Hey this is Carissa and this past
week I led a co-ed group from Cristo Rey on the Basswood Falls route; this was
my first trip guiding and I couldn’t have asked for a better group. The group I
led was crazy awesome, the first day out was pretty hard, we paddled 12.5 miles
which is pretty impressive for a group of kids, one of which had
never been camping before. We all stayed injury free throughout the trip except
for one boy who seemed to get injured enough for the rest of the group, with
everything from a leech attack to almost getting swept down some rapids we were
portaging up. On this trip we saw the pictographs near Basswood Falls, which
were quite exciting there are two pelicans, an eight-person canoe, a man, but
most exciting was the ‘eccentric moose’, which was smoking a double pipe. We
loved talking about music and food, I allowed ‘food fouls’ all week, because I
love talking about food; everyone in the group got Latino rapper nicknames,
mine for the week was Lady Teardrop.
Life stories went well, I think
it was good for everyone to share their life experiences with other people.
After a last minute change in my content for the week, I had planned on doing
foot washing during affirmations, but after finding out that one of my leaders
had extreme dislike for feet, I decided to do Christmas on the trail. It was
great to see everyone getting excited and creative about making Christmas
gifts, we had everything from a duct tape wallet, to a spirit stick, to a mini
bow and arrow. The most powerful thing we did this week was affirmations; this
really brought our group together and let everyone hear the good in them that
others see.
Carissa
