Kroka Update 3/06/08

Family and friends we miss and love you.

This last leg has been long and strenuous. At last we arrived at Maple Wind Farm in Huntington, VT where we are staying in a yurt. It is warm and cozy, we all sleep soundly and late in our layover beds. We have been calling our families and are eating in luxury. We are catching up on academics and write letters home. Eric’s upcoming birthday brought his family and best friend here (they live only about _ hour away). We celebrated with yummy food and finished the evening with a great cake.  
                                        Layover at Farm and Wilderness
Why don’t I start by describing a typical day on the trail.  5:30 - wake up call for the cooks. Soon the fire is crackling in our tent stove. Outside on the fire screen another fire is made. This is a metal screen attached between two trees with metal cables. The cook makes a fire on the screen and is hanging pots over it, which speeds up the cooking time dramatically. Anyway, the cooks boil water for tea on the fire screen while the inside cook starts making sausages and biscuits. For our tea we break off the tips of fir, spruce, hemlock or pine bows. Sometimes we get Chaga-tea, which a mushroom found on yellow birch. The main course of breakfast consists of Kasha, grits, oats or beans and wheat berries. At 6:00 the leader of the day wakes everybody by singing a song. We dry our sleeping bags by the wood stove and then put them in the stuff sacks. Sleeping pads not necessary to outline the tent for seats are brought outside. Trail mix, our food for the day is distributed from the bulk day food bags into everyone’s individual zip locks and the person responsible for water duty fills thermoses. Once the tent is neat and cleared of all our gear we pack our backpacks and strap sleeping pads onto the back. Someone will sub in for the cooks so they can pack their pack. We split up group gear (axes, saws). I take down and pack the fire screen. When all is done and packed away the leader of the day initiates morning meditation. Everybody finds a spot outside to appreciate the rising sun, the trees and whatever strikes their fancy. Meanwhile the leader coordinates with the cooks “How long till breakfast is ready?” The leader calls and everyone comes to the tent, usually shivering. Jed, our hygiene queen stands outside and offers a drop of soap and water. Everyone must wash hand before entering the tent. We gather in a circle sitting on sleeping pads around the brim of the tent. We sing a song while holding hands, then in silence we clear our thoughts and feel each other’s palms in anticipation of the meal (breakfast is my favorite). The cook serves the food in bowls and we pass the bowls around the circle feeling the warmth and taking in the aroma of each bowl as it passes us by. “Everyone is served” the cooks call out and we begin to eat. The food is always delicious. During the meal the person on water duty sits by a big pot of tea and people pass up their cups. Nothing feels as good as warm liquid in the morning when it’s cold. Evergreen tea tastes fresh like you imagine springy green bows would. Chaga is “dank”-like coffee and clears out sleepy eyes giving a rush of energy. When bowls are seemingly empty cooks say: “Ready for seconds”. We count off for seconds. 1, 2, 3, …, if you turn your head without speaking to the next person you do not want seconds. You can also say “small 3 (or 4 or 5 or 7 or 13)” if you are pretty full but the food is too good and you want more. After breakfast we pass up our bowls and the cooks wash them, as well as spoons, pots and pans and set them to dry on the stove. While cooks do dishes the leader says something like “time for hula”. We go around the circle sharing how we are feeling and anything we think is important for the rest of the group to hear. Sometimes we have specialized hulas, where we are trying to solve a specific problem the group may have, like bickering with each other or being stressed about all that needs to be done. When everyone has spoken the tender space of hula is broken and we go about packing up the cooking kit and taking down the tent. Day food bags are passed out, we uproot the bows of our floor and lean bulky, lopsided piles on fallen trees for rabbits to take shelter under. When everything is done so that nature’s aesthetics are restored we put on our packs and skis. With the strong and comforting guidance of our master navigator John, our daily navigator gives his update: “ The first 4 kilometers are uphill, then we traverse along Mt Abraham mountain for 6 kilometers then downhill 5 kilometers” he or she may point to the map and say “hopefully we will camp at this beaver dam here”.
Then we are off on the trail, with leader and navigator leading the way and the sweep following. Someone is carrying the sled (usually Jesse), packed with the stove and cooking kit. We ski and ski and ski. The leader of the day checks in with everyone and we have breaks when we are tired. We throw off our packs, eat trail mix and drink tea from thermoses. On wide snowmobile tracks we can ski side by side and talk. On the narrow Catamount trail we ski single file through powder. Up hills, down hills over streams, off bumps, everything comes our way. We either reach our destination or camp somewhere else depending on the progress we’ve made.    When we decide upon a flat sheltered spot with plentiful bows and dry firewood we pack down a spot for the tent with our skis while singing a wordless melody. The tent is set up. Dead trees are sawed and chopped for fire wood, bows are plucked and stuck in the snow like shingles to create our floor. Cooks prepare a meal. Water duty fill pots with water. A flurry of activity is what an onlooker may see if things are being done properly. Everyone is on his/her separate job, then helping out with something else when the allotted piece is taken care of. When we are stable and have enough firewood to last us through the night and the morning we get our sleeping bag and personal items from our packs. We go inside and finally we can chill out. With hungry bellies we wait for supper. We go through the same routine as I described at breakfast, except by candlelight. After supper we have a dessert such as dried apples, sweet granola bars, or snow cream, fluffy snow churned with cream and maple syrup or melted honey, hmmmm.                                           
We go out and brush our teeth and admire the stars as Nick and Celeste arrange sleeping pads with ingenuity. Finally we come inside and layout our sleeping bags. Listening to Chris reading the story of Little Tree we fade off into sleep.
Highlights: We had a solo where we went into the woods by ourselves, navigating by the mountains surrounding us, with just a knife, matches and raw meat. We found a spot or a spot found us), settled down and made a fire. We cooked the meat on our open fire and everyone agreed the taste was real and unspiced. Reminded me of primal stuff.
We created shelters following principles Chris had showed us that were needed for our survival. With a partner we created what we could imagine and accomplish in a day, (though as it turned out most of the shelters looked similar). We could sleep in our shelters with or without a sleeping bag. Without a sleeping bag we had to keep a fire going through the night in order to be warm. We cooked pasta and biscuits in a pot, another delicious meal although the pasta was bland and I ate the biscuit dough raw because it didn’t seem to be cooking. In the morning we were sooty and tired, but a feeling of accomplishment was in us having surpassed and bore through a hard night.
We carved spoons, beautiful elegant spoons, spoons shaped like an Ankh, the Egyptian symbol of fertility, spoons round and straight, spoons shaped like fire, spoons shaped like a banjo, spoons like… just kidding. Now enough of my riddling.
We climbed up Mt Abraham (4,000 ft) and skied down the other side, which is the luxurious ski resort called Sugarbush. We were having a lot of fun but halfway down the mountain Celeste hurt her ankle. She rested at home for a day but is back with us on this layover, smiling. Celeste smiles a lot, especially lately. Hopefully and most likely she will be with us on the trail.
                                       
For the Vermont Semester this is Joey Becker