by Charlton Perry, Spartan faculty

photos by Nicole Ezell '12, Connor Smith '12, and Adam Long '09

Again this year we embark upon another adventurous season. We will be travelling throughout Texas, to the Mountain West and the great Smokey Mountains. Unfortunately, for the time being, Mexico is off limits. On the bright side, we’ll have plenty of time to plan around this.

This year, we will have three seasons in which students can earn PE or sport credit. Our students can earn PE credit in the caving program which takes place in the fall every Tuesday and Thursday from late August to early November. During the winter term, every Wednesday and Friday, students can earn a PE credit mountain biking.

Rock climbing takes place in the spring from late February to early May. Because rock climbing meets for more hours, students can earn sport credit. In addition, interest permitting, we will carry on with recreational orienteering and Geo-caching.

photos by Connor Smith '12 and Nicole Ezell '12

photos by Connor Smith '12 and Nicole Ezell '12

Photos by Adam Long '09

I have always loved the outdoors. My dad took me camping as a little kid, and my mom taught me a lot of plants and animals at the Wildflower Center and around Austin. Since then, I have really grown to love everything there is about the outdoors.

In middle school, I did some mountain biking, hiking, and trips to West Texas, and I went on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon. Once in high school, I have participated in caving all three years that I have been at St. Stephen's. I do more mountain biking on my own now, but have also biked with DCWP.

I was a caving captain. Our role is to be a leader among the other DCWP students, and so we have to really be on top of our stuff so that we can answer questions and be good role models for the younger cavers. Younger cavers often come to captains first with questions, and then to the coaches.

Too many... can't think of a favorite...

Probably when I fell from the tower in ninth grade... I fell and broke my arm (but I was lucky I didn't break my neck), and had to wear a cast for a month. That month was basically dead to me because I couldn't do hardly anything that I would normally do. Even so, after a few weeks I went mountain biking with my cast on and even was able to go on the caving trip to Mexico. It was a little hard to come back in 11th grade after that fall and after the year in Japan and relearn all the techniques and get back into the caving groove (no pun intended).

Orienteering is using a map, a compass, and physical landmarks to find your way to a point in the wilderness. I first got into orienteering thorugh Boy Scouts and through camping trips to Bastrop State Park, which has a very nice permanent orienteering course. For that course, you are given a detailed map with topgraphic lines, cliff faces, trails, wells, ponds, springs, boulders, and manmade objects mapped along with the locations of the orienteering markers. To find the markers, you locate yourself by finding landmarks that appear on the map, and then you use a compass to determine which way to head to the orienteering marker.

Geocaching is where one person hides a container and marks it's latitude and longitude coordinates with a GPS. They then post the coordinates on www.geocaching.com, where other people load the coordinates onto their GPSs and go find the hidden containers. Caches range in size from tiny thumbnail sized magnetic containers to film canisters to large army surplus ammo cans. All geocaches must have a log book where finders sign to prove they found the cache, and many larger caches with have little toys and trinkets in them.

I first got into geocaching when four years ago when I got a GPS. I found about 30 caches in my freshman year, one while in Japan, and then stopped for a while. Randomly, in about November of 2008, in preparation for a trip to Italy, I got back into geocaching, and since then I have found almost 350 geocaches around Texas and the U.S.

Approval for our geocaching program was remarkably easy. I talked to Mr. McCain, and he said that as long as Mr. Perry signed off on the idea, I could take roll and lead the group for a P.E. credit.

This winter term program started with a orienteering and geocaching course on campus. While I was able to teach almost everything just from personal knowledge, I did do some research into orienteering methods. For geocaching, I explained the basic rules, typical hiding locations, and how to use a GPS, but most of the learning took place in the field. Every geocache location is different, some are in parking lots, and some are miles down a trail in the Barton Creek Greenbelt. Every cache is also hidden differently, and some require a significant amount of searching to find.

After the on campus course, we took afternoon trips twice a week and on occasional weekends to various natural areas and parks. After almost 60 caches, everyone who participated learned a wide range of hiding locations and techinques. The best part of geocaching, for me, is not the thrill of the hunt (which is exciting), but more the places that geocaching takes you. Our afternoon trips have brought us to dozens of parks in Austin, many of which we had never been to before.

I hope that this program can continue, and if a faculty member would like to sponsor the group, they could do a lot more than simple day trips. For example, I had planned a backpacking trip to Bastrop State Park (where there is the orienteering course and many geocaches), but we were not able to make the trip mostly for liability reasons. I have explained geocaching to a few teachers, and one or two have shown interest, but I do not know if they would be able to sponsor an after school club.

The Pease Park Clean Up was something I heard about through a neighbor, and I just decided to spread the word to SSES people. I am an Eagle Scout, and for my project I built a trail on SSES campus back in 2005.

• St. Stephen's Japanese Exchange Student

• Honor Roll student

• Most Outstanding Chinese I student

• National Merit Commended Scholar

• Photography Gold Key

I'm still very undecided at the moment... for both college and path of study.

Students who are drawn to nature and wilderness adventures find satisfying experiences in the Devil's Canyon Wilderness Program (DCWP), named after a canyon in the 430-acre St. Stephen's campus. Much of the program's training and study takes place on the school's unspoiled Hill Country acres, but students and faculty also participate in wilderness expeditions throughout Texas, the Southwest, Mexico, and the world.

The DCWP is housed in a student-built, 1,600-square-foot straw-bale house that is used for training, the DCWP library, and gear storage. Also available in Clayton Gymnasium is the Ritt Kellogg Climbing Wall, which is fully leadable and approximately 30 feet high by 20 feet wide. The wall is used for climbing and caving training.

Photography by Adam Long '09

DCWP Safety

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Alaska Trip Summer '04

Participants train for wilderness trips and learn wilderness ethics during trimester-long after-school classes. Students learn to plan for and execute all aspects of trips, including survival skills, gear, first aid, and low-impact techniques. The program offers instruction in a variety of outdoor activities, from backpacking to mountain biking. In the fall and spring terms, students earn a sports credit for caving and rock climbing. In the past five years, the DCWP has led students mountaineering in Ecuador, backpacking in New Mexico, canoeing in the canyons of Big Bend, hiking on the Colorado Plateau, and climbing at the Joshua Tree Monument.