It feels more like April than January in Pisgah Forest, and it is hard to believe that we have months to go before our Outdoor Academy (and eventually Hante) students depart on the Appalachian Trail. Historically at OA we have divided up trek into two five-day chunks, one in the Pisgah Ranger District and the other in the Slick Rock Wilderness Area of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. This model had its benefits, but we all felt that we would be doing a service to our students by getting them out for a longer, more continuous period of time. In reality, five days in the wilderness is only three days when you think about travel. For the last two semester’s our students have had the opportunity to engage with the community on the Appalachian Trail for a continuous 9 days. With so much time, we are now able to build up more momentum on the trail, and it is not unusual for our groups to be logging 10-12 mile days by the last part of their expedition.
We only complete a small section of the 2000+ miles from Georgia to Maine, but our journey rings true with those thru-hikers going the distance. In the spring, we catch the wave of northbound hikers heading to Katahdan within their first month on the trail. They are fresh, optimistic, and generally still getting used to the highlands of North Carolina at our pace. In the fall we see the southbounders on the last tenth of their journey. They are seasoned, generally skinner than they started, and hiking much farther than us at 20-25 miles a day. While the Appalachian Trail is valuable to do in itself, our students walk away from this trip inspired to be part of a larger community of thru-hikers. They have tested their bounds and learned all the skills they need to be competent and comfortable in the wilderness, and many go on to use the AT as a point of reunification after their semester here ends.
In the summer, we have the opportunity to take students even further on our three-week Hante AT Trek! They will spend fourteen consecutive days on the Appalachian Trail with one of our most seasoned previous OA instructors, Felix Dowsley. Cecilia Kucera, an OA graduate herself, will being balancing out the AT Trek leadership team this summer.
Felix is excited to come back to the Eagle’s Nest next summer to lead his favorite section on the Appalachian Trail! Felix has worked for two summers with ENC as a member of rocks staff. After graduating from Washington University in 2010 with a B.A. in English, he went on to work at the Outdoor Academy for two semesters. In the spring of 2012 Felix will be away from our community working as the English teacher in the Bahamas. Felix is a certified Wilderness First Responder, and he has a great deal of local knowledge of the NC highlands after having twice previously led Outdoor Academy students on ten-day backpacking trips in the Roan Mountain area. When Felix is not working in the field, he prefers to be climbing at Looking Glass or playing old-time music with his washboard.
Cecilia is rounding out her 20th year with Eagle’s Nest Foundation, having grown up here at the knee alongside our Executive Director, Noni Waite-Kucera. Cecilia is a third-generation Hante instructor, as both her mother and grandmother have led students on numerous adventures since 1973. Cecilia has participated in six Hantes, and she is excited to give back to the program by leading her first journey on the Appalachian Trail. During the school year Cecilia is currently pursuing a degree in Biology at Wake Forest University, and after she graduates she would like to work in veterinary medicine. In her spare time, Cecilia can generally be found playing the violin or with her horse, Dillan.
