Backcountry Review
Live free and transcend
A MINE Publication
Issue No. 3
Mission Statement Springfield High School’s Miller Integrated Nature Experience gives students a look at Oregon they may never see otherwise. The program combines nature writing, journalism, Oregon geography, leadership, and exploration while providing a foundation for environmental conciousness and stewardship.
PHOTO BY ROBERT RUST
Editors in Chief Danyka Bratton Paola Lopez Robert Rust
Copy Editors
Chandler Larsen Rosaura Olivo Lira
Feature Editors
Alex Brown Aaron Garcia
News Editor Jordyn Espy
Sports Editor Shianne Easton
Photographer
Luis Torres-Sanchez
Magazine Advisor Ivan Miller
Creative Directors Hailey Bonham Benjamin Park
Designers
Tess Champ Megan Meier Tabitha Sample Art Illustrator Rhiannon Hoefer
Advertising
Lily Wheeler
Social Media Sarai Batista Reporters
Allyssa Burkett Patrick Durbin Ryleiha Hamilton
Expedition Planner Carolyn Davies Contact
COVER PHOTO BY BENJAMIN PARK
Backcountry Review is a magazine for Springfield High School. Inquiries should be addressed to ivan.miller@springfield.k12.or.us
TABLE OF CONTENTS 10 Battle of the Burgers 22 Otra Familia 28 A Rocky Path 34 A Colorless Run 38 Girls, Goats and Yoga 42 Good Morning Korea 46 Carving New Roads 58 Editors' Notes
PHOTO BY PAOLA LOPEZ
Garden of
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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Tranquility In a sense, W Burnside Street is a pathway to an uncharacteristic Portland, and NW 23rd Street creates a manmade path through the city that many people know. Beyond the line, buildings become trees, and gray becomes green. Deep in the woods along SW Kingston Avenue lies the Portland Japanese Garden, opened in 1967 by Japanese landscape architect professor Takuma Tono. On April 2, I calmly stood on a bridge in the garden. The water was tinged with a green color. From a Western perspective it might seem negative, but the color of the water
is one of the beauties in a Japanese garden. A variety of carps swam around the pond; some red, some black, some white, and some red and white. While I was at the pond, lyrics of the Japanese national anthem softly spoke to me: “May your reign continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations, until the pebbles grow into boulders lush with moss.” I’ve never seen a landscape that fits so perfectly with the lyrics. A breeze gave me goosebumps; spring was close. I did not come to this garden with any map or knowledge of the park, but happily went wherever the trail took me.
BY Patrick Durbin
Wilderness of Women By Emma Babcock
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blank canvas sits patiently. The artist selects a photo and finds a pencil to begin sketching the outline of the detail in the shot. The work is tedious, yet allows room for mistakes. Next, out comes the orange marker, to trace the light pencil markings drawn onto canvas. The painting begins to look like a paint-by-numbers image, which will soon develop into a beautiful mountain, lake, or trail; nature captured in a single moment. Sky Evans' gallery consists of mountains, lakes, fields, and the occasional horse. The newest collection, The Wilderness of Women, is comprised of different photos sent to her by women who have hiked all throughout nature. Evans herself has been on countless journeys, from backpacking different mountains to exploring parts of the Pacific Crest Trail. “Being outside takes me out of myself; out of my head; so I’m not overthinking things. I can’t remember not ever wanting to be outside,” Evans says.
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In her studio, Evans has a quote by James Lee Burke that reads: “Like all real artists, she seems to disappear inside the thing she created, as though the identity by which others knew her had nothing to do with the inner reality of her life.” She compares this to her connections between nature and her art. “Nature inspires me. I’ll see something beautiful and I want to recreate it, and it could very well be that in this act of recreating this thing that I’m looking at, I am painting myself into the scene with every stroke,” Evans says. Evans loves hiking the Three Sisters, High Cascades, and her home in the country. She wants more women and children to tune in with nature. She says, “I think art is important for everybody, not just people who are labeled artists. It’s critical for everybody to have that quiet space in their head and in their life to reconnect with that creative energy.” BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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BATTLE OF THE MAC? BURGERS: CAN IT BEAT THEByBIG Danyka Bratton I don’t know why, but it seems that we can never go on a trip without at least one long conversation about food—the food we love, the food we crave, the food we’ll get as soon as we finish our trip. During these long conversations I have learned that one of the MINE crew’s most desired post backpack meals is a good burger. After almost every trip I find myself in the Mcdonald’s drive thru ordering a Big Mac. As I bite into my delicious Big Mac I can’t help but feel slightly guilty, and a little like I’m wasting all the hard work and exercise I just went through. I’ve pulled together some healthier alternatives, and I’m putting them to the test to see if they can satisfy that post backpacking craving.
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BIG MAC:
***
$$$: 3.99 Location: McDonald’s Review: There’s something about biting into a Big Mac that brings me immense amounts of satisfaction. Maybe the two beef patties are my weakness or the sweet "special sauce" that mixes perfectly with the crunch of iceberg lettuce and three layers of sesame seed buns. Regardless, I find myself craving these giant, unhealthy creations and so I’ve gone on a hunt to find myself a burger that matches the beauty of the Big Mac without over 50 percent of my daily amount of saturated fat and other unhealthy side effects. Can it beat the Big Mac?
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C?
n
3
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BACON RANCH BURGER
***
$$$: 10.50 Location: Cornbread Cafe Review: The flavor is unreal when I bite into this vegan burger. The patty gives an unexpected burst of spices, and after I have finished I feel good, like I’d actually consumed real food. But one thing that makes a burger complete is the differentiation in texture, and unfortunately this burger lacks crunch. Unlike the Big Mac where each layer of ingredients is identifiable and unique in texture and flavor, the patty, bread, and tomatoes all muddled together leaving me slightly unsatisfied. Can the fresh taste outweigh the lack of differentiation? My answer: yes.
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HOMEMADE BURGER:
DOUBLE BURGER:
**** $$$: 5.95
Location: Burgers on the run Review: The beauty of this burger almost makes me hesitate to take a bite. The lettuce, two beef patties, tomatoes, ‘special sauce,’ and other ingredients lay together to create a vibrant and fresh looking burger. As I take a bite, I am not disappointed. Unlike the sweet special sauce of a Big Mac, this explodes with a variety of flavors. It’s sweet and bitter with a unique dill kick that makes me unable to stop at one bite, or seven. The best part, there is a wonderful crunch of lettuce and onions that mixes perfectly with the fluffy bun. The different layers of texture and delicious sauce make for a rad burger and it definitely beats the Big Mac.
**** $$$: 3 give or take. Location: Home
Review: As I bite into my homemade burger I taste bacon and pride. Half the satisfaction of homemade burgers is that you’ve crafted it yourself. Maybe I’m biased, or maybe my burger’s delicious; either way I consume the whole thing. Although there’s only one, far less symmetrical patty compared to the Big Mac, it still fulfills my need for a good burger. I love the lack of constraints when creating your own burger, you can also pick and choose what to add to it and create kooky concoctions. Want avocado and eggs? Great. Hate pickles? Even better. Like the crunch of chips mixed with your beef patty? Can do. But the real question is: can it beat the Big Mac? My answer: no doubt about it.
Finding a home on the trail By Jordyn Espy
Water is one of the most basic necessities to human survival. Where I sit a whole body of water lies in front of me, Pamelia Lake. A week ago I had no idea this lake existed, but now I rely on the streams that surround it for my water source, a sort of lifeline. Looking out across the lake I take in all the mountains contrasting against the evening sky. They reflect gently across the rippling lake. I think of water flowing in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness that creates lakes such as these, this particular lake created from the glaciers of Mt. Jefferson itself. We are all so lucky to live in a place where water is so abundant. I think about Oregon and the many natural water sources it has. Surface water makes up two-thirds of all freshwater supply in the state. I am exhausted, but sitting at the lake gives me a warm feeling and a sense of connection; connection with the earth, and connection with my classmates. We are all a part of the Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE), a program that has changed all of us in some way, shape, or form. Here we sit, a bunch of dirtbags, taking in the scenery. Our campsite is directly behind me and I cannot wait to get dinner started. But for now, I focus on the simplicity of my surroundings. The cool autumn air, the gentle breeze that causes miniature waves to interrupt the stillness of the lake, even the mountains are quiet from a distance. 12
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I feel connected with the earth, as though I have become the nature around me. After the trek down 5,799-foot Grizzly Peak we stopped at the stream about half a mile from camp. We filled our water bottles with about two liters of water, but we cannot drink it right away, it needs purification. With two drops of bleach and the passing of sufficient time, I glance down at my clock wondering how long I have been sitting here. It’s been half an hour, and the clock tells me that the water is now safe to drink. This was such a simple process for us, but for some people access to clean drinking water is nearly impossible. I think about the 663 million people who do not have access to safe drinking water, which can be deadly. Life out here would not exist without water. All of the people out here with me, all of the plants and animals, could not exist without water because it makes up a majority of their anatomy. Even the majority of the earth’s surface is made up of water. I look toward the mountains and think about this morning. Journalism advisor Ivan Miller woke Paola Lopez, Carolyn Davies and I at 7:50 a.m., a later start than usual. As we prepared for the hike, I felt excited, nervous, and intimidated. The others in the group had already been doing things like this or had been in Miller’s class the previous year. This is my first backpacking trip with the MINE
PHOTO BY BENJAMIN PARK
group, my first backpacking trip ever. I was scared but never discouraged. I felt determined. It did not matter how out of shape or slow I was, I would make it to the top of the mountain if it took everything I had. If everyone else could do it, so could I. As we hiked to the top of the peak I took in the fresh air and the trees all around me, took in the
moment and experienced it as best I could without focusing on the pain felt from the hike itself. I aimed all my focus toward the natural world around me—trees, mushrooms, bugs, plants, flowers, animals. Throughout the hike we all took small sips here and there, just enough to stay hydrated. After making it to the top we consumed a generous amount of water, rejoicing in our victory, and I immediately knew that all the hard work and suffering was worth it. I looked up and saw my classmates ahead. They were all overwhelmed with the joy of knowing they had made it to the top. I joined them and took in one of the most beautiful views I had ever witnessed, Mount Jefferson towered in the distance, but it was more than that. I saw a family come together. Atop Grizzly Peak, I realized I had gained a family. Without them I’m not sure I would have made it to the top. I surely would have given up, turned around, and gone back home. Throughout the hike I remember the other kids encouraging me to keep going, “you’re doing great,” they would say, “keep up the good pace” and “don’t forget to drink water often.”
Sitting in front of Pamelia Lake, processing all of this, I think about how important water is. It sustains life all around us, including our own lives. Water is so important that it brings all of us together on this trip. After hiking through the rain and camping for over 24 hours, relationships only continued to develop and the sense of family grew stronger. I realize what it all means. It means I have joined the dirtbags, become one of them. They are my family.
"We are all so lucky to live in a place where water is so abundant. I think about Oregon and the many natural water sources it has." BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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Outdoor inclusion By Rosaura Olivo Lira
Ruby McConnell, author of A Women’s Guide to the Wild. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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uthor of A Woman’s Guide to the Wild: Your Complete Outdoor Handbook, Ruby McConnell hails from Portland, Oregon but lives in Eugene. McConnell is a woman of many professions— geologist, author, singer/songwriter, and dancer— avoiding a basic routine. “I can’t do the 9-5 thing,” she says. From a young age McConnell was constantly exposed to the outdoors, and attending Westwind outdoor school along the Oregon coast proved a crucial time in her life trajectory. It was at Westwind where she was taught how to backpack, perform first aid, and all the other necessary skills to be in the outdoors. McConnell returned to the school as a counselor, and began her bigger adventures, such as backpacking in the Grand Canyon in graduate school. She did experience a couple forks in the road, like the 14
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time she was out with a group of sixth graders and came across a bear. “I was like, ‘oh my God one of the children is going to get eaten,’” McConnell says. She was also snowed into the Grand Canyon once. Panic is not really an option when you’re outside though, as McConnell says, “I wouldn’t really call it panic, I mean you can’t afford to panic. It’s interesting-you’re your own first responder. Panic is not the best choice. The reality of it is you’re either gonna get through it or you’re not, so you better buck up.” She has had life changing experiences in the outdoors. While hiking in Breitenbush Hot Springs, she found a lost child. After accidentally letting go of a dog’s leash, the 9-year-old boy found himself lost in the woods. McConnell found him and through his direction and her guidance was able to get him
back to his grandmother. At the time, the boy was nervous his parents were going to be mad. “That’s kid psychology; he was like, ‘oh my parents are going to be really mad at me’ and I told him his parents were going to be pretty happy to see him,” says McConnell. The outdoors have lead to some epiphany moments. While working as a consulting geologist in her mid 20’s, she realized not enough women were getting outside. “No women—and the ones that there were, were secretaries. Anyone that was working in the field was a man and I just thought ‘this is super weird,’” says McConnell. In that moment she realized she had to do something about it. McConnell believes fewer women are involved in the outdoors because of culture. She says, “in American culture we sort of celebrate, for lack of a better word, ‘manhood’ or coming of age, we celebrate boys with outdoor skill sets.” McConnell continues, “I think that coming of age rituals and traditions for girls are parties, or dresses, or makeovers, or piercings. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it leaves us without the skill set later on in life.” She believes since women lack an outdoor skill set they are less likely to pursue outdoor adventure later on. Being in the outdoors is not associated with femininity, and that pushes many women away. This lead her to begin organizing women’s hikes. After the success and publicity of her book, people began contacting her. She not only makes the outdoors an accessible place for women, she projects a "real" image of women. “I do a lot of outreach and talks,” McConnell says, “and a lot of social media promotion that doesn’t involve pictures of pretty,
skinny girls on a mountain. I’m not selling anyone’s body associated with it, I’m not selling anything at all. I’m offering a more realistic vision of what an outdoor experience is and trying to really change that narrative and sort of networking with other women that are doing the same.” Being confident and secure enough to go into the outdoors alone is difficult for everyone, not just women. People are rarely alone. Being with someone does not require their physical presence, it only requires a screen. While alone in the wilderness, people cannot distract themselves from their own thoughts. “You’re stuck with yourself when you’re outside,” McConnell says, “and that is something that may make people uncomfortable.” The key to change people’s attitude toward getting outside lies in education, and McConnell believes that involves experience. “I think it is the best unifying classroom,” she says, “I think that you Ruby McConnell can walk outside and use Author it as an excuse to teach science, or math, or art, or philosophy, or talk about cultural issues that are going on. I think it’s a touchstone to get to all of the other disciplines, and I think it’s the best way to create teachable moments—moments of discovery that don’t happen in classrooms. You don’t stumble upon anything in a classroom.” McConnell believes the education system does not work. Learning cannot be confined to a desk and four walls, and McConnell recognizes that. It’s time for a change; it’s time to get women outside and debunk myths about who belongs in the outdoors and who does not.
“�The reality of it is you�re ’ either gonna get through it or you�re ’ not, so you better buck up.�”
BIG IMPACT By Robert Rust
TELLING STORIES
University of Oregon professor Mark Blaine.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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n 2015, Oregon’s snowpack reached the lowest level in Oregon history. In January of this year, the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute published The Third Oregon Climate Assessment Report. In 106 pages, it describes the human impact on climate change in Oregon. It is a stark contrast to statements made by many President Donald Trump's cabinet members, including Enviornmental Protection Agency director, Scott Pruitt, who during his confirmation hearing stated: “I do not agree that [human activity] is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” With alternative facts cluttering up 16
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Washington D.C. and beyond, it is more important than ever that journalists report on the effects on climate change. University of Oregon (UO) Journalism Senior Instructor and Area Director Mark Blaine thought of journalism’s struggles with communicating about climate change when he took 19 UO students to Cordova, Alaska in 2014. This small town on the east side of Prince Williams Sound acted as a window into Oregon's resplendent past. There they discovered a bond between Alaska and Oregon in wildlife and individuals, environment and stories. “The idea of science and memory—whether we
accomplish it every time I'm not sure—is to make not,” says Blaine. the stories of climate change local and personal,” It is more important than ever that journalists says Blaine. Blaine’s team certainly does. A quick adopt a culture of introspection; that they analyze glance through the stories produced by this project which stories work and which stories don’t, that gleans a bevy of rich and diverse experiences from they identify their audience and that they write the people of Cordova. stories to inform their audience. “It's about apathy. “It's a community of 2,200 people; everybody's The group that's not swayed one way or another connected to salmon in some way,” says Blaine. is the one we are aiming for,” says Blaine, “this is Besides supporting the community in Cordova, where 'he said, she said' can be really effective.” It salmon is a keystone species, sustaining much of has the power of revealing to people that they can the wildlife in Alaska. However, the growing effects still care about the environment, and fight for its of climate change threaten to upheave the delicate preservation, while taking care of their families. ecosystem and economy in one of the most prolific Furthermore, the connections forged in fishing ports in the country. personal stories help people empathize with other “Walking around Cordova is in many ways people, laying the foundation for mutual progress, like walking around Oregon a hundred years that is, working together despite our differences. ago,” says Blaine. Salmon are plentiful, like they “Getting to the essential humanity of regular once were in Oregon and the people. That's what story does climate is similar, though the for us. It's like this code that Cli•mate Change maritime Cordova rarely sees we unpack, everyone does it excessively cold temperatures. a little bit differently, or a lot (n.) a long-term change in And the stories and experiences differently, but it gets at that the earth’s climate, especially of the people of Cordova complexity of life,” says Blaine. a change due to an increase herald back to a time when Early during his career, in the average atmospheric Oregonians actively sought Blaine learned how influential temperature: intense connections with their personal stories can be. It was Melting glaciers imply that ecosystem, but the effects of a March afternoon in North life in the Arctic is affected by climate change have taken their Carolina. The trees dropped climate change. toll. their leaves the previous fall, Times have changed. Not for creating the perfect conditions for a wild fire. Blaine, standing next to firemen and the better. For so long journalists, and the media at large failed to properly inform the public about forest rangers, covered one of these early forest fires. Seeing homeowners out there with brooms, the changes taking place around them. “We don't beating flames; coming back smelling like smoke, do a very good job of connecting to the public what that science is, and what it means, and how showed Blaine how important stories featuring it functions,” says Blaine. The classic journalistic people can be when covering complex issues. model of he said, she said creates a sense of false If there were ever a time in the United States where we needed to walk in other people’s shoes, balance. this is it. “The Science and Memory project is “If you've got 99 percent of research scientists really an experiment in the local and personal. who are out there saying 'no, climate change is a How do you connect all of that [scientific thing caused by people,' but every news story we wrote has someone who says 'climate change is evidence] back to something that someone actually experiences?” asks Blaine, answering a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese' what you get reflected is public opinion polls that are like 50-50 himself, “stories, stories help us empathize, on believing whether [climate change] is a thing or connect, see the other side.” BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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Sixth Sense ( S ixth S e n se )
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he only clear sound at Lake Superior Isle Royale National Park was the booming laughter of Darian Lightwood’s wilderness crew while they played games such as Contact and Same Page. Laughter seems to connect humans, and that is exactly what Lightfoot thrives on. But what happens when someone can’t hear the laughter? If they couldn’t hear the roaring river next to them at lunch? What happens to that human connection and love for the outdoors when someone loses the ability to hear? Growing up in Fort Madison, Iowa, Lightfoot became interested in signing with her cousin who had cerebral palsy. She could only sign short sentences but she found herself interested in the language. “I liked using my hands and I ended up reading books and teaching myself sign through high school,” says Lightfoot. At William Woods University, Lightfoot minored in American Sign Language (ASL). After quickly picking it up, her professors encouraged her to continue with it. Soon after graduating from college in Missouri, she moved to Washington D.C. to translate for the deaf community. Lightfoot interpreted at several different places and events including the White House. Later she set off to Minnesota to work for a conservation corps. She translated for an ASL youth crew and shortly became the ASL inclusion coordinator. After Minnesota, Lightfoot moved to Eugene, Oregon and has the same title, ASL inclusion coordinator, at Northwest Youth Corp (NYC). Lightfoot was thrilled when she heard of a job working with the deaf community that
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By Tess Champ
involved being in the outdoors often. “I like the mentorship, I like the learning, when you are interpreting you are sort of doing those things but your goal is to remain as unseen as possible,” explains Lightfoot. Outdoor Corps, a program that gives teenagers work experience outdoors, has historically been made up of white males but now they are moving away from that. Lightfoot is the second inclusion coordinator at NYC, and her job is to include a more diverse group of people, including children. “Exposure to nature is really powerful and they are able to incorporate that into their education everyday,” says Lightfoot. She says they received several applications from deaf kids saying they wanted to learn more about trees and native species, knowledge which they might not receive in a traditional classroom. “There are a handful of deaf people who work with the national forest/park services. We try to connect the youth with the people in these positions,” says Lightfoot. It connects the youth interest with a love for the outdoors, and might even be a career path they embark on. She values the human connection with the students. That is why she prefers her current job over just interpreting. “I am a pretty loud, exuberant person so I usually use my voice to make a lot of announcements and to bring up energy. I would try to talk louder and be more excited, but that did not necessarily work with the ASL crew,” says Lightfoot. For example when a young adult brings the trash out and they forget a can, another crew member cannot just yell for them to come back. “So I had to use my body more and more gestures
Darian Lightfoot at her work.
—a lot of beating on picnic tables,” she said. It was different kind of cues to get the crews attention, such as flashlights, tapping them on the shoulder, or rattling a tent. “It is just the same as every other crew, they just use a different language. Everything is visual.” The deaf crew sets out on a new task each week and meets up with other crews on the weekend. “These ten people are signing all the time and are put into this group of 50 that have never maybe seen signing before. They are teaching each other and becoming friends and it is a really cool dynamic,” says Lightfoot. Despite the fact that these kids cannot hear one another, they meet kids just like them and create that human connection that Lightfoot had with her crew. “They connect in such a beautiful place, they are pushed out of their comfort zone and do something that maybe they will never have the opportunity to again,” says Lightfoot. This is an experience these teenagers will never forget, and friendships they will hold onto forever.
PHOTO BY JORDYN ESPY
“They connect in such a beautiful place, they are pushed out of their comfort zone and do something that maybe they will never have the opportunity again.” Darian Lightfoot ASL Inclusion Coordinator
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Zane Wheeler: Kayak Dude By Alex Brown
PHOTO BY ALEX BROWN
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finally grasp my camera and notepad from a pigsty of papers after fumbling around in the passenger side of my vehicle. I slam the door shut and push the little black button on the handle, which triggers two honks, letting me know that the car is locked. I burrow my camera and notepad into the left side of my jacket and walk across the street, hoping to create a shield from the wind that brings with it an artillery of heavy raindrops that pummel my skin and leave me shivering. I walk towards a lonely building across the street labeled “River House,” an old two-story structure masked in bronze paint with red and green trim on the windows and sides. I walk up two steps and under a small cover to be greeted by a friendly looking man with happy blue eyes dressed in a blue-checkered button up and dark pants, sipping a steaming mug of hot chocolate. “Hey man, I’m Zane,” he says with a smile. “It’s nice to meet ya, come inside.” Zane Wheeler was born and raised in Alabama. At a young age he watched his dad kayak, and fell in love the sport. “I began kayaking when I was 12,” says Wheeler. “When I was 3 my parents got a divorce because my dad actually kayaked too much, but I got into it.” Wheeler continued kayaking throughout his school years but also began to find interest in other outdoor activities. “I’d be sitting in seventh grade reading every issue of a mountain bike magazine when I should have been listening to my Spanish teacher,” Wheeler says, “ but I was just so passionate about it.” After high school, he attended Auburn University where he earned a degree in wildlife biology. Wheeler was then off to Montana where he lived for a few years before eventually moving to Eugene. While many kids in today’s school system get tired of snoozing through unengaging classes, Wheeler dreamed of something more interactive. The River House, where Wheeler has worked since 2011, works at solving this problem by offering the community a variety of ways to get involved with the outdoors. “Our biggest thing right now is the youth, especially in the summer,” says Wheeler. “But we also have classes for people anywhere from 18 years old to senior citizens. We have the gear,
transportation, and expertise to show everyone a good time.” For 51 years, the River House has accumulated an arsenal of members with expertise in individual outdoor activities. Each person is hired based on their skills, and from this they are then assigned to a niche. Each niche is a different activity and the River House has a variety of them. Wheeler is currently in charge of whitewater kayaking, mountain biking, skateboarding, backcountry skiing, and various school programs. However, there are many others such as rock climbing, tree climbing, sailing, rafting, and paddle boarding. Community members can meet with employees and explore different activities with the safety, supervision, and support of experts in that field. The River House is a unique city-run outdoor program. “This is one of the fewest of it’s kind,” says Wheeler. Not only is the River House itself one of a kind, but so is the experience they wish to provide. “I find that in a lot of outdoor activities it takes a family member or friend to get you out there,” says Wheeler. “And that’s a big part of what we do, is being that influence to someone who doesn’t necessarily have another person to get them out there.” Community members are granted the opportunity to engage in hands-on experience where they develop character, communication, and confidence through these activities. “I think it’s an escape from the normal life,” says Wheeler. “Getting out of four walls, getting out of a desk and being outside is really when you connect with your peers, teachers, students, whatever it may be. You connect at a different level, at that point the connection stays.” In Wheeler’s time at the River House, he has taken pride in providing Eugene’s diverse community with access to such activities he didn’t have when he was younger. “Yeah, I could just imagine if something like this was around when I was kid,” says Wheeler. “It’s just a great opportunity.” “For me it’s a necessity. It’s something I have to have. It keeps me somewhat sane.” BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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Otra Familia I
never imagined Spanish as the primary language I’d hear while hiking. I never imagined I’d primarily see Latino and Latina faces while hiking either. All these thoughts were disproved on April 8 when I joined Latino Outdoors for one of their wellness walks. The founder of this volunteer-run organization, Jose Gonzalez, welcomed me and Sonder news editor Jordyn Espy into this comunidad along with Regional Coordinator Alicia Cruz. The rest of the volunteers who were primarily Latino, opted for hugs in place of handshakes. People began to catch up with each other talking about what had been going on with their lives. The familia aspect was immediately felt. “Family is such a strong, cultural marker for so many Latino communities,” says Gonzalez. We met at Mi Pueblo Market to hike Mount Tamalpais located in San Rafael, California. Before we left the parking lot the sense that this was much bigger than an organization was felt; this was a community. Latino families tend to have a strong focus on their families. Outdoor magazines will usually capture someone alone, doing things by themselves. “We were doing a focus group, and they were showing all these outdoor activities like this guy, doing solitary hiking out on this beautiful vista. The families asked, ‘why is he alone, where’s his family, what’s he doing out there?’” says Gonzalez. It’s not that Latino families don’t go outside, it’s just that they do it a different way. While camping they’ll say, “I need 10 tables, because I wanna bring my family out here, and not just nuclear family. Maybe primos are gonna show up, abuelos, so let’s put all the tables together,” says Gonzalez. If a place lacks the space for a large group, they may lose motivation to go outside. Gonzales keeps that motivation alive through his wellness walks, encouraging people to bring their entire families. 22
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By Rosaura Olivo Lira
After we congregated at our meeting place two large passenger vans transported the volunteers to the trailhead The kids were eager to get out of the vans, and after they chased each other in the parking lot for a bit they were escorted to the bathrooms. A good 15-20 minutes passed until all of the kids were done. Then, we stretched while park ranger Rosanna Petralia educated us a little about the path we were about to take. She said there would be a ladder which she believed the kids would be more excited to climb than the adults. Everyone laughed and we commenced our hike on the Steep Ravine Trail. The kids led the way, and even walked in front of the lead for the day, Gretchen Roecker. Petralia saw their eagerness and turned it into a learning opportunity. After we arrived at a tree richly covered with moss she told the kids that water could be taken from the moss. She demonstrated and soon enough all the kids lined up to take a sip from the moss. We continued our hike and the parents held their little kids’ hands as we were warned of poison oak. The youngest child in our group was 4-year-old Anamaria, veteran volunteer Ana Coca’s daughter. With a pink Disney princess backpack, a pink and white polkadot fleece, and Spiderman rain boots she bravely faced the trail, and even strayed from her mother’s hand. The trail soon tested her ambition and she tripped. The smile that once adorned her face was washed away by tears. Her mother came to her aid and the other volunteers were quick to help. The smile that once decorated her face returned. Originally from Peru, Coca has always loved the outdoors. “¡Me encanta! Es compartir mucho con familia. Me gusta mucho la naturaleza y es sentirse seguro,” she says. Coca has been participating in the program for two years now. Despite enjoying the outdoors, she was nervous to hike alone with her two daughters. In Latino Outdoors she found a sense of security.
Jose Gonzalez on a Latino Outdoors hike. As we continued the walk, I met first time volunteer Mayela. She was accompanied by her husband and their 8-year-old daughter. “Estaba cansada de la routina,” says Mayela. She believes the outdoors delivers a healing factor. Despite it being her first time attending, she was convinced to return. The hike came to an end and we all sat down at the trailhead for a picnic lunch. Roecker offered everyone a piece of her homemade coffee cake and smiled as they enjoyed it. Although she loves the outdoors, she has had some rough experiences. She had a harsh reminder of how fragile life is when her friend died in a kayaking accident. “It was pretty traumatic,” says Roecker, “but we came out of it as a group of friends. I think some of us became much closer because of it, and it made me really rethink what I was doing, and how I was spending my time. It’s something I think about pretty much everyday now—what my priorities are, and being outside is one of them.” Roecker was introduced to the program on behalf of her boyfriend Jorge. In the beginning he was apprehensive about her joining him in the
CONRTIBUTED PHOTO program since he wanted it to be ‘his thing.’ After a couple outings he came to realize he had found much more than a group of people to hike with; he had found a family. He wanted to share this with Roecker. After participating in the program for about eight months, Roecker says, “I have been in San Francisco now for about four years, and I have a really wonderful community here and a really good group of friends, but coming out with Latino Outdoors has felt like I’ve found a much richer community.” Because Roecker does not have a Latino background, she was nervous going on her first hike. “I can kind of understand some Spanish but I can’t speak it. I don’t have the cultural background or anything but I felt so welcome and natural that it didn’t feel like I was out of place at all.” Gonzalez establishes the fact that the outdoors is a place for everyone. “We really reach out to anyone and everyone, all of our work is open to anyone, regardless of background, ethnicity, community. People often misunderstand, ‘oh you’re being exclusive, and focusing on latinos’ no, everyone’s welcome,” says Gonzalez. BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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Home s
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
e sweet fire truck By Aaron Garcia
T
he frigid air biting Austin Smith’s nose had him in a predicament. He had to decide between staying underneath his semi-warm covers, or getting up to quickly start a fire in his miniature stove, suffering a bit extra to ultimately regain the feeling in his toes. After much contemplation he swung himself out of bed to face the inevitable. Smith started the stove and prepared his breakfast and tea, got in his snow gear, and trudged outside to clear off his solar panels. All part of a regular morning routine. Time to snowboard. Contrary to what most would believe today, Smith grew up skiing before snowboarding. Originally from Bellingham, Washington, he frequented Mt. Baker with his parents. It was not until he moved to Bend, Oregon at 13 that his friend Lucas Debari, now a retired professional boarder, and his brother, Lebn Scheviler, got him into snowboarding. He fell in love. “When I was in 8th grade I just made the decision I wanted to snowboard forever,” says Smith, “My parents were always super supportive of me and always said the dorky thing: ‘You can do whatever you want when you grow up.’ So I tried to make that a reality.” Through professional snowboarding, Smith has traversed the world in search of the best snow. “I spend my time traveling the globe chasing powder. People take my picture, and then it goes into movies and magazines,” he says. Companies such as The North Face and Smartwool fund his ventures and support his livelihood.
In 2011 Smith co-founded the company Drink Water in conjunction with his friend and fellow professional snowboarder Bryan Fox, in response to the eruption of the energy drink market within the professional athletics scene. Their goal is to encourage young snowboarders and athletes to drink water instead of less healthy alternatives. They sell merchandise and create snowboarding highlight videos featuring Smith and his friends. ten percent of their profits are donated to water.org, a charity that provides clean water and sanitation to impoverished parts of the globe. Through his experiences chasing snow, Smith has developed particular favorites regarding various snowboard destinations. “There is no one greatest place in the world. For big crazy mountains it’s Alaska, for the best snow it’s probably Japan, Europe has the most expansive landscapes and resorts, but the more places I travel the more I like Mt. Bachelor in Bend. It’s just a fun place to snowboard every day,” he says. Earlier this year Smith realized how little time he was spending with his family in Bend and made the decision he needed a homecoming. “I just wanted to be a 15-year-old kid again, snowboarding every day at a resort rather than traveling so much,” he says. The solution to his problem was sitting right in his parents driveway, a 1953 GMC antique fire truck, right where it had been for the last five years. “My brother bought the truck off ebay for $5,000 and flew out to Illinois with my dad to go pick it up, as a father son bonding sort of thing” says Smith. Little did they know that the 2,000-mile journey would BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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take over ten days with numerous stops at auto parts stores. His brother started work on the restoration but gave up soon after. “It sat in my parents driveway while the mental plan came together,” Smith says. “The hardest part was starting the project and figuring out where everything was going to go. Once I began working, it only took a couple of months in the fall, and I finished it up on New Year's Eve.” Smith got himself and the fire truck up to Mt. Bachelor’s parking lot by midnight that night; just in time for the biggest storm of the year that dropped 80 inches of snow within the first 11 days. Then it was a matter of growing accustomed to the vehicle he would be living in for the next two months. The GMC featured a mini house riding on its back, which included a couch, a table, chairs, a mini kitchen, a small woodburning stove and a large comfy bed. Solar panels on the roof provided power, and a large insulated tank gave him running water. Life in the fire truck proved simple for Smith. “I would wake up and start a fire to heat up my boots, maybe make some toast on top of the stove, eat some grape nuts and yogurt, sorta like an 85-yearold man. And then it was pretty straightforward from there. I would strap on my boots, throw on my snowboard pants and walk out the door and I was at a ski resort,” he says. The fire truck offered him shelter with easy access to his favorite mountain. While at Bachelor, Smith operated a mini demo
The exterior and interior of Smith's firetruck. 26
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center from his truck, a place where guests could come and borrow one of his many boards, some of which were provided by Nitro Snowboards. “It seemed like a good opportunity for people to try out the new shapes and sizes they have designed,” he says. Smith continues, “they are my personal boards but I have let people borrow them when they pleased, and gladly no one ever stole one so I was pretty happy about that.” It helped build part of a community that gave back to him when he needed it most. After running out of fuel for his stove one night, the community brought him wood to burn. This came along with little care packages and gifts that would appear on his doorstep every now and then. After a long day on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor, Smith arrives back to his fire truck. He takes off his boots, makes dinner, and does his nightly stretches. “Living in the firetruck has made me realize that I don’t need as much and I’m happier with less,” he says. “Less clutter, less things, less errands in my life has made me happier in turn so I’m trying to take that and apply it to my life elsewhere.” He goes to bed knowing that the simple life he is living in the fire truck is the one he wants and the one that makes him happy.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
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Also available are Gluten Free crusts made by Bavaria Mills.
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A Rocky Path By Rhiannon Hoefer The desert is a harsh and unforgiving place; sun hot enough to boil your blood during the day and wind cold enough to freeze it solid at night. There are cougars and coyotes prowling in the dark and scorpions and spiders lurking under every rock, in every tree hollow, right outside your tent flap. Thank goodness I’m camping in a motorhome. I’m perched between the driver and passenger seats, leaning against the dashboard to steady myself as I try to record a time-lapse video of the beautiful drive while we barrel down the highway at an alarming pace. Dishes slide back and forth in the cupboards, threatening to pop the doors open on every turn. My step-father is a man on a mission: get to Fort Rock before the heat becomes unbearable. The sun is already beating down hard and it feels like we’ve been driving forever. The landscape is flat and uniform, stretching for miles with only the occasional lone tree to break up the monotony. There is nothing in sight but the abundant sagebrush and bunches of Oregon Sunshine and Pacific Aster growing here and there near the road’s edge. Birds and rabbits make appearances every now and again, darting around between the bushes. The horizon is unobstructed all around. Then, suddenly, there it is: a 350foot tall circle of Ice Age-era rock that looks massive enough to hold up the sky. Even though
PHOTO BY AARON GARCIA
I’ve been here many times before, I can’t contain my excitement as we near Fort Rock. The last time I climbed it we had to turn back before we reached the top because everyone was already drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. This time, I tell myself, I’ll make it all the way up there. When we pull into the parking lot I waste no time. Grabbing a Gatorade and my sunglasses, I rush out the door. Next to the lot is a small gazebo which serves as an information center with posters teaching about Fort Rock’s history, geology, and wildlife. Closer to the rock itself, there is a large stone bearing a plaque designating the site a registered natural landmark. “THIS SITE POSSESSES EXCEPTIONAL VALUE AS AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE NATION’S NATURAL HERITAGE AND CONTRIBUTES TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF MAN’S ENVIRONMENT.” I walk past all of this without reading a single word, knowing that I’ve seen it all before. With my step-dad’s mission complete, I’m on a mission of my own now: reach the top of Fort Rock. The two of us make our way steadily down one of the trails and around the inside of the tuff ring. There is much more variety in the plant life within the natural enclosure, with green and orange mosses across every rock surface and Indian Paintbrush, a fiery orange-red flowered bush sprinkled throughout the thick sage growth. I stop every now and again to take pictures, but I try to keep my pace up. After 45 minutes I’ve finished the gross lemon-lime drink that I regret choosing over a bottle of water and we’re standing on a large, flat slab of rock about halfway up. There’s a hole worn through the rock wall in front of us, a kind of window looking out over the farmland down below. The huge green circles of the fields with their long, rotating sprinklers remind me of watchfaces laid out on a jeweler’s table. Soon we’re moving again, walking past the spot we stopped at on the last trip, but after crossing back and forth looking for a way to reach a higher point we realize that we’re probably stuck where we are. Now, to be clear, there were a few places with a fair amount of handholds and a decent enough slope.
Black-Tailed Jackrabbit
Lepus californicus Found in North America, the Black-Tailed Jackrabbit lives in shrubs and grassland terrain. They feed on shrubs, grasses, small trees, and flowering plants. They are prey for many carnivorous mammal and raptor species. Hunters often avoid collecting them because of the variety of parasites they host, including fleas, ticks, and lice.
Oregon Sunshine
Eriophyllum lanatum This “woolly sunflower” was discovered near the Clearwater River in Idaho on the Lewis and Clark expedition. They can grow up to two feet high and the flowers can reach two inches in diameter. Woolly, grey hairs that cover the stems and leaves help the plant conserve water, which is helpful in its dryer locations like California, Nevada, and Utah.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY RHIANNON HOEFER BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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But there was one key problem: flies. I discovered, quite upsettingly, that the number seems to exponentially increase the higher you climb. Every surface up there is completely coated in buzzing black bugs just waiting to be crushed under your palm. I am absolutely not prepared to commit fly genocide with my bare hands, so, reluctantly, I walk back down to the ledge I sat on a year ago and climb atop it. My feet remember where to step, my body remembers how to twist and pull myself over the rock, and it takes only a few seconds before I’m sitting on the outside of Fort Rock, probably 250 or so feet above the desert floor. My back is to the rock and my feet dangle over the edge, swinging in the slight breeze. The view is just as amazing as it was the first time I came across it; sand and stone stretching for miles dotted with sage and the occasional juniper tree, the horizon broken only by far-off mountains. Every car that drives down the winding roads can be easily
tracked by the huge cloud of dust which rises behind it. Even though I’ve been here before, it feels different this time. I can see farther; it had been cloudier the last time. I swing my feet this time, unafraid of falling now because there is less wind and I have more experience. As I sit here with my hands firmly planted exactly where I planted them a year ago, I’ll admit I am a bit disappointed. My goal was to make it to the top, yet here I am no farther than I made it last time. I failed. But I had a heck of a good time doing it. The walk back down is a lot easier on my legs than going up was, but my shoes are filling with sand and my feet keep slipping. I wrapped my sweatshirt around my head to protect my neck from the sun, but I swore I could still feel it burning. Out of breath, my shirt was stuck to my back and my throat and eyes were dry, but hey, at least my legs will tan by the end.
Camel Spider
Solifugae Also called sun spiders and wind scorpions, the camel spider is actually neither a spider or a scorpion. They are notorious for their ferocity, but contrary to popular belief they do not attack humans or disembowel camels. Their main food sources consist of bugs, lizards, rodents and small birds. They can grow up to about six inches in length. They prefer to avoid being out in the sun, and they sometimes chase shadows. They can run up to ten miles per hour.
Sagebrush
Artemisia tridentata Sagebrush is a name applied to many both herbaceous and woody plants in the North American west. So-called Great Basin sagebrush is the species seen most in the Oregon outback. Their roots spread close to the surface but the plants also bear a deep taproot, which allows them to gather water both from the surface and from belowground. It was commonly used by Native Americans for preventing infections, stopping internal bleeding, and treating headaches and colds, as well as for spiritual practice.
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Roosevelt Elk
Cervus canadensis roosevelti The largest species of elk in North America, the Roosevelt Elk can stand up to five feet at the shoulder and ten feet in length. Adult males weigh between 700 -1,100 pounds, while the females rarely weigh more than 600 pounds. Their diets consist of leafy plants in the summer and woody plants in the winter. They typicallly live 12 to 15 years in the wild.
Indian Paintbrush
Castilleja Also referred to as prairie-fire, these plants are found from Alaska to the Andes Mountains, as well as in northern Asia. The flowers are edible, but due to high concentrations of selenium the roots and stems can be highly toxic if consumed. Some Native American tribes used these plants as treatments for rheumatism and STDs, also to enhance the immune system, and as a sort of shampoo.
Northern Rock Crawler
Grylloblatta campodeiformis These omnivorous insects are about three centimeters long with antennae. They are wingless, honey colored, and covered with tiny hairs. The insect was first discovered in the Canadian Rockies at an altitude of 6,500 feet. They are also found in Washington and Montana. They have also been found in caves and lava tubes in central Oregon, the first reported sighting being in the South Ice Cave just southeast of Bend.
Western Juniper
Juniperus occidentalis The adult leaves of a juniper tree are scale-like and the cones look like berries. These trees typically grow in the mountains and are native to the western United States. However, the “berries� have been found in Egyptian tombs and are thought to have been imported from Greece, where they used them for their medicinal purposes long before their use in food. The berries are often crushed and used as a spice. Juniper oil is often used in perfumes and aromatherapy.
Western Fence Lizard
Sceloporus occidentalis They measure about six to nine centimeters in length.These lizards range in color from brown to black in color, but they can be sandy, grey, or greenish. They have black stripes on their backs, and the males have bright blue bellies and yellow on their limbs. The coloration is usually absent in females and juveniles. Found in the western United States, they can be found in many habitats and at many elevations. A protein in their blood kills the bacteria in ticks that causes Lyme disease, and so in areas where the lizards are found, cases of Lyme disease are lower.
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One Step Forward, By Benjamin Park Two Steps Back
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eason dictates that it is necessary to appeal to more than the emotions when claiming a thing is important. Thus, every time the Miller Integrated Nature Experience goes out to natural sites, I try to envision them at their worst. Their sheer density of many and varied plant species, awash with vivid greens and blues and reds of all kinds, replaced by biological uniformity, lacking much save grass and trees. The sound of animals and insects diminished, overshadowed by mighty winds. Water stained brown, home to legions of small, atrophied fish and nets of algae. A worldwide park, suitable for recreation but lacking strength, complexity, and the innate joy granted to the animal in us all by an escape from urban clutter. Even if we invented artificial ways to supplement the purification of air, the maintenance of human food sources, and the quality of bodies of water, losing the wild untainted lands of this world would deprive future generations of essential escape and reflection. Our species would need
to fundamentally change in order for this to not present a widespread, psychological problem. Thus, the value of conservation is refusing to allow a beautiful, complex system, our species’ progenitor, to fade and take half of the human equation with it. Current events herald a future fraught with environmental disaster. In 2016, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations exceeded 400 ppm, a particularly severe marker in the trend of increase since the industrial revolution which experts estimate will not be reduced in our lifetime. Environmental quality remains leagues away from the ideal. Bees continue to see staggering colony loss at a once again accelerating rate, the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs are bleaching severely, species go extinct by the day and week, and amidst it all is the Trump administration, looking to all areas of the federal government in its quest for simplification and monetary reform. Under their watch, the restriction of companies
ART BY RHIANNON HOEFER
from extensive drilling for oil and natural gas on national park lands has come under question, as has continued maintenance of those lands for public use. This is due to executive orders which call for a review of land designations and decisions made by other presidential cabinets in recent time. The parks are vestiges of natural beauty and curiosity given careful observation by devoted biologists and laborers, saved for their sheer uniqueness and contribution to the human understanding of nature. Federal ownership keeps them this way, for only the federal government has the obligation to preserve them coupled with the necessary funds to actually do so. State governments cannot keep them, though they are the entities which would receive any lands removed from federal designation. Undoing protective environmental regulations from past administrations would go against President Donald Trump’s own word that the national parks would be valued. The United States needs radical change that should be responsible for long-term growth and improvement. It cannot deny the glaring threat of environmental ruin only for the short-term gain of a handful of people, even for the all-important job statistic. The parks might suffer damage only to line the pockets of a few resource-harvesting companies and create the illusion of economic restoration is unfortunate. To the executive branch, as made clear in the proposed annual federal budget, making America great again entails “reviewing” the actions of select agencies to ultimately divert funds away from programs they accuse of wasteful spending, which includes a number of environmental agencies and their respective services impacting every level of government. Wasteful spending is not in the interest of anyone, however, the budget plan also increases Department of Defense funds $57 billion and fails to accuse it of any wasteful spending at all, contrary to studies run by the Pentagon itself. Other budget cuts are more likely motivated by this fund increase than any pretense of cost saving, all in the name of fighting an enemy halfway across the world and arming a military already better equipped than every other in the world with the absolute latest and greatest. That, unfortunately, will not fix 200 years of environmental neglect for the sake of rapid human expansion and opportunistic industry. Work
on reversing the damage must continue unimpeded, or any of the possible major disasters predicted in the near future will only become exponentially worse. The proposed federal budget is a step in the wrong direction. What does it seem to indicate when Trump’s chosen head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has made statements in the past treating global warming as a questionable phenomenon despite overwhelming scientific evidence supporting it and blaming the EPA of exercising excessive power? The EPA, an organization responsible for numerous efforts to improve environmental health, represents a cornerstone of regulatory pressure to ensure environmental standards in the United States, especially by checking the limitless wants of corporations which extract resources from the environment. Removing its influence would undo regulation covering emissions, efficiency, air and water quality, dangerous chemicals, and other equally crucial fields. The administration paints deregulation as simplification of the federal government for the purpose of improving efficiency, but the EPA is only one case, and perhaps the most pertinent, where regulation serves a well-defined purpose in achieving a certain standard over time. Deregulation would only make the EPA pointless. Defunding would make enforcing surviving regulations much harder. That might just be exactly what the administration wants. Ultimately, the administration is acting under the pretense of financial prosperity for the United States. They could be doing so at the expense of very important functions, including and beyond environmental conservation. If President Trump goes back on the unconventional standpoints expressed during the election, we can expect a term of severe reduction in federal power and secessions to business entities, both of which are detrimental to agencies working to advance the human condition from within the government. For now, much is up to speculation. Little can be done to sway the will of the people’s government, but those with the capability should keep a close eye on the legality of this administration’s actions in order to ensure checks and balances are maintained. Whatever this presidency brings, leave it wiser than when it began. For better or for worse, please consider the health of the world in the next election.
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s s e l r lo
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et’s get one thing clear, even though I do cross country and run two to six miles four days a week, that doesn’t make me a distance runner. That’s just me staying in shape for track season—priorities. I am definitely a sprinter. But, before I even did cross country or started running, the Color Run has always been at the top of my list of what to accomplish in life—to get hit with colored substances while running, sign me up my dude! The concept of the Color Run was created in Phoenix, Arizona in 2011 by Travis Snyder, now known as the “Happiest 5k on the Planet." The purpose of the race was to create a happier and healthier running experience while bringing people together. According to the official website, “over 6 million runners worldwide in 35+ countries.” That’s a lot of excitement to lay on a run. The Color Run has a chance to redeem its glory. April 22 is the Color Vibe. It was expensive, well to a broke high school student at least; it was like $40. My math teacher informed me from her experience that this run isn’t really a race, it’s more of an easy jog. Challenge accepted. So I planned on waking up at 5:28 a.m. and I even heard my alarm go off, but I woke up at like 6:20 a.m. Whoops. I had an hour to eat and hydrate. But aye, I got there in good time, all 34
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my stuff needed for the race was ready ten minutes before 8:00 a.m., and running to the bathroom and back was my warm up. I’m pretty efficient like that. The race started late, the sun was beginning to peak, and the people who throw color were preparing the leaf blower-looking-thing to blow color for the start. I waited in the front, jumping up and down, warming myself up to run. The run starts and three 10-year-old boys take the lead for like five minutes until they realized they had made a grave mistake and used up their energy. I eventually took the lead of the majority, until the last mile when a guy passed me because I didn’t really know where I was going. I was second. They were not timing the run, so I have no clue what my time was. In the end, I hyped up the color run too much in my mind. I expected a bit more, but eh. For better or worse, it is just how it sounds—running 3.1 miles while getting dyed cornstarch thrown in your general direction. I expected more color, and the people throwing were not great at it. I should have been mistaken for a rainbow when I finished. No offense to whatever sorority volunteered, but you really suck at your job. The race was a bit of a disappointment. Overall, the race was meh. I expected a little more Hooooooaaaaaahhhhh! You understand?
“I wanted to escape the race looking as if a unicorn threw up on me, but oops, guess not.”
I never considered myself a runner until people kept forcing that concept onto me. Believe me when I started cross country my sophomore year, I sucked more than a vacuum. My first 5k race was 39.12 minutes. I only started distance because the old coach said it would help with hurdling: I am still waiting for that outcome. Running as a sport is not as simple as it sounds, there are so many components that go into it. When I started, nobody really explained that to me, so when the coach said, "we’re doing tempo," I didn’t know that meant running at a pace where you can talk, but you don’t want to. Now some tips, easy pace means you can have a conversation and race pace means you want to kill yourself during, but after you think you could have gone faster. Hill workouts are an easy way to work on speed. If you do start distance running, easy runs are the main focus. Once you actually understand how and what you are doing, then that is when distance running is as simple as it sounds. I guess that’s why I was so excited to do a color run because I wasn’t afraid of running three miles. And I wanted to escape the race looking as if a unicorn threw up on me, but oops, guess not.
ART BY RHIANNON HOEFER
LEARNING
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n August 15, 2016 I stood looking out on a peak in the Pacific Coast Range in Canada. I could see other peaks in every direction, not a cloud in the sky. We had to cross a glacier in order to reach the peak, but in front of me I saw not just the massive glacier we conquered, but enormous green trees everywhere. The crisp, cold air revitalized my mind and body. Every speck of dirt and sweat on my body reminded me of what I went through to reach that very moment. It was a wild physical, mental, and emotional journey that I did not expect, but persevered through. Seven other females joined me at the summit. The entire trip took us eight days, two days spent at base camp nestled along the Princess Louisa Inlet, and five on the mountain. I will always remember when we decided to have a solo night; we each chose a different spot under the stars to sleep for the night so we could connect with nature and spend some time in isolation. That same evening mother nature surprised us 36
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with bellowing winds. Ali Savage, trip guide, woke us up yelling, “Ladies, wake up! The tents are flying away!” That is not what we wanted to hear on the edge of a cliff. Luckily, we were able to recover the tents, but realized we lost some of our belongings the next morning. I lost one gator, and Ali lost some skin on her big toe from scraping it on the granite. We learned how to part from materialistic items: makeup, phones, and brand clothing. It was nice parting from them and not worrying for an entire week. On the mountain, no one cares what you look like or who is snapchatting and texting you. All that matters is staying warm and reaching the peak safely. The most important thing I learned is how to persevere through pain—physically, emotionally, and mentally. It is important to keep going no matter how easy giving up can be. Before we started up the mountain I told myself, “It’s just walking, walking for a couple days. That’s not too hard. I can do it easily.” But that was not the case. It was the most difficult walk
PERSERVERANCE By Sarai Batista
I have ever been on. Within the first couple hours I began asking myself what in the world did I get myself into. We had to crouch and step over many fallen trees, enormous tree roots, climb over boulders as big as me, walk straight through bushes, and walk through deep mud that went up to my knees. All while carrying a 50-pound pack on my back. My burning legs and shoulders hated me for deciding to join this trip. The absolute worst part was waking up sore from the previous day and having to do it over and over again. Emotionally, I persevered through pain by sharing my vulnerable side to my companions. Sometimes along the trail I would tear up because I lost confidence in myself. Around dinner time on day five, I broke down. My companions saw my true self. I first shared how much I wanted to be home, but that soon led to me sharing my fears, anxieties, and other things I have never shared with anyone. We reached the top of the mountain on the third day. The all female group from Springfield, Oregon
Sarai Batista and the group taking a break. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO was one of the few groups to summit. From where we stood, we could see the beautiful green Canadian mountains surrounding us in every direction. While breathing the crisp, fresh air in and out of my nose, I felt a calm that I have never experienced before. All the hardships I overcame while backpacking in Canada were absolutely worth it. Perseverance through pain and hardships is what helped us accomplish what we set our minds to. Every single girl on that mountain supported each other all the way up. Accepting a helping hand took me a long time and I could not have done it without their help. Yes, my body hated me, but I learned to push through. Mentally and emotionally, I felt enlightened. I shed tears that needed to be shed and became stronger by doing so. Every speck of dirt and drop of sweat reminded me of the wonderful journey. BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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GIRLS, GOA T AND YOGA By Chandler Larsen Past the brick walkway and wall of bushes at the Hanson Country Inn was a large white tent with transparent windows and a hay covered floor. The walls of the tent stopped the cold evening breeze and warmed the air a little. Inside a yoga class was in session, made up of college girls and baby goats emanating the smell of farm, and miraculously a perfume aisle. In Corvallis, Oregon, Lainey Morse brings Goat Yoga to students to combat day-to-day stress. The eight goats do not practice yoga. They simply represent a snuggling, stress-relieving buddy to accompany regular yoga. It would be much better to simply watch the cute goats rather than struggle with yoga while the goats are in the way. However, the physical struggle somehow brings a mental calming and spark of happiness, which Morse had discovered herself. Morse once suffered from Sjogren’s Syndrome and depression, but coming home to her goats every day always put her in a good mood. “I found it really hard to be sad and depressed when you have baby goats jumping around you. I would forget I was in pain and it just makes you disconnect from everything,” says Morse. Those goats would always cheer Morse and her friends up, so they encouraged others to come see them. Morse’s friend and yoga instructor, Heather Davis, suggested having yoga on the farm after she met the goats. So Morse started Goat Happy Hour, and people left happy. Then she added yoga to the mix to create Goat Yoga. On April 5, the student Goat Yoga class consisted of 15 girls and one other guy besides myself. I was there for the sole purpose of a story. Davis, the instructor who inspired the idea, had a bright smile on her face as she demonstrated different yoga positions. She was small and nimble, able to do all of the strenuous yoga 38
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PHOTOS BY PAOLA LOPEZ PHOTO BY PAOLA LOPEZ
A TS
Chandler Larsen and Annie Goatly during their Goat Yoga session.
“She made it look easy, but I proved it wqs not.”
moves with ease. She talked and smiled while I sweated profusely and made many unpleasant faces. One position involved standing on one leg, crossing my legs and arms together, and crouching low. She made it look easy, but I proved it was not. The names she called out were unknown to me, so I had to rely on her demonstrations, which were often blocked by goats when my head was inches from the ground. After laying flat on the ground, I would raise my head only to be greeted by a goat head, or butt, staring me in the face. When we turned over onto our backs, the goats climbed on top of anyone who would let them, which was everyone. One girl even said, “you can poop or pee on me, just don’t leave.” Each time a goat found a new human bed, the rest of us, regardless of our position, would turn our heads and stare at the 40
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spectacle with envy. The actual yoga was hard to focus on between the goat distractions, but I attempted to look as athletic as possible. The most uncomfortable positions were when I laid on my back. Some entailed pulling my legs up towards my chest, unaccommodating to my small shorts, and one in particular was the worst. Still on my back with my arms to the side, I had to raise my hips up for bridge position. The next step was to push up with my arms and create an actual bridge, but fortunately the smallest baby goat climbed on top of me before I humiliated myself. Seven of the eight goats were small, but looked a little older than babies. However, that last white runt, Annie Goatley, chose me as her bed. I could feel the stares from everyone as she scratched at my stomach, rubbed her head on my knees, and twitched her bum over
my face, which brought her visit to an abrupt end. Some goats rammed heads out of nowhere, either in the middle of the tent or over someone’s legs. Occasionally, they showed their rear ends and let loose a flurry of brown beads. But other than that, those eight baby goats proved peaceful creatures, excellent outdoor accomplices. When the yoga ended, Morse suggested before anyone left they get a picture with the goats, and everyone ended up taking pictures. It is hard not smiling with a tent full of cute, giggling college girls. The goats were nice, too. They even put me in a great mood (the goats), perhaps similar to the effect Morse had experienced in the first place. Although the name sounds silly, the distraction of Goat Yoga is a great experience for people, more stress-relief than serious yoga. Morse is a firm believer in animalassisted therapy. “Basically we are combining three things that are therapeutic: being out in nature, animals, and yoga,” she says. Even with my inexperience with college girls, yoga, and baby goats, I still disconnected and my worries dissipated. The unknown factor helped my curiosity, but Goat Yoga is an out-of-the-box stress relief and will be hard to forget. This is definitely not traditional yoga, but is in its own category. The world seems to have endless possibilities.
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Good morning korea “South Korea has my heart.”
By Danyka Bratton
Danyka Bratton praying the Bongeunsa Temple. PHOTOS BY ANGELES PHAMUONG
g
”
The Stylenanda Pink Pool Cafe is a actually a popular clothing chain. I sat on the window sill the morning of March 25 and sang “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray to the cars and buildings of Seoul, but replacing Baltimore with Korea. My sister crinkled her eyebrows at me. “You’re too loud in the morning,” she said. I continued singing. We ate some leftover kimbap while getting ready, and then went out to lunch. The night before I’d been too tired to pay attention as we walked the short distance from the subway to our apartment after our long flight from Vancouver, British Columbia. I realized, quickly, I could walk around the streets for hours. Food carts lined the roads, filling my nose with pleasant smells everywhere I walked. Four-story arcades, clothing shops, and restaurants were located everywhere. Dancers, magicians, and singers performed in the middle of the streets and bunches of people crowded around making it impossible to see the performance without bundling close as well. There's interesting cafes and clothing stores designed to look like cafes, such as the Stylenanda Pink Pool Cafe. Yes, I thought, this is the place to be. You can buy flowers from a vending machine in South Korea. I’ve never seen flowers in a vending machine before. South Korea is jam packed full of things I have never seen before. The first thing I recall after the 11-hour plane
ride from Vancouver was my friend Angeles Phamuong who lived in Seoul for a year saying, “there are no ‘I’m sorries’ or mianhae, if people don’t move, run into them.” Of course at the time, I immediately dismissed her as being insensitive. I thought, I’m not going run into people, and if I do, I’m probably gonna say I’m sorry. I was wrong. There were so many people packed into the underground subway tunnels, all impatiently trying to reach their destination. In no time I was unforgivingly knocking into people with my suitcase and pushing past others to not lose track of Angeles, my sister Carynn, and her friend, Sofia Kim, as they barreled through the subway. Making it to our apartment was a far greater feat than I originally anticipated. After a quick look around I passed out, the fatigue preventing me from properly appreciating the beautifully lit city below. After only a few meals in South Korea, epiphany struck. It sounds silly but I grew up in a family where food created a tighter bond. The nights sitting around a table together, talking and enjoying our meal more deeply than simply just taste, shaped my life. I don’t know many families as close as mine BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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and I think that’s because the majority of the people I know in America don’t spend uninterrupted time around the dinner table together. We have drive-thrus, granola bars, and protein drinks that take the place of a meal. Food is rushed, valued more to simply satisfy human needs. I didn’t see a single drive-thru while in South Korea. I found that unlike American culture, perhaps Koreans have a higher value of food. Food is shared and cherished, viewed as a community event, much like the dinners that my family and I share. A sense of comfort and fitting in washed over me. And there’s different food everywhere. Just walking down the street you can get waffle cones shaped as fish, crepes filled with nutella, pork, beef, chicken feet, rice cakes, kimchi, blood sausage, and countless other delicious goodies. Because it’s made right there, handed to you by the person who made it, it feels personal. Even restaurants are far different than the ones I’ve been to in the United States. Most of the time, in Seoul, the meals were designed to share. You reach right in with your spoon or chopsticks to the community dish and grab a bite. My mother always made traditional Lao and Thai food, so I’ve eaten countless meals just like this, but never in public. Despite living in an Asian household, I grew up in an American society where those type of things are deemed impolite and unsanitary. I’ve only ever experienced this at home, but here people do it everywhere, and it creates a feeling of welcomeness, a piece of home.
While sitting in an alarmingly fast taxi, fearing that the driver’s wild techniques were going to end my life, I gazed at the towering buildings that seem to perfectly capture the modern world we live in: fast paced, busy, and crowded. We are fortunate enough in Oregon to have easy access to wilderness areas. If you need a break from hectic city life, finding a natural place of solitude isn’t difficult. But in large cities, nature becomes a limited luxury. The first consequence that many think of when talking about a lack of time in nature is obesity, and 44
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yes 35.7 percent of Americans are obese, but more problems exist than just obesity. Our brains get tired, fatigued. Brains struggle to work effectively when dealing with stress and hectic days. Going into nature reduces stress, and gives your brain a chance to rest, something that the city life can never do. Seoul, South Korea seems as busy as the large cities in America, and in some ways it is. More than 70 percent of South Koreans say their job causes depression or work stress. But they are actively working to use nature to cure much of that stress and depression. “Body and soil are one,” is an old Korean proverb that many view important to this day. Several official healing forests have been created in South Korea to reconnect people with nature. They are designed to co-exist with busy city life, to help aid people through stress because industrialization and fast paced lives are nearly inevitable. We managed to leave the taxi in one piece, and a few minutes later we stood in a temple. Perhaps the reason for these efforts relates to the history of South Koreans worshipping nature spirits. Traditional Korean buildings sat low to the ground compared to modern skyscrapers that reached for the heavens. Yet, I felt closer to the heavens, surrounded by the trickling sound of fountains and rustling leaves. Finally, solitude. I turned to the adjacent skyscrapers. It’s a strange moment, staring at the large, modern building while simultaneously feeling the simple calmness of the temple. South Korea maintains simplicity among the chaos of industrialization. Traditional temples, shared meals, and kind citizenry. Sometimes in America it feels like we’ve strayed so far away from simple that it’s hard to find good human beings. I think in South Korea the elements of tradition and simplicity remain and outshine the bright signs and busy streets.
I found myself quickly adapting to the fashion culture, not necessarily trying to fit in, but rather fully experiencing the culture. In the city of Seoul, the way I look felt important, but when you change the frame of reference, my feelings also change. Walking through the designated venue for Seoul Fashion Week, I tried to muster as much confidence
Danyka Bratton taking photos at the Namsan Seoul Tower. as possible. Men and women with cameras littered the walkway outside. I was half hoping someone would ask for a picture, and half terrified they would. As my eyes took in the outfits around me I could feel myself plucking all the ideas and keeping certain concepts in mind for later. I found myself having to put in more effort than usual. At home, I don’t care as much about having the most unique, eye catching outfit. I simply dress how I want to dress, how I feel comfortable dressing. If I change the frame of reference again to the dirtbag lifestyle of the Miller Integrated Nature Experience, let’s say the Diamond Peak wilderness, fashion doesn’t feel important at all. I only brush my teeth and occasionally throw up my hair. It’s all about adapting. At the beginning of the week the days were packed full of shopping, walking
everywhere. Leaving at 11:00 and getting back at 11:00 felt insane, but eventually I adapted. Many people get wrapped up in hectic lifestyles, but I found that at the end of my trip I was happy to go home, to return to something simpler. All people need that. We can adapt to fast paced lives, but it’s important that we stick to our roots and step away from the city to regain ourselves. South Korea has my heart. I can shop by day and fall in love with the beautiful busker singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ at night. I can eat delicious food with my friends in the busy streets, and then visit the solitude of a temple. It feels good in South Korea, but on the plane ride back to Portland, Oregon I found I was excited to go back home to share my stories and try out my new, fresh lens of a different world. BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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Tabitha Sample on her road trip to the Grand Canyon. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
carving new roads By Tabitha Sample I traveled 4,000 miles on a road trip to the Grand Canyon and back. Many people asked why I was going on this trip. The easy answer: my friends and I are spontaneous and wanted to be exposed to something of this magnitude. But this road trip experience goes deeper. I longed to be amazed, to revel in the beauty of our vast world, and to be a part of something new. Though my trip only consisted of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon, it was exactly what I needed. Seeing the beauty of our adventure was a wake up call to the reality that there is so much more outside our little town of Springfield, so much life and beauty beyond our city limits that exceed the boxes some people confine themselves to. A lot of people get stuck in a “realistic” reality, refusing to let their true dreams take action for fear that it isn’t “realistic,” and that’s exactly the rut I was trying to escape. In completing this journey I came to the conclusion that the worst that could happen in a leap of faith is the possibility of falling, in which case we can get back up and grow from our failures. But I’m getting ahead of myself. As we settled into the car ride, the four of us, Michael Baldwin, Colton Sample,
Katie Albright, and I, chose Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” as our first song. And as the first hour passed, silence. We pondered what the course of the next six days would look like. We ended this night in the comfort of Baldwin's uncle Rob’s house in a town called Emeryville just outside of San Francisco and 519 miles from home. My companions sat up late playing a game called “Munchkins” that consisted of elves, warriors, wizards, monsters, and other various mythical creatures. Their banter and outbursts were like music. I sat on the balcony and watched all the people below me scurry around wrapped deep in the bustle of their lives. Hearing them play the game reminded me of when I was a little girl. My childhood house neighbored an orchard, but this was no ordinary orchard. It was our kingdom, outer space, and a castle. It was anything we wanted it to be, so different to life now. I guess in a way the road trip was like that magical orchard, anything I wanted it to be. The next night we camped in Malibu Creek State Park. My company made themselves scarce and I sat on a picnic table, deep in thought, revelling in the fact BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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that time was no factor on a trip like this. Everything is based off hunger, sleep, adventure, and so on. The regular framework of my weekly schedule was hardly a thought to me in that moment. For this week I got to be an explorer, a writer, an artist, a photographer, a surfer, a climber, a tent setter upper and so on. The freedom of a fresh breath is not frequently granted so I often dismissed the necessity. The last few months of life had been so foreign and detached, my body walks the earth but my mind and soul have grown absent somewhere along the way. I don’t want to be the person that lets bad things take away my passions, but I think that’s exactly the person I became. I thought back to a night I’ll never forget, a few months prior to Malibu. I was laying in a bed in which I used to find comfort; I tried staring at the ceiling or the walls or anything other than his eyes, but they were fixed on the brown-green globes I thought would be my last sight. My vision blurred with fear, and acceptance of my fate while his grew stronger with control, power, greed, and lust. As each tear strayed from my cheeks, my sense of life, my passions and aspirations all strayed with them. My hope in humanity was replaced with fear and apathy. The lights buzzed around me, refusing to aid my cry for help, for comfort, for anything. And in an instant as he zipped his jeans, clasped his belt and walked away like the previous hours were just a bad dream; I became a lifeless creature to walk the earth. My body trembled with an emotion indescribable to me prior to the event. Every day since then, the action of inhaling and exhaling, of picking my feet up in the morning and choosing to live in that day has been the hardest chore I’ve ever been bestowed. Yet, suddenly in Malibu I felt alive. I felt everything. I felt the cold biting my nose, and the ashes from a dwindling fire meet my back. I felt the comfort of being surrounded by love, family, and support. Most of all I felt the sensation of freedom. As though I could spread my wings and howl into the bosom of that night’s veil. For the first time I didn’t feel small like the dirt we walk on. In that moment I could feel a weight free itself from my dragging feet. I realized I had been expecting or hoping for some semblance of a reason as to why I was taken for so little worth. Why so many girls are treated as sex objects designed for the pleasure of a man. In the United States there is an average of 321,500 sexual assault victims annually. And with that average only 20 percent of those people report or say anything at all about what they went through. I understand why that percentage is so small. To say anything is to live through the tragedy on loop any time someone asks about it or says how sorry they are. The truth is no one can say the right thing, there is no right thing to say. It’s just a dark horrible thing that happened. It was the epitome of greed, selfishness, and pain. Maybe the villain in my story doesn’t remember that cold October night in the way that I do. I won’t ever have the answer or reason but I can always have this; a starry night in Malibu, friendship, a campfire, and the ability to move on. I have the power to create my story. I
"I felt the sensation of freedom. As though I could spread my wings and howl into the bosom of that night's veil."
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CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
can’t avoid every bad situation but I can grow. I can walk out of my front door and find a patch of dirt to experience. In that moment, I thought about how many other people sat on this piece of land. The vastness of our universe is what grants my freedom, and the MINE program is what gave me the tool to unlock this understanding. It showed me the compassion, spirit, adventure, freedom, love, and warmth that nature can provide. It’s a gift, exposing our natural impulses, that puts everything into perspective. It makes it okay to not have the answers and provides the understanding as to why we don’t need them. I was raped but I am greater than the experience that lived through me. There are currently three people in the world that know what happened to me and by the time my words meet a glossy finish that number will grow. Sharing my story isn’t easy, but it’s for you, for your loved one, and even for the person you loathe the most because you never know the torment of another. It does not define me. It offers opportunity and gives me the power of vocalization, for enlightenment, for healing and forgiveness. That night in Malibu I could breathe again. From that point on, the trip was a series of unending car rides, car trouble, accidental destinations, and more beauty throughout Nevada and Arizona than words could describe. The scenery changed with a blink of an eye and treasures popped up in the smallest of crevices. Thursday afternoon we pulled up to a town expecting to fuel up but instead we found an abandoned gas station. Full of graffiti, poetry by “boots” and the whispers of lost souls who stumbled upon the same ground. At the beginning of the trip I would have titled this premeditated story “Going to the Grand Canyon.” I thought that it would be a big adventure. And there I would gain some knowledge or revelation. But as it turns out the Grand Canyon has simply been a moment attached to a series of other moments. It’s magnitude and beauty were unlike anything I’ve seen. I faced my fear of the skywalk, I inhaled the grand Arizona air, and we left. There’s nothing a patch of dirt, a good mountain and some sandy toes can’t cure. Okay, cure might be too strong a word but it will sure clear the mind. Above all it provides perspective if you’re willing to step back and see the bigger picture. Like I was saying, telling this story isn’t easy for me. It’s for the 80 percent who feel they don’t have a voice, who are afraid or too hurt to speak up. Whatever it is that you’re going through is only a moment attached to a series of other moments that make up your life, just like the Grand Canyon on my trip. In this life you can choose to jump into the driver's seat and take your journey down the road of your choosing. For me that looks like road trips through the sun with some pals, and seeing natural monuments that have weathered storms and have been explored by thousands before me. It’s working hard enough to warrant putting life on pause for a week or two and finding an adventure. It’s knowing that all pain will cease, and yours will, too.
"It's just a dark horrible thing that happened. It was the epitome of greed, SELFISHNESS, and pain."
"It does not deFine me."
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Tabitha and her friends at the Grand Canyon.
The forest queen By Danyka Bratton PHOTO BY PAOLA LOPEZ ART BY ALEX BROWN AND EMMA BABCOCK
How do my bones stand to stay trapped inside my flesh? This bus has held me captive too long and I will go insane if I cannot step foot in the forest within the next three minutes because my life is a run-on sentence and I just need a period, a delicious break from my long, long days. I sigh. The crunch of gravel finally lies beneath my feet as the MINE crew empties out of the bus for another hiking trip. The chit-chat of my fellow classmates feels free out here and it flows up into the sky for miles, unlike the bus where words hit the ceiling and remain trapped. I imagine the words flowing from Miller’s mouth are important because we are in a circle and everyone nods and I nod, too, but I’m not sure why because the forest lies too close for me to care and the period to my drawn out sentence is right there and we are finally walking. Peace. Freedom. Calm. Forest. Home. Silence. Cars litter the gravel parking lot. Thankfully Pamelia Lake requires a permit, so our destination should be less occupied, but Jefferson Park is still a heavily used wilderness area. The evidence litters the ground where we stand. The loud voices of strangers, trampled ground, and running cars invade my senses, making it hard for me to connect. We begin walking. I must have been away from the forest for too long because I am met with nothing but silence. The utter quiet amplifies the difficulty of every step through the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. I have never had such a difficult time making my feet move, the weight of my pack has never been so heavy. The silence suffocates me until I have not only lost my hearing but my breath. The trees are distant and blurry, the leaves are a fingertip away and as I reach for them they remain slightly beyond my grasp, and the wind whips across my neck but refuses
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to speak to me. The forest feels sideways, so utterly wrong and so utterly quiet, horrifying. The trees don’t motivate me to walk. Do they not remember me? Has my face changed that much? The silence has seeped inside my brain until I have become the silence. I think of writing. Writing, the marvelous thing that accompanies our hikes and usually brings pleasure and smiles as I record the loud thoughts and words inside my head. I panic because there are no loud thoughts. I dread the next time Miller asks us to write, because I can’t. I have never told anyone this, but my words are stolen. I yank them from branches and steal them from the clouds and snatch them from the moon. All stolen, every last one. Since the forest has not yet warmed up to me, thoughts of school and cars race through my mind. I steal my fellow dirtbags’ words instead, robbing them from the air and shoving them into my mouth. They taste pleasant enough. The sun begins to evaporate from the sky and takes the warmth with it. The air feels heavy and damp. It sits on my shoulders. My heart beats irregular. I hear footsteps behind me, no. No, there is no one behind me. I feel like I need to look over my shoulder and glance back at the shadows that could conceal any number of things. Two, five, seven times I glance at something too quickly and my heart jumps into my throat. I swallow. Blink. Slowly, I smile and think we should hike in the dark more often. We arrive at our new home and we pitch our tents and immediately work on getting dinner ready. It is late, later than we’ve ever set up camp. I shove raw pieces of zucchini
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in my mouth while we cook. I hate zucchini, but it tastes like heaven to a hungry stomach. I have never started a camping stove before, never yanked my hand back as blue flames lick the sides of it. The moment I pull my hand back from the icy colored fire I decide I’d like to do this everyday. Cook food for my patchwork family. Maybe I don’t have the words of the forest but the MINE family is fuel and my heart begins to spark much like the flames in front of me. The crackle inside my heart shall suffice as words for now. My eyes fly open the next morning. I’ve overslept. I blink and sigh. There’s no school in the wild, I remind myself as I roll over and try to go back to sleep. Miller decided to let us sleep in after our late night. His voice wakes us. Water boils. It takes far too long, the late start drags even later. The silence still fills my ears and it becomes more bearable, but I pray I never get used to it. I would rather die than become used to this. So I savor the pain and when we reach the trail, I savor that pain, too. Every burning step sends a smile to my face because it hurts and I’m still walking. I’m beating pain, taking all the power from it because I enjoy it. I win. Danyka: 1. Pain: 0. I think back to that tiny point on the mountain, Miller presenting it to Paola and I, a trio gazing up up up to the top of Grizzly Peak. That once distant point symbolizes freedom, and I snarl and laugh. Nothing can stop me from reaching that peak. Not pain, not my silly mind, not silence. We reach the top and my heart smiles. The sky looks like marble and the mountain must be fake because nothing real contains such perfection, but then again nothing that large could possibly be constructed and there is simply no way for us imperfect humans to create something so faultless. So, it must be real. I feel like a queen. I flop down on a dirtbag spot built for a queen. Right before my eyes shut an ambush occurs. A congregation of
winged ants swarms the royal family. Then they disappear as fast as they came, only to arrive again in a few minutes. Good thing a queen can fall asleep anywhere.
As we hike back my heart buzzes with jealousy. I am jealous of Luis Torres-Sanchez. The forest seems to be talking to him. He lies among the bugs to get a good picture, and lags behind for a winning shot. He must see the forest more clearly through that camera lens because it’s always pressed against his eye. I raise my own camera up only to be disappointed. Silly Danyka. We arrive back at camp and those dreadful words finally tumble from Miller's mouth: “sit spot.” I just want to pick them up off the ground syllable by syllable and shove them back down his throat. Take it back, I want to scream. I simply bite down on my cheek because I am strong. Sit spot. Horrible words, gag worthy really. I trudge over to my tent and aggressively rummage through my pack. I snatch my purple journal and walk toward Pamelia Lake. I contemplate throwing my journal in the water but I cannot punish past entries for the one I cannot write now. “Give me your words,” I whisper to the yellow plants next to me, “because I can’t find my own.” My words tangle together. My S’s loop my U’s and my W’s look more like M’s. I plead to the plants around me, but they turn their backs. They are disgusted by my prayers, ridiculing my writer's block. Even the sun seems to disappear, shying away from my request. So, I sit here with nothing to say, staring at a mountain who has become mute. The birds' songs don’t even bring thoughts. They are empty sounds meant for each other and not for me. Sometimes I feel as though everything was created for me. That the trees grow to give me shade. That someone dropped that quarter so I could find it. That the man who created the popcorn ceiling in my room did so, so that I could look up and find different shapes where there are none. That the leaves fall and brown so that I can crunch them. Everything feels so significant and meant for me. Today must belong to someone else, because the winged ants did not tell me stories, and the trees did not whisper encouragement as I passed, and the yellow plants refused to give me advice. 56
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I help cook dinner again tonight, and I pray my hand won’t yank away fast enough so the blue flames devour me whole. I exit my tent and soon after little beads of the sky’s sweat slide down my face. The forest has decided to talk to me today. I thank the rain. I have never thanked the rain before. Every tear that fell from the sky and hit my body seemed to dissolve the invisible layer that surrounded my skin and distanced me from the forest. Here I am, truly immersed in nature and my mind can now roam freely throughout the trees because it no longer stays tied to the outside world. Freedom at last as the world clicks into place. Maybe because I am here, in the rain, when so many people flee the wilderness as soon as these tear drops begin to fall. Jefferson Park gets a break from its heavy foot traffic as many of its visitors evacuate to escape the rain. Rain seems to be nature's truest form. It is not beautiful, or comfortable, or necessarily pleasant, but dirty. I’m pretty sure the forest likes the rain. It gets to step away from pretty. Take a breath. Let go. Cry a little. Sunshine is a facade. Even the pure, uncorrupt, innocent forest has an ugly side. Today it breaks down its pretty barrier and lets us into the ugly, and so my barrier flies away as well. As we stop for lunch—shoving wraps, Clif Bars, and stoke (Starburst) in our mouths—I realize where the end of my sentence lies, or rather where it doesn’t. It’s somewhere besides the soggy pages of a ruined book someone long ago discarded that are now clutched in Jordyn Espy’s hand, definitely not in the Clif Bars or candy wrappers that now occupy the inside of my coat pocket. They cannot possibly be anywhere near the trees or the smiles of my dirtbag family, and most certainly not at the last dinner we all share in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness, because I’d like my long, drawn out sentence to include all of these things. I don’t have time for punctuation. Periods are overrated.
Editors' Notes
I have been in school for four years. I have done countless assignments and projects, read books, and performed in plays. I have gained a lot in those four years, but nothing comes close to my experience with the Miller Integrated Nature Experience. We are a team. The best team I’ve ever been apart of. Of course we’ve shed tears, shared frustrated words and stressful nights, but we’ve also created an unbreakable family capable of amazing things. We all started together, driven and slightly confused. We didn’t know much about design, or the half of creating a product, but we figured it out. I admit, there were moments I smiled when I felt like crying. But as I sit here, I think of every memory fondly. Our production brings me an immense amount of happiness, but this class creates more than just a magazine. We created a community, and an educational experience that stretched our limits as writers, photographers, designers, and creators.
Dany
The most beautiful things happen when we work together. These past two years we have failed and succeeded, fallen and climbed, created a magazine, but most importantly we have found a family. For me, no other class has done that, or has backpacked on six trips and formed a publication. I’ve had the privilege to watch everyone mature from last year. Every word on these pages come from the heart with dedication, and hours of research and interviews. We have shared many laughs and spent many nights under the stars, listening to each others’ stories around a campfire. We have cooked meals under tarps in near freezing weather but we never complain. We have hiked endless miles over mountains and deserts, and through canyons. I will hold every moment shared with MINE in my heart for a long time. This is not a 10/10 class, it's an 11/10. I am proud to say that everything in this magazine captures the essence of MINE.
Paola
My junior year began like any other year. I came to school, all gussied up in clothes bought fresh for the new season. Paper and pens filled my bag; I eagerly awaited the opportunity to use them. Entering sixth period, I expertly wore a confident facade, sitting down in the english class that would change my life. Beneath my outward appearance, I was wallowing in self-pity. Drugs, aggression, and distrust tore my family apart, and I felt responsible. Then something caught my attention. We would be going on a backpacking trip, and by either grace, or luck, I landed a spot on that trip. The four days I spent in the Diamond Peak Wilderness gave me new life, and consoled my grieving heart. Fast-forward to the present day and I have been on a total of six trips as a member of the Miller Integrated Nature Experience. My writing and leadership abilities have grown, and I gained something I didn't have two years ago: a home.
Robert
We would like to thank our partners
School of Journalism and Communication Environmental Leadership Program Holden Center
The Gray Family Foundation Portland Audubon Society Food for Lane County McKenzie River Trust
PHOTO BY PAOLA LOPEZ
Sara Worl
Climbing the mountain
Advisor Ivan Miller hikes with students at Smith Rock State Park. PHOTOS BY PAOLA LOPEZ
By Ivan Miller
I vividly remember the first day of sixth period, specifically watching students pile into my classroom to join the Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE), Springfield High School’s integrated outdoor program. I bounced around with excitement. I explained that we were the subject of a new experiment with the Journalistic Learning Initiative, an educational platform designed to “empower student voice through media production and publishing.” I confessed that I’d never taught the recently designed curriculum and the kids were in charge of making design and editorial decisions regarding the publications, and the University of Oregon would film everything. A couple students never came back. But the students that stayed, and those that joined later, made exponential leaps as human beings, evident in their artistic expressions, writing, and especially through leadership. Two weeks into the class, I asked who might want an editorin-chief role, and if so stay after class. Ten showed interest, which proved that the students truly wanted to take control of their learning. So I gave them the keys to car. The class voted for three leaders—Danyka Bratton, Paola Lopez, and Robert Rust. Danyka eloquently crafted narratives, building on a creative voice all her own. Paola carried a lot of weight, so to speak, doing anything and everything she needed to finish a publication. Robert evolved into a professional editor and became the voice of the program. All of them embodied the characteristics—creativity, diligence, mental toughness, perseverance—I hope students take with them into the real world. With the year winding down, my students have matured into young adults, demonstrating that they’re all leaders ready for whatever journey life takes them on. We have failed together, laughed uncontrollably until we collectively wept, overcome numerous outdoor obstacles, chilled together, and triumphed in countless ways. Every student has contributed in their own way—14 of them publishing articles, five of them designing pages, some sketched, one sold advertisements, and many took photos. All of them demonstrated leadership. As I start to run out of gas and sit slumped in my chair, 250 BACKCOUNTRY REVIEW
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"Working with so many diverse and wonderful kids makes me a better teacher, husband, father,
and man." days after that first day, I feel absolute contentment watching my students giddily bounce around the room finishing the Backcountry Review, eating junk food, editing stories, designing pages, listening to trap music, problem solving, and genuinely thriving in the environment they created in those early weeks of the program. They are in charge, fully engaged in the process, owning their individual roles and contributing to a larger community. Working with so many diverse and wonderful kids makes me a better teacher, husband, father, and man. Springfield High School students inspire me every day I walk into the building, and every time we hit the trail. This year we overcame multiple tragedies, including three parent deaths. This particular group has created two professional level magazines, making it abundantly clear they can compete with 62
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any journalism program in the country. Next year, I start over. But these new experts in transcendental wandering will always be family. I am left with a wealth of images. My wife Kelsi and son Emerson officially joining the sit spot circle, Rosaura Olivo Lira hanging upside down from a tree, Alex Brown dancing in the Steens Mountain Wilderness, Aaron Garcia building tarp shelters in the pouring rain, Carolyn Davies cooking in the dark, Rhiannon Hoefer realizing a hidden sketching talent, Chandler Larsen giggling emphatically about college girls and goats, Jordyn Espy reflecting on Grizzly Peak, Sarai Batista’s sheer happiness to go outside for class, Patrick Durbin writing an elegy for his father, Shianne Easton finishing the fourth draft of an incredible profile, Ben Park earning a PhD in ninja school, Megan Meier making everyone laugh
Ivan Miller pensively sits atop Cape Perpetua.
at Cape Perpetua, Tess Champ making me feel like a dad, Luis Torres Sanchez’s sit spots on hand (literally), Lily Wheeler helping write a $30,000 grant, Allyssa Burkett overcoming sleep deprivation and conquering Neahkahnie Mountain, Tabitha Sample courageously deciding to share her story, Hailey Bonham leading us up the mountain. I am so thankful for my students, my family, our partners, and the Springfield High School community for an abundance of support. In the end, that’s really what the Miller Integrated Nature Experience symbolizes, community. Every student has shared a piece of their life, some unknown slice of hardship. That human connection keeps us together. I love taking kids outside, for the natural world helps connnect us to a larger ecological community—every life form thriving on and supporting something else.
People are no different. We need each other, we need to share our stories, stories that illuminate the fact we are wired the same way and face similar struggles in our day-to-day survival. I realized that 17 years ago on a road trip, a journey across the western United States by myself. I learned how to tell stories and truly connect with people. I don't know that there is any lesson more important to impart to students. It doesn't matter how may miles we walk or how many pages we publish. None of it matters if we're not connected. I realize this now more than ever as we approach our deadline. I am lucky to have my wife and son, but also to have deeply rooted connections to all of my students. I have no doubt when I'm long gone they'll continue to share their stories and hardships, and build their own families.
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MILLER INTEGRATED NATURE EXPERIENCE PHOTO BY PAOLA LOPEZ