RKMP 2011 Winter Newsletter

Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program WINTER 2011 NEWSLETTER

Year in Review By science teacher Mike Dalton, director of RKMP

Ritt Kellogg ’85, doing what he loved most

After completing my first year at the helm of the RKMP and in preparation for its annual newsletter, it seemed pertinent to revisit the program’s mission statement to see if we are on track: The Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program encourages students to interact with natural resources and fosters the interdependency between people and their natural surroundings. More specifically, the RKMP uses our natural resources to promote academic growth, to challenge athletically, to teach leadership, to develop character, and to foster environmental responsibility.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the RKMP is finding new ways to encourage the “interaction” addressed in our mission statement in this high-tech, digital age. How do we compete with the allure of a Sunday afternoon spent with Xbox 360? Even here at Berkshire, surrounded by hundreds of acres of pristine woodland, there are signs of what journalist and author Richard Louv identifies as “nature deficit disorder” in his book Last Child in the Woods. Jane E. Brody, a journalist and specialist in medicine and

biology, calls this condition “outdoor deprivation disorder” and notes that children and young adults spend more time indoors using electronic media than outdoors. A number of years ago, my RKMP predecessor, Frank Barros, combated this dilemma by introducing The Mountain Passport, a creative approach to getting all Berkshire community members in the woods and on the trails on a consistent basis. However, administrating the program fell by the wayside with increasing demands on him in the development of the recycling and sustainability programs that he also initiated. By all accounts, The Mountain Passport was a great success, so it is something that will be reintroduced to the RKMP. Last December the school was fortunate to receive a visit from Colby Coombs, a friend and college classmate of Ritt Kellogg (see page 8). In his address to the students, he mentioned that Ritt received “great satisfaction from taking students out and seeing them learn things they didn’t think they could do. Being a facilitator of that is what always drew Ritt back to teaching outdoor skills and rock climbing in the Outward Bound program.” Traditionally, the primary impact of the RKMP on Berkshire School students has been through after-school offerings, which include rock climbing, backcountry skills, boat building, winter mountaineering, mountain biking and whitewater kayaking. Through these offerings our instructors raise the bar high enough to accomplish the same sense of satisfaction both for teacher and student to experience what Colby described as a “bond between partners—super strong. Through struggle, challenge, and even failure these become ‘forever’ bonds.”

In this newsletter, in addition to the after-school offerings, you will read of new RKMP initiatives that will continue to chal-

lenge, instruct, and convey respect for nature—particularly through a program co-sponsored by the National Park Service and the Appalachian Trail Conference called A Trail to Every Classroom and a major construction project that harkens back to the days when students and faculty built cabins that once dotted the hillside: the Adirondack Lean-to Project.

We’ll introduce you to Nathaniel Blauss, physics teacher and new RKMP instructor who just might be the first faculty member with the distinction of being an Appalachian Trail “thru hiker,” and Lars Robinson ’13, who summarizes his experience as a participant in the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Berkshire Teen Trail Crew.

There are also numerous “RKMP Updates” that will fill you in on other activities of the program that occurred throughout 2009-10. Overall, I believe we have met the challenge of the mission statement, but we leave you to be the judge! Happy trails on your own mountain, wherever it may be.

A Trail to Every Classroom

By Anita Loose-Brown, science department chair Sixty-four students in the Biology and Advanced Biology classes were given the opportunity to take a closer look at the mountain behind Berkshire Hall in a joint program designed by me and Mike Dalton for the fall term. In teams of three, students set up and recorded data on study plots in the woods beyond the Thoreau House. Students learned to use compasses to set quadrat boundaries (an continued on page 3

The Adirondack Lean-To Project

Troy Bernier ’14, Luyi “Lewis” Xie ’13, Stefan Guenther ’13, and Long Nguyen ’11

I spent the early 1970s at Paul Smiths College in the Adirondacks of upper New York State where I was first introduced to the “Adirondack lean-to,” a three-walled, open-front shelter made from round (typically softwood) logs. These structures were placed on trails at the college and in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks and used by campers as shelters instead of tents.

There are two lean-tos on the Appalachian Trail behind Berkshire’s campus, the Glen Brook Shelter and the Hemlock Shelter. But unlike the Adirondack-style shelter, these are built with dimensional lumber and vertical siding. It was decided that building an Adirondack lean-to on the mountain would benefit the school in numerous ways. First, it would provide RKMP participants with first-hand knowledge on woodcraft – from felling trees to cutting saddle notches.

Second, it would serve as a close destination for small groups of students and faculty to have an overnight experience on the mountain. After receiving a set of plans for the lean-to from the Adirondack Museum, I contacted my son Sean to be the lead teacher on the project. Sean is a Vermont timber framer who learned the “Swedish cope” method of log construction while working on the restoration of Santanoni, a great camp which is owned by the State of New York and is located on the shore of Newcomb Lake just south of the

By Mike Dalton

Lars Robinson ’13, cutting a saddle notch

High Peaks in the Adirondacks.

The project began during the winter of 2009 by first identifying suitable trees from the School’s woodlot. Great care was taken to insure that the harvest of these straight white pine trees was random and that there was minimal impact to the area. The trees were cut into appropriate lengths and hauled back to Gordon Recreational Park where all the work would take place. The logs were then peeled with drawknives and, by the end of the winter season with a crew of four students (Hunter Lucey ’12, Lars Robinson ’13, Craig Alizadeh ’13, and Long Tran ’11), we had a pile of peeled logs, along with sapstained clothes and an appreciation of what early settlers faced when building by hand.

In early April Sean arrived for a weekend workshop on log construction sponsored by the RKMP. He began by teaching us how to choose the right logs for each tier making sure that they followed a “butt-to-tip” alter-

Mike and Sean Dalton

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The crew hangs floor joists at the lean-to’s final resting place.

nating pattern, which keeps each consecutive layer of logs level. He taught us how to use a special scribe with two spirit bubbles to cut the saddle notches (at the corners) and the coped, bottom of logs. The Swedish cope method that we were using fits the logs perfectly so that there is no need for “chinking,” which traditionally was made from either sphagnum moss, mud, or small saplings (chinking keeps wind, snow, and rain from entering the structure through gaps between logs). A chainsaw was used to rough out the cuts, which were then finished by hand using special – and very sharp – gouges and mallets. By the end of the weekend we all had sap-stained hands and a structure that was beginning to look like a lean-to. This weekend workshop generated a lot of enthusiasm for the project and, as a result, students and teachers often spent a Sunday afternoon putting an hour or two into fitting logs.

Construction continued this past fall with more logs going up the wall along with the fitting in of purlins, which are timbers that run the length of the lean-to and hold the rafters up. Since the structure was getting pretty high and our staging material was limited, we decided to take off the top half of the lean-to and continue building upward while the bottom portion of the structure was disassembled, logs cleaned and treated with a non-toxic fungicide, and moved up the mountain to the future lean-to site.

Also during the fall, members of Backcountry Skills prepared the lean-

A Trail to Every Classroom

Mike, Sean, Robin McGraw '70, and Lars

to site by digging holes for the four stone foundations. The lean-to site isn’t far off well-established trails so that faculty and students won’t have to travel too far into the woods to camp out. There will eventually be a permanent fireplace situated in front of the lean-to so that groups can also go out for a Sunday afternoon cook-out.

At present, half of the lean-to logs are up the mountain, thanks to additional help received from members of Berkshire’s “Wolf Pack” and Alpine Ski Team. The floor joists and 2” tongue-and-groove floor is in, and the top half of the lean-to remains at Gordon Recreational Park with rafters being fitted. This winter the remaining logs, purlins and rafters will head up the mountain along with roof decking and western red cedar shingles, which will cap off the project (weather permitting). A formal dedication is planned for the spring of 2011.

Watch for updates posted on the RKMP page of the School’s Web site.

continued from page 1

area of land for ecological study), meter tapes to mark tree positions, dbh (diameter, breast, height) tapes to determine tree diameter, and tree guides to identify the types of trees they found in their plot. Back in the classroom, each team turned its measurement data into a scaled map of its quadrate; the individual maps will eventually be displayed together to show the extent of the study area and the similarities and differences in tree species within the plots.

Students will return to their study sites periodically throughout the year to collect a variety of data. Using HOBO® remote data loggers, students can determine minimum and maximum temperatures over a 24hour period enabling them to collect a complete temperature profile of their plot as well as measure light intensity at varying heights above the ground. Other studies may include soil chemistry and soil pH, as well as an inventory of soil invertebrates. Each team will have a chance to develop its own question to investigate on its plot; those projects will be developed over the course of the winter and carried out, in most instances, in the spring.

All the students will have a chance to test their data collection skills again on an all-day field trip along the Appalachian Trail above the campus in the spring of 2011. Students will again be laying out study plots and measuring and identifying trees, and will also be asked to carefully note the structure of the forest along the trail so that they can compare it to the structure of the forest at their study site. We would like them to understand the differences in climate and nutrients between the base and the top of the mountain and how those differences affect the ecosystem structures in the two locales. Though all of the details of the day are not yet complete, we hope it will include a hike to the summit of Mount Everett to see the scrub oak community as well as the community along the ridges below the summit.

This project was inspired in part by a program that Mike Dalton and I are participating in called A Trail to Every Classroom, a joint venture sponsored by the National Park Service and the Appalachian Trail Conference. The program invites teachers from all states the Appalachian Trail traverses to design a curriculum unit that focuses on the Trail that makes use of community partners and includes a service component. Key components of this program are site specific education and service learning. The program began last spring with a series of regional workshops, continued last summer with a week-long event at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and concluded last fall with regional workshops in Vermont.

We would like to eventually exchange the data our students collect with that from colleagues from other sections of the Trail, in order to give our students an even broader look at the Trail as an ecological microcosm of sorts. For our service project we would like to improve the trail-head kiosk at the base of the Elbow Trail to provide hikers with more information about the ecosystem they are entering. We will also be contacting the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) regional office in South Egremont, Mass. to solicit their help in designing future studies along the Trail, and to find out about other service projects that we might participate in along the local Trail.

It is our hope that this program will help to develop a future generation of volunteers for the ATC and Appalachian Mountain Club as these organizations are responsible for much of the maintenance of this 2,050 mile-long National Scenic Trail.

(More information on the Trail to Every Classroom program can be found on the Appalachian Trail Web site under Conservancy tab.)

Doug Brown scribing the log to prepare for saddle notch

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Place in Mind: Reflections from an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker

By Nathaniel Blauss, physics teacher and RKMP instructor

There is a high windswept meadow on Mount Washington’s shoulder strewn with gnarled and ragged rock.

The stones that litter the meadow are the same rough stones found throughout the Presidential Range of New Hampshire. Between the rocks, browning sedge covers the ground.

Diapensia creeps from between the stones or spreads in the hard pack of abandoned tracks. The tired sunlight, let in through gaps in the low flying clouds, mimics the meadow’s colors and cuts swaths across it. The sedge moves in waves, blown about on an ever present wind. It is like perching in a watchtower; even the Lakes of the Clouds seem far below. It is beautiful country.

The meadow carries along its spine the old Crawford Path. Rather than climbing over outcrops, as the newer trail does, the original route weaves along the ridge, and finding it was the reason I set out that fall afternoon. I don’t know when the path was relocat-

ed, though I assume from the difficulty of following it in a few places that it was some time ago. The old Crawford Path follows the sensibilities of the men and horses that built it two-hundred years ago. It meanders following the grass and pushes through gaps in the long strings of tumbled rock. It has grown into the meadow. The rocks and gentle slopes suggest a route, and the path – long abandoned – follows the mountain’s will.

My mother asked me years ago why I like hiking so much. The question still echoes in my head. I like the sweep of the views, the peace of the waters, the scent of the balsam firs, the burning sweat of the climb and the quiet isolation of the wind. None of these things, even collectively, seem sufficient reason to feel the way I do. I told her how incredible it is to stand in the brightest sunlight, and be totally insignificant. I said there’s something incredibly reassuring about being so insensibly small.

I think, now, that being so small is the

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only thing that allows someone to fit into the cradling hands of those little dells, to see the hidden places that are littered throughout the ridges. It is simply to be in places like this meadow that I hike.

At one point, not far from Monroe, the path winds up between two slabs of rock forming a shallow chute. There is a large cairn and two iron pins where a plaque has been removed, and across from them, two sets of initials are carved into the rock. Just ahead is a semi-circular windbreak, a low rough rock wall, built of the same lichen-covered stones that sit doggedly in the sedge. This is where Father Bill Curtis’s body was found hidden from the wind in August 1900. I assume the windbreak was built quietly out of respect for the dead. I sometimes wonder if it has ever been used.

Father Bill began climbing the Crawford Path as the sky threatened a horrible, screaming storm of snow and ice with his friend, Allan Ormsby.

Above the tree line, these strong hikers faced into the cold and raging north wind and continued on. The mountains were careless, or else indifferent.

Neither reached the summit. The wind and the sedge have since swept almost everything but the memory away.

Perhaps because we have no power in the mountains, they allow us to see these little indiscretions. Perhaps they hint of things held dear. Through trails are fingers of civilization pushing into the forest as far as its resistance will allow, and the sedges’ reclamation of the old Crawford Path is an indication of our ultimate fate. With the mountain’s slightest wayward thought, we become no more than a story and a slow healing scar.

And so the meadow is no place of half measures. To fit between the wind and the rain, the grasses and rocks and

Appalachian Mountain Club’s Berkshire Teen Trail Crew

By Lars Robinson ’13

drifting sunlight, it is more difficult than to carry the packs on our backs.

A place out of time demands you live precisely where and when you are.

The challenge that the meadow puts to us is sometimes no more than to notice the tiny pocket between cloud and rock, trees and earth and sky that we have been allowed into—to step into it and breathe the wind.

Nathaniel started his outdoor career trying to build dams in the Shumatuscacant River, a stream behind his house, out of rocks, sticks, leaves and two abandoned tires left rotting in the mould.

With time he grew too big for the woods of Hanson, MA, and began hiking with family and friends in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He eventually became a hutman in the Appalachian Mountain Club’s High Huts and achieved Hut Master (responsibilities include keeping the batteries charged, the fire blazing, the compost toilets working, and feeding hikers) at the most remote, and least visited Galehead Hut in New Hampshire during the fall of 2007.

Nathaniel graduated from Colgate University with a double major in Math and Physics, which required frequent breaks to walk and explore the hills around Hamilton, N.Y. After graduation in 2004, he spent a year as a carpenter and substitute teacher before hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2005, starting on February 28th, and passing Berkshire School, without knowing it, somewhere around June 3, 2006. He has worked as a teacher, a carpenter and a trip leader combining the two to build a wooden sea kayak and travel on the coast of Maine—in addition to cooking and pack-muling while in the huts. He is a Wilderness First Responder and says that he has learned more from the various trials and tribulations of being outside than anywhere else.

The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is an organization that maintains the Appalachian Trail (AT), which encompasses everything from rerouting, resurfacing, and building stairs to countering erosion and manning the huts and shelters provided for hikers. The Berkshire Teen Trail Crew, a program of the AMC that allows teenagers to help in the upkeep of the Trail, is targeted to teens of all backgrounds and experience levels consisting of about ten teens and two leaders per group, who hike a portion of the trail together and spend a week doing trail work and maintenance.

My family has used the AT for as long as I can remember (hiking, skiing, and canoeing). So when I heard about the Berkshire Teen Trail Crew, I realized it could be my opportunity to ensure the Trail’s legacy as well as extend my knowledge of the Trail.

Our group consisted of eight teenagers and two leaders. We were total strangers, but ended up great friends despite our many differences: one of the guys in my tent was from Philadelphia, another from the suburbs of Boston; one leader had been a “ski bum” in Utah for two years and the other was an environmental activist.

One of the girls had done extensive backpacking out West, while it was the first time in a tent for several others. By the end of a week it seemed like we had known each other for years.

For the entire week we camped at a tent site beside the trail we worked on. Unfortunately, we picked the only rainy week of the summer. We were not alone; an orientation group from Yale also descended on the same site that

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week, making it a bit crowded.

We began by rerouting an especially steep section of the AT and building a stone staircase. The rerouting project involved clearing, leveling, and surfacing the new trail, then decommissioning the old section. The staircase ended up being a ton of fun to build. To complete it, we needed to first find adequate stones, bring them to the work site and then we levered them into the correct position. It was like the world’s most complex jigsaw puzzle, but it felt great to see it finished, knowing it would be there for years to come.

Thinking back on the experience, it is impossible to point to one thing and say what I enjoyed the most, because it was just cumulatively great. The worst part was definitely the weather, but even that didn’t lessen the experience. The food wasn’t gourmet, considering it was trail food cooked over a camp stove, but after a day of hiking and work, it always tasted great.

I would definitely do this again; in fact, I am interested in becoming a leader at some point. With that in mind, I recommend the Teen Trail Crew Program to anyone who is interested in the outdoors, and doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty or just wants to spend a week on the AT.

Lars Robinson is from Norfolk, Conn. and a member of the Class of 2013 who participates in the RKMP’s Winter Mountaineering.

Lars also runs cross-country and rows for the School’s crew team.

During his free time, Lars helps run Berkshire School’s maple syrup operation.

RKMP U pd ates The Mountain Motel For years the RKMP’s home, the “mountain room,” was located in the old kitchen located on the first floor of Memorial Hall.

Here stoves and cook kits were kept in an old refrigerator, sleeping bags were stored in a cubicle that had leaky walls and ceiling, and a dehumidifier had to run constantly to keep mold and mildew at bay. With the razing of Memorial Hall in the summer of 2010, the RKMP was looking for new temporary digs which ended up being a building formerly called “the motel” and now dubbed The Mountain Motel. School carpenter Dale Smith did a great job renovating this structure to provide a large, open meeting space and a room designed to store camping gear. The building is warm and dry and provides a safe haven for much of the program’s gear. The hope is that someday the RKMP will have a permanent structure that will house all of the program’s offerings along with storage for canoes, kayaks, and a large space for drying gear.

Ropes Course Repairs Steve Werntz of Indian Mountain Adventures recently upgraded the belay cables on the high elements of the School’s challenge course. It seems that the old fastening system for the belay cables was not “insurable” and the industry standard had moved to a new method for ensuring that these critical cables would be secure. Steve spent a week during the summer hanging from ropes, replacing the fasteners and inspecting every component of the course.

The inspection is an annual event that occurs before the start of school in the fall.

Mountain Day Doug Brown, an RKMP instructor during the 2009-2010 school year, organized the greatest “Mountain Day” that Berkshire has seen in years. Senior faculty have recounted on a number of occasions that in the “old days” students all hiked the mountain and had lunch at Guilder Pond. Students were required to sign-in with faculty as they arrived at the top of the mountain. In recent years Mountain Day was simply a day free of academic classes, but there was no sense of celebrating the great resource that lies all around us. That all changed when Doug volunteered to organize the day.

Students and faculty suspected something was afoot when they found a tipi under construction in Buck Valley on their way to first period class on Monday. Jack Lee ‘10, who was scheduled to speak to the community at School Meeting, was surprised to learn that his position at the lectern had been usurped. Fidel Moreno, an ethnographic documentary film-maker from Santa Fe, NM and Stephentown, NY, and his good friend James Ettisitty, a traditional Navajo medicine man and healer, took the stage and gave a fascinating talk that included traditional singing and drumming. Fidel stressed the vision of the School’s founder, Seaver Buck, in choosing a site under the mountain, so intrinsically tied to the natural environs. He praised the School’s close relationship with nature, as evidenced in special days in the school calendar named in honor of our mountain.

At this, the crowd grew wiggly and excited they knew what would follow. To the uproarious cheers of all, Fidel announced that it was, in fact, Mountain Day. This year’s Mountain Day rekindled a long-honored tradition.

Instead of a day spent lounging, students were presented with a bevy of enticing ways to spend the free day.

From guided hikes to Guilder Pond, South Pinnacle or Race Brook Falls, to experiences on the high ropes course behind Berkshire Hall or on the rock wall in the gym, to fly fishing or birding expeditions, to orienteering, cider pressing or maple –6–

syrup preparation and wood splitting, the community spent the day engaged in healthy, natural pursuits. Best of all, Fidel and James led drumming sessions in the tipi in Buck Valley! Students carried green Mountain Day cards to collect points for each activity; students who amassed the most points won valuable gift certificates to area stores and Shawn’s Place. Students who gathered three or more points were entered in a raffle for other certificates, t-shirts and school store bounty. The RKMP was a proud sponsor of this event and it is hoped that this rekindled tradition will be an annual event.

The Garden Shed Project Last spring, members of the RKMP helped Mr. Barros and members of his sustainability class construct a storage shed for the new community garden located beside the gym where tennis courts and the temporary “Centennial Classrooms” once stood.

This structure, assembled next to Chevalier Lodge, was built primarily with used lumber, much of which had been milled from trees felled right on campus. The shed window and door hardware were salvaged from Memorial Hall, which was about to be razed to make space for the planned math/science building. When the shed was completed, Robin McGraw ’70 came along with his Land Rover and dragged the shed down to the garden site.

Glen Brook Trail Bridge and Dave Chapin Trail Bridge Backcountry Skills 2009 completely rebuilt the Glen Brook Trail Bridge, which was in a state of disrepair. The handrails were off the bridge and the deck of the bridge was rotten. Two old utility poles were salvaged and hauled up the mountain by

members of Mr. Bowler’s recreational soccer team. Over these long sturdy poles a new frame, decking and railing system was built.

More recently, a new bridge was also constructed on the Dave Chapin Trail. Like the Glen Brook Trail Bridge, which was built around the same time, the timbers were rotten and the railing was down. These two bridges are located on popular trails, and so their reconstruction ensured safe passage for years to come. Note: The bridge on the Dave Chapin Trail was almost completely renovated by a group of volunteers during Mountain Day last fall.

Wolf Pack Every year when classes start at Berkshire School a certain group of students and faculty come together to form the “Wolf Pack,” a band of individuals who retreat to the Mountain before class on Friday mornings in order to release their “inner howl.” They say there simply is no better way to start a weekend at Berkshire than to wake up and hike through the pitch dark with your fellow wolves to the summit of the mountain overlooking campus and take in a new day as the first rays of sunshine reach Berkshire Hall.

Beyond the Mountain - Thailand, “Take Two” In three previous newsletters we have reported on summer adventures provided by the RKMP’s Beyond the Mountain program, which was initiated by Frank Barros, former Director of the RKMP who now serves as the school’s director of sustainability. Unfortunately last summer’s political unrest in Bangkok prevented Mr. Barros and Mr. Dalton from leading a group of students on a deep-water solo climbing trip to Poda Island, which is near Krabi and the Andaman Sea. A new trip is currently planned for June 2011 and already has 12 student participants registered. The itinerary will include an elephant safari and a visit to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and the Angkor National Museum, so look for a summary of this trip in next year’s Newsletter!

Pinnacle to Pinnacle In mid-November the RKMP sponsored the Second Annual Pinnacle to Pinnacle Hike. In 2009 this event had 25 student and faculty participants, which grew to 39 in 2010. Here’s a short piece that appeared recently on the School’s Web site:

the adventure were 5 campus dogs: Bernie, Koda, Patch, Remy, and Percy.

In the group was a small cadre of repeat hikers, several of whom wore their 2009 Pinnacle to Pinnacle T-shirt proudly. Included in this group were Chris Bowman, Julio Morales, Bray Wilcock, Mike Brujlin, Nina Rodriguez, Jasper Turner, Meriwether Harris, Anita Loose-Brown, Unyime, Lillian and Dan Skoglund and Mike Dalton. The highlight of the four-mile hike was, once again, a tremendous The Weather Cooperates for the 2nd chili and cornbread feast, hosted by Nannie Annual Pinnacle to Pinnacle Hike The weather was cool, clear, and crisp on a and Bill Clough. The beauty of finishing the hike at the Clough’s house on East Campus recent Sunday afternoon when 39 students, (besides the food) was the opportunity to faculty and staff gathered for the 2nd look to the west and see the entire hiking Annual Pinnacle to Pinnacle Hike, sponsored by the RKMP. The intrepid hikers fol- route that had just been completed. lowed a path to the base of North Pinnacle, Thoreau House scrambled to its peak, and then bushIn October of 2010, two students from whacked west towards the Appalachian Trail.

Stuart Miller’s (class of ’97) Advanced Along the way they stopped at a huge piece English V class, Meagan McKenna ’12 and of limestone that resembled a glacial erratic Jack Lewers ’12, were the first to take advanand tried to imagine how it got to its resting tage of an opportunity, albeit for only one place. After finding the AT, it was a pleasant night each, to live like Henry David Thoreau 15-minute hike along a fairly level stretch of trail to the Hemlock Shelter, where folks had did during his two-year stint at Walden Pond. The overnight consisted of arriving at a chance to take a break for water and fruit. the School’s Thoreau House in the A long bushwhack followed in a southerly direction through some thick mountain lau- evening—alone and devoid of any electronic device—and then joining the class for breakrel, past the old markings and insulators on fast the following morning. A simple trees along the Telephone Trail to a spot lantern, the necessary books, a journal, and a below Mount Everett. The pack of hikers sleeping bag were all that accompanied then headed east and up the back side of Meagan and Jack during their individual South Pinnacle, “hitting” the 1914 stone stays in the cabin. monument “spot on.”

“Being in the cabin alone allowed me to The student participants were Andrew think. Just think: nothing special, nothing Walther ’11, Bray Wilcock ’12, Charlie Yorke complicated. Just reflect on my life, my ’13, Chris Bowman ’12, Dakota Richardson choices, and my future,” said Meagan. ’10, Edeline Loh ’14, Grace Fowler ’13, Hunter Lucey ’12, James Steiner ’12, JP Carey ’11, Julio Morales ’11, Karina Wong ’11, Kathleen Huang ’11, Lars Robinson ’13, Lillian Or ’11, Olly Liu ’14, Penny Ni ’12, Sissi Wang 13, Timothy Kou ’13, Unyime Udoh ’13, Wesley Lickus ’13. Faculty and staff hikers included Andrew Bogardus, Anita Loose-Brown, Dan Skoglund, Elizabeth Renehan, Evan Nielsen, Frank Barros, Hugh McKeegan, James Meriwether Harris, Jasper Turner, Kate Garbutt, Mike Bjurlin, Mike Dalton, Myra Riiska, Nathaniel Blauss, Nina Rodriguez, Paul McKenzie, Ruthie Fish, and Will Cronin. Also along for –7–

Ritt Remembered

By James Harris, director of communications, English teacher Colby Coombs, the lone survivor of an avalanche that took the life of Ritt Kellogg ’85 and another climber in 1992 on Alaska’s Mount Foraker, recently told a hushed Berkshire community about his friendship with the namesake of Berkshire’s Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program.

Colby, a true mountain man who employs 40 guides at his Alaska Mountaineering School in Talkeetna, Alaska, and who disdains being called “mister”, also visited classes in U.S. history, English, journalism, and forest ecology.

The disastrous expedition, which was recounted in the book In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World, was also the cover story of the July 1998 Reader’s Digest. After finding the bodies of his two fellow climbers, Colby made it back down the mountain despite fractures to his neck, shoulder and leg. But rather than dwell on the details of the disaster, the soft-spoken Colby chose to tell of his relationship with Ritt, who was his classmate at Colorado College and his best friend for seven years, which he called “the time of our lives.” Colby spoke of Ritt’s love of practical jokes and sailing, of their shared passion for climbing, of steady diets of Ramen noodles and popcorn while planning their next climb, and of long car trips spent in the shared silence of friendship.

He also showed photos on the big screen of staggeringly beautiful vistas of the Alaska that he and Ritt loved—“it was sort of a religion for us; it cleansed our minds of all the other clutter”—and some of the peaks they conquered together. Included also was a quick primer on the perils and pleasures of mountain climbing.

For his day’s labors at his friend’s school, Colby would accept only a Berkshire School hockey cap and a half-gallon of maple syrup made by members of the RKMP. But judging from the number of students who approached him afterward, he might have landed a few future climbing clients from Berkshire School.

The Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program Fall Backcountry Skills Rock Climbing and Parkour Winter Boat Building Winter Mountaineering Spring Whitewater Kayaking Mountain Biking

Caitlin, Lisle, and Colby Coombs on the Allen Theatre stage with a slide of Ritt Kellogg ’85 in the background.

2010-2011 Offerings and Staff Clubs and Activities

Mike Dalton and Nathaniel Blauss Frank Barros and Dan Spear

Richard Giles Mike Dalton and Nathaniel Blauss

Jesus Ibanez and Dan Spear Frank Barros

Fly Fishing

Bill Bullock and Dan Skoglund

Birding

Clay Splawn

Maple Syrup Corporation

Mike Dalton

A Trail to Every Classroom

Mike Dalton and Anita Loose-Brown

Trained in Ropes Course

Mike Dalton, Frank Barros, Jesus Ibanez, Dan Spear, Peter Quilty, Bill Bullock, Nathaniel Blauss, Kate Garbutt, Brian Lewton

Beyond the Mountain Frank Barros (domestic and international wilderness trips)

Please contact RKMP Newsletter editor Bonita Lovison, director of stewardship, with any questions or concerns (blovison@berkshireshireschool.org)

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Thank you to the donors who have given to the RKMP endowment, from all the students who have bene fited from their generosity.