A Weekend Away, Wilskills-style
Since I’m studying abroad next semester, this weekend was my final hoorah with WilSkills, my number one extracurriculear at Vanderbilt. Being a second semester instructor for the course/club conglomerate, this semester was my first when I’d be allowed to “lead” a trip. The first trip I lead will also correlate to my last WilSkills trip until I return to Nashville for the Fall 2012 semester.
While I have been on 3 trips this semester, only this one — in a way my first and last — was “lead” by me. What I mean is that I was the instructor to plan where the trip was going, organize the students and get them any gear they were lacking, and making the final decision in any situations. In WilSkills, we alternate trip leaders during the semester giving each experienced instructor (aka someone who has been an instructor for more than 1 semester), at least 1 trip to lead. During the other trips, instructors are still leaders, but in moments of decision-making and overall organization defer to the trip leader.
My leadership skills were put to a test when my original plans to take students backpacking at Gregory Bald in the Great Smokey Mountains had to be changed last minute. Normally a WilSkills trip is required to have 3-4 instructors depending on how many vans we need to use to transport all of the students; and in rare situations, 2 instructors is adequate. This past week, the two other instructors assigned to go on the trip with me got sick and all of the other instructors either had prior engagements or way too much studying to do to prepare for finals week.
This meant that I was by myself! Gregory Bald was immediately discarded as an option because it is a 4+ hour drive away and due to safety concerns, I would not be able to drive that distance by myself (Vanderbilt requires that to get certified or “VandySafe” for driving Vanderbilt vehicles, one must follow safety regulations including never driving more than 3.5 hours at once). My choices were to (1) cancel the trip or (2) find another backpacking location nearer to Vanderbilt.
WilSkills trips have, in the past, gone to nearer backpacking locations such as the Fiery Gizzard Trail and Virgin Falls; however, the Fiery Gizzard Trail requires 2 vans and the Virgin Falls trail is extremely short, albeit beautiful, and I had already done it 3 times. I opted, instead, to find a new never-been-done-by-a-WilSkillls-group trail in Frozen Head State Park, which I had heard about from several friends. The upside, it was supposed to be a cool area that we could add to the WilSkills curricula…the downside, I didn’t know anyone who’d ever done the trail I was planning to get any tips from.
The weekend was a success! We drove out to Frozen Head State Park on Friday afternoon and camped there overnight. Saturday started off great with some chocolate chip pancakes! Then we followed the Bird Mountain Trail (and summited the mountain!) and then switched to the Lookout Tower Trail to complete our hike at our campground at Tub Springs. The trail included awesome rock features and beautifully scenic views of mountains. That night we hiked up to the Lookout Tower where we watched the sun set! Sunday we hiked down the Old North Mac Trail and then switched to the Panther Branch Trail, which included 2 big waterfalls and several smaller ones. We finished with plenty of daylight to spare and got back to campus with plenty of time to return to our finals’ studying!
The weekend was a great success, and a wonderful way to end my WilSkills experience until Fall 2012 =)
