Written by: Conlan, Penny, Lily & Keira
From August 25th to September 8th, 2023, students of the High Mountain Institute’s (HMI) Semester 51 explored the spectacular Sawatch Range and Collegiate Peaks. They headed out with each other and their instructors, only a handful days after arriving to HMI! Several students opted to write about and share their memorable experiences from the trip.
Group A
Written by Conlan Lamb
HMI Semester 51 kicked off with First Expedition here in Colorado! This was a 15-day, 14-night expedition in the Sawatch Range and Collegiate Peaks, which form the backyard of HMI. This proximity was astonishing; it meant that while hiking we could look down and see the campus that make up our school and homes for the next 4 months. Before hiking in these mountains, however, we first met the group.
Group “A” was composed of Jack, Uly, Leo, Martha, Tatum, Caitlin, John, Eli W., Ryan, Rocky, Sophie, Will, Claire, Isabella, and myself. These names will likely have little significance to you, however to me, they meant everything. They were the people I was with day and night, for two weeks.
They were the people I’d wake up with in rainy darkness, under tarps at 5:30 am; the ones I’d cook breakfast with, maybe a sunflower butter bagel or bowl of hash browns; the ones I was sharing the load of setting up camp with, from our 50 pound packs; the ones I hiked day after day with, sometimes for 4 hours, most times for 8; the ones I sat in classes with, and discussed the myth of Wilderness or the potential of math in climate change with; the ones who had conflict with one and another, and crafted group Norms; the ones who I’d be awake with for 15-18 hours a day; and the ones who I got blisters, dehydrated, and sore legs with.
This trip was difficult, simple as that. It was a 24-hour process of waking up unrested, taking down camp, cooking food, hiking all day with heavy packs, getting to camp, taking classes, cooking again, having Circle (a nightly routine where a question was posed and everyone shared a response), going to sleep cold and tired, and doing it all again the next day. This is the grueling routine of a backpacking trip. And, like all backpacking trips, the experience is epitomized by the hiking. Step after step after step, all day long. The majority of the time is spent doing this. For each of us, hiking had (and has) its own effect, though we all share the experience of: the human discomfort that comes with it.
So why? Why do we go on backpacking trips here at HMI and as humans if at times it can be so hard?
Well, here is where I believe the true meaning and beauty comes in. Once in this act of doing something that brings discomfort, we recognized the discomfort, and even got OK with that discomfort. And then, having accepted the discomfort, the curiosity, creativity, and conversation began to flow. For example, freestyling for two hours while walking down Hope’s Pass, or naming every MLB team on the side of the Mt. Massive ridge, or talking about forms of expression through Theater while being sick, or singing Nicki Minaj on the hardest uphills, or playing Contact on unending switch backs, or IDing poop and trees at 5 am, or trying to find mutual friends from Massachusetts and LA while bored, or doing Hibachi tricks while making dinner, or dropping the craziest Lore stories while getting ready for bed. This is what’s special.
It’s the connections we form with others while doing something mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging.
It’s this ability to find joy in the pain that makes backpacking worth it.
And that is a summary of First Exped with Group A.
Group B
Written by Penny Preston
My first expedition, my first time backpacking, my first time in Colorado…a lot of firsts, hopefully the first of many more adventures to come. In an excerpt from my journal on the first night of exped I wrote, “I want to cry. I’m wet and tired and sore and hungry.” Contrast that with my journal entry on the last night of exped, “I’m not sure if I should cry tears of joy that I get to go back and sleep in a bed, or cry because I just had one of the most amazing two weeks of my life and am not sure I’m ready for it to be over.”
I remember the first day, and now looking back, it was one of the easier days, but at the time I felt like I was carrying a thousand pounds and hiking uphill to a seemingly non-existent campsite. When we first got there, I wanted a nap and a cookie, but instead, we talked about LNT. LNT stands for “leave no trace”: seven principles to minimize our impact on the land and our surroundings. Number four of the seven principles is “leave what you found,” which is poor wording because I believe every single one of the people in my exped group took a lot of things back with them! Although no one carried back an old mining artifact or huge rock, we all left with new friends, new backpacking skills, new life skills, new goals, and new appreciation for the world around us.
If I had to make a “top 5” list from my first expedition, I think it would be 1) summiting Mount Massive and Mount Elbert, 2) making pizza at Heart Shaped Lake, 3) the Hagerman Tunnel, 4) being LOD, and 5) sleeping under the stars.
My hiking group had the opportunity to hike not one, but two of the tallest mountains in the Rockies. While waking up at 4 am and putting on puff pants and headlamps is just about as fun as it sounds, the insane sunrises along with the view and feeling of accomplishment at the top made it very well worth it.
No meal tastes better than one cooked by you and your friends after a long day of hiking, so you can only imagine what it was like to throw down your pack to learn you were going to have pizza! Our I-team helped us activate the yeast and we had class while the dough was rising. Each cook crew made four personal pizzas and we ate them while the sun set over Leadville.
On our second day of exped, we camped by the abandoned mining town of Douglas City. In the 1800s, it was a bustling city of miners and railroad workers with eight saloons (mostly in tents), a dance hall, and a reputation for being rowdy. Today, Douglas City is only home to the remains of this scene and the now abandoned Hagerman Tunnel. We hiked up to see what we were expecting to be a small and broken down old tunnel, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that this tunnel was huge, and that it is now filled with ice, crossing the Continental Divide through a mountain at an elevation of 11,000 feet.
HMI gives you lots of guidance and doesn’t require prior backpacking or camping experience, but it also allows you the opportunity to take the lead and make mistakes. One chance for this is by being LOD, or ‘leader of the day.’ The LODs guide a group of students to the next X, or campsite, using a map and observation skills. I had so much fun keeping pace and working with my friends to ‘trap the X,’ it honestly felt like scoring a goal when you’re on a sports team.
On the last night of exped, we viewed the most amazing stars I have ever seen, and we cowboy camped (slept outside of our tarp) and laughed all night under these stars. I have truly never seen anything like it; I think I counted six shooting stars. I thought about how crazy bright they were and how I had never seen stars like this back home, not even in the countryside where we ski and spend summers. I realized that New York City’s pollution might have something to do with this, but more likely, it is just the pollution of life that has put a damper on the night sky for me before this. Waking up, going to school, doing work all night, and then doing this on repeat just doesn’t give you the same lens to appreciate what a crazy amazing world we live in.
Group C
Written by Keira Olsen
I’m having a staring contest with a salamander. Nestled in the Sawatch Range, Heart Shaped Lake houses a variety of alpine creatures. Awake this morning are its resident aquatic lizards, as well as a dozen HMI students. I’m laying stomach down on a rock off the lake’s shore, gazing into the water.
Neither of us blinks.
On a layover day where we have time to rest and regenerate, my friends and I are trying to sunbathe on the rocks at our campsite. Sage washes her hair in the frigid water; others wade on the shallow banks. It begins raining, a cold drizzle in the light mountain air. To my left, from the mist, a rainbow forms.
We’ve climbed mountain saddles, crossed rivers, and been stung by a multitude of insects to get here. Here in this moment where all that matters is me and this salamander. We’ve come so far over the past days to see him, hiding in the remote alpine lakes of these mountains. Tonight we’ll play our own version of Iron Chef, working together to craft insane dishes for our instructors (my group will win and celebrate with oreo backcountry brownies – the best thing I’ve ever eaten). We’ll hike more miles, cross more streams, get stung by more bees, and face many new challenges. But as the famous HMI saying goes, “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!” Today, none of that matters. Today, I’m laying on the warm lake rocks. Here, having a staring contest with a salamander.
Group D
Written by Lily Butler
Day five of exped. Just after a beautiful layover where we had seen the sun for the first time in days, we set out for a three-and-a-half mile off-trail day. It was our first off-trail day of many, but we were confident in our ability to make it to camp before dark. After a few hornet stings, some bushwhacking, a knee injury, and following some suspicious-looking blue diamonds, we made it to the dirt road. Because of the previously-stated knee injury we decided to take a detour, and around 4 p.m., realized we were lost. Spirits were down, the sun was beginning to set and our Gardetto (one of the best HMI snacks) supplies were running low. We set our packs down and scouted to see where we might go, but after little success, we sat down again and discussed camping elsewhere. All of a sudden, we heard a joyous cry coming from across the forest and realized our instructor had found the railroad where we were supposed to walk on to reach camp. At that moment, every person in my hiking group jumped up, hurriedly put our packs on, and basically sprinted to the sound of Dylan’s voice. When we reached the top of the railroad, two of my friends started crying, the mood completely changed and we even saw snow on the mountains for the first time. From then on, we sang, talked, and laughed all the way to camp, which was still 1.5 miles away. The views from that hike were the most beautiful in my opinion and though it was late, it was almost better because we got to see the sunset behind the mountains as we cried happy tears to camp.
