It’s been a big transition coming back to campus, but we feel that we are right where we belong! The HMI community has welcomed all expedition groups back with open arms, and we are having an absolute blast reconnecting. When we are not in the middle of captivating and stimulating class periods, you can find us running, […]
The time was January 25th. The place was the canyons of southeastern Utah, and the protagonists were 48 slightly awkward and confused high school juniors, along with a slew of trusty instructors. Our heroes braved the land for fourteen days, embracing rain, shine, cliffs, mesas, and kitchen disasters. But most importantly, they faced themselves, and
We can barely believe it, and we almost don’t want to say it…we’ve finished our last week of classes! It’s been a lot of work, but we made it through our first semester of junior year! Everything has been handed in, which feels like a great weight off our shoulders. We worked hard on our
Here are some reflections from third expedition! Group A: Even though 14,000-foot mountains didn’t surround us and the nearest lake was 50 miles away, we were blown away by Utah’s canyon country! The environment was completely different, and we had to perfect some new and different navigation skills. That said, so many of the skills
As always, there was lots going on as we rolled into our last academic week on campus before third expedition! Last week, we had an extremely meaningful experience in community meeting. After splitting up into single-gender groups, we focused on exploring gender stereotypes. Each group was led through an activity that asked us to reflect on
Our third expedition will be much different than our other two expeditions. This time around, we have Student Expedition Leaders (or SELs) who will help make this expedition run smoothly. We got to vote for our SELs, and we’re excited about the leadership that they’re already showing. SEL responsibilities include helping to choose our route for the
As you may well have guessed, we’ve been busy here on campus! We’re rolling out of our third week of academic time since our second expedition. It’s hard to believe how quickly it’s all gone by. Our Family Weekend was such a blast—we enjoyed sharing this place that we care so much about with people
This second expedition can be summed up in one word: snowy! While we felt prepared with warm sleeping bags and lots of layers, we were still a bit surprised to be hiking around in snow up to our knees while summiting 14ers. We look outside now at two of these big peaks right outside Who’s
This is our last update before heading into the snowy wildlands around Leadville. We figure that if we’re working with people from the Colorado Fourteener’s Initiative then at least we’re not the only crazy ones headed out into the backcountry! We feel more comfortable this time around preparing for expedition—rationing food, issuing gear, organizing, packing
Since we’re sure that we’re going to miss our “traditional” HMI on-campus classes, we thought we’d dedicate this penultimate post before expedition to honoring those classes (even though we still get to work on them in the backcountry)! One of the things that we’ve been most excited about is our teachers. They are so passionate about what
