High School

A True Nature Lover

See the tiny dot on the glacier? That's Andrew.

Andrew Sutherland, of Albany, wanted a true outdoors experience from his SCA crew this summer. His number one preference was to be in the backcountry, somewhere in the US, in the middle of nowhere. He found himself in the backcountry of the Rocky Mountains for four weeks and said the experience was “awesome.”
Andrew is third from the right

This first year CLC student who will be a junior in high school this fall, is truly an outdoors enthusiast. He didn’t mind only showering once the entire time, being outdoors in the rain, and taking quick dips in the glacier ice river that ran past their campsite.

When I asked him if he thought that CLC prepared him for his month long summer crew he hesitated, then said, “Yes. But CLC was different because we didn’t have time to get into a long term project. I think it’s impossible to really prepare someone for a month long experience like that.”

Their project was to maintain a trail by cribbing, building causeways, and raising the trail using crushed rocks. Sounds exhausting. But apparently it didn’t completely drain Andrew and a couple other crew members: nope, they ran back home everyday after work, uphill, backpack and everything. At the beginning of the month they managed the three-fourths of a mile run in 7 minutes and forty seconds and by the end of the month they were down to six minutes and fifty seconds.

Andrew also enjoyed learning more about the “leave no trace” principle that many outdoors people adhere to and said he gained a greater appreciation for it by practicing it for a month. One of his crew leaders was a biology major in college and taught the crew about the surrounding vegetation and wildlife.

The highlight of the trip for Andrew was the recreation trip that followed their work. The crew hiked up a glacier with ice picks, on top they ate a picnic, then climbed over the continental divide and camped on the other side (according to a mentally deranged Dr. Seuss wannabe).

Andrew said he is very interested in staying involved with SCA in the future. He plans on doing CLC again next year followed by another summer crew.

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