Climbing All Over North Chuckanut Mountain

The Alligator Lizards spent a fun Saturday climbing everything they could find on the north side of Chuckanut Mountain, exploring all kinds of new spots, and jumping ahead a bit in their skills training.  Starting out at the North Chuckanut Trailhead, we walked up the mountain and over onto the north side to enjoy the wonders of "Cougar Rock", a large boulder right along the trail.  The boys were very patient in learning the basics of safe climbing and how to make sure their spotter (one of the mentors) was ready before beginning your route.  While the group had varying levels of experience, we had a blast going up and down on different routes.  Everyone had a chance to enjoy the view from the top and it was the favored spot to sit and have a snack.  On the adjacent slope, the boys also had a chance to crawl through a hollow log halfway up.  We also took some time to build a rough shelter right next to the boulder which a number of explorers helped construct.

Nothing beats lunch on top of Cougar Rock!

Learning how to find hand and foot holds.

Awesome hollow log to crawl through!

Construction work is serious business.

Moving further east from Cougar Rock, the Alligator Lizards dropped off-trail to do some free exploring down in a nice valley.  Hunting for different types of fungus was a favorite activity for some.  Others spent some time playing "Hide" or building more stick shelters.

There's a fungus among us.

The mentors followed the shouts of excitement to be shown this beauty.

Future tightrope walkers trained here.

Just for fun (and because we found a ton of dried hemlock branches while we were exploring) we decided to show the boys how to use materials from the forest to start a fire with just sparks from a ferrocerium rod (kind of like flint-and-steel).  We gathered up the tiny dried branches from a Western Hemlock and shaved the backs of some falling cedar bark to create a bird's nest for our tinder bundle.  There were a lot of questions from the boys about why we didn't just use lighters or matches or paper for kindling, so the mentors explained that anyone can make a fire with those things.  What we are trying to teach them is how to make fire when some of those things aren't available to them.  As they progress in Explorer's Club, we will eventually teach them how to make fire from even more primitive methods like friction on a bow or hand drill.  Oddly enough, the best part about this activity was how long it took to light the fire!  Because the materials were fresh from the forest, everything was damp, so it took us almost 20 minutes to finally get a spark to catch and create an ember.  It was a good learning moment for the group in how hard it can be to start a fire and how much preparation it takes to be successful.

Learning about tinder bundles and safe fire preparation.

The first of many (many, many, many...) sparks needed to get our damp tinder started.

Wow!  It actually worked!

After putting out our small fire and eliminating all traces that we'd been there, we held our closing circle down in the valley.  The Alligator Lizards are really starting to get into their Attitude of Gratitude after our outings and they're sharing a lot of thanks for the cool places we get to explore together.  We had a great time with them on this outing and the mentors are definitely looking forward to seeing these boys again in the new year!

Be sure to check out the rest of the photos from our outing here!