Catching up with the Youth
Tracy and I have been very fortunate the past two years to be involved in a local church family called Tsaile Community Church. It is part of the Churches of God General Conference and is just a quarter mile down the road. They have been amazing at allowing us to help or lead in different areas of the fellowship. They have been really open to new ideas and perspectives and have shared many with us as well. We have tried to promote more outdoor and service oriented activities with the youth. Here are a few pictures of some recent youth events.
Some of us spent an afternoon chopping wood and repainting Adella's pink hogan. It sure is pink now! Chopping wood is an ongoing service project when you live at 7000 feet.
In October our youth group joined forces with Tom Riggenbach's YES organization and journeyed three hours to the highest point on the rez, Navajo Mountain. We attempted to summit the 10,388 ft. tall lacolith but...
...the summit was not in the cards that day for a sundry of reasons. About 100 yards up the trail one 8th grade gal informed me that she couldn't go on because of a sprained ankle. I asked how and when it happened only to hear her reply, "Oh, sometime last week." Ahhhh. The joys and challenges of working with middle school kids. A couple others fell by the way side on the steep, rocky, six mile trek up to the top, but this group pictured did make it to the last stand of quaking aspens about a mile from the summit. They really wanted to push on, but Tom and I calculated that one more mile would mean we'd be descending mostly in the dark, so we called it. It is great having someone like Tom with your group in the wilderness setting. He has been to Everest base camp, climbed Kilimanjaro, and led hundreds of youth outings in various wilderness settings. He has nothing to prove (other than trying to prove that being a Cubs fan is not detrimental to one's intelligence), which is a nice balance to my overzealousness sometimes. We didn't make the top, but we all returned home safely that night.
The weekend after Navajo Mountain we took some youth to the best viewpoint on the rez, Buffalo Pass. This past summer Tom and some of his Tour de Rez riders cleaned up the picnic area and put in a new sign, so we thought we'd maintain a little bit. In 30 minutes we had gathered six large bags of trash and probably could have filled another dozen. The sad fact of trash is one of the downsides of life on the rez. After the quick cleanup the group jumped on some bikes and rode approximately 20 miles across parts of the Chuska mountains back to Tsaile. I drove the church van as a support vehicle, but how much support can a creaky, wheezy, 1990 Dodge van offer?
I'll spare you a picture of the van. Instead here is a favorite stop in the Chuskas for bikers, hunters, sheepherders, runners, etc. There ain't nothing like pure mountain water to refresh your body. I'd say it even rivals the water of Walnut Grove, which leads to my next post.
Some of us spent an afternoon chopping wood and repainting Adella's pink hogan. It sure is pink now! Chopping wood is an ongoing service project when you live at 7000 feet.
In October our youth group joined forces with Tom Riggenbach's YES organization and journeyed three hours to the highest point on the rez, Navajo Mountain. We attempted to summit the 10,388 ft. tall lacolith but...
...the summit was not in the cards that day for a sundry of reasons. About 100 yards up the trail one 8th grade gal informed me that she couldn't go on because of a sprained ankle. I asked how and when it happened only to hear her reply, "Oh, sometime last week." Ahhhh. The joys and challenges of working with middle school kids. A couple others fell by the way side on the steep, rocky, six mile trek up to the top, but this group pictured did make it to the last stand of quaking aspens about a mile from the summit. They really wanted to push on, but Tom and I calculated that one more mile would mean we'd be descending mostly in the dark, so we called it. It is great having someone like Tom with your group in the wilderness setting. He has been to Everest base camp, climbed Kilimanjaro, and led hundreds of youth outings in various wilderness settings. He has nothing to prove (other than trying to prove that being a Cubs fan is not detrimental to one's intelligence), which is a nice balance to my overzealousness sometimes. We didn't make the top, but we all returned home safely that night.
The weekend after Navajo Mountain we took some youth to the best viewpoint on the rez, Buffalo Pass. This past summer Tom and some of his Tour de Rez riders cleaned up the picnic area and put in a new sign, so we thought we'd maintain a little bit. In 30 minutes we had gathered six large bags of trash and probably could have filled another dozen. The sad fact of trash is one of the downsides of life on the rez. After the quick cleanup the group jumped on some bikes and rode approximately 20 miles across parts of the Chuska mountains back to Tsaile. I drove the church van as a support vehicle, but how much support can a creaky, wheezy, 1990 Dodge van offer?
I'll spare you a picture of the van. Instead here is a favorite stop in the Chuskas for bikers, hunters, sheepherders, runners, etc. There ain't nothing like pure mountain water to refresh your body. I'd say it even rivals the water of Walnut Grove, which leads to my next post.
posted by CHUSKA NATIVES at
3:59 PM
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