grigg, Will Connor
& Misty Jordan say hello to the characters from "Up"
Chris Borkowski, Josiah Bates and Soso Borrey (in
second row) get a scare on the Dinosaur! ride
Marvelwood Pterodactyls Evan Juers, Kassandra
Grigg, Misty Jordan, Will Connor and Robbyn Ellis
find an appropriate place to hang out at Disney
Friday, February 19th: Found Race Brook Trail on Route 41, just south of Berkshire School. Using snowshoes with ice grips, we ascended 1.8 miles to the Race Brook campsite, .2 miles from the Appalachian Trail. Joe jumped on the ice as we crossed Race Brook and broke through--one cold foot for the day!
 
Student Polar Bears (l-r) Nick Beck, Jieyu Ni, Xixi Luo Joseph checks out a cool icicle.
and Joseph Goldin
We shovelled off a wood platform for cooking and one tent. Steve prepares a scrumptious meal of chicken stew--a very welcome meal, considering how the temperature was starting to drop. We finished the evening with hot chocolate and were all in bed by 9:30. Wouldn't THAT be nice most nights???
Saturday, February 20: We arose at 8:00 am and couldn't find the food bag. It turns out that Xixi didn't realize that the "Bear Box" was the metal box located OUTSIDE the outhouse...! After a breakfast of hot oatmeal and hot chocolate, we loaded our daypacks with extra clothes, water and lunch. We hiked 1.3 miles to the top of Race Mountain, elevation 2,365 feet. After a brief celebration for having reached the summit, we descended out of the wind to eat lunch.
The group celebrates getting to the top of Race Mountain. Joseph, Xixi and Jieyu enjoy lunch on the trail.
Next, we hiked another 1.3 miles to the top of Mount Everett (elevation 2,602 feet). Nick's heel blister was getting so big that he wasn't sure he would be able to make it to the top, but he did, and there was much rejoicing. Glorious views in all directions, including Mohawk Mt. ski trails to the distant south.
The group (l-r): faculty member John Russell, Jieyu,
Joseph, Xixi, facilitator Steve Werntz, and Nick at
the summit of Mount Everett.
Nick prepares to climb a frozen waterfall.
During the climb down, Steve asked us to think about an object or picture that means a lot to us, and why. We returned to camp and had a great dinner of spaghetti and sauce and, of course, more hot chocolate. We then each described our objects to the group, and learned a lot about each other that we probably would never have known otherwise. My object was the most recent picture of John Angus [John's son], which is the background on my cell phone!
A little colder and more tired tonight, so we put boiling water in everyone's water bottles and wrapped them in socks to be placed in the sleeping bags for the night.
Sunday, February 21: A glorious, sunny day to hike out. Some of the kids learned how to sit back on their snowshoes and luge down the trail! Interesting how much faster everyone was hiking this morning--makes one think of "horses to the barn."
We de-briefed the trip during a delicious second breakfast at Collins' Diner in Salisbury before heading back to campus.
A big thank-you to Steve Werntz of Indian Mountain Adventures for such a wonderful trip.
Jieyu and Xixi in their tent.
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