Welcome to the Legends of the Southwest Kroka Semester 2024 Blog!
Eager for our epic journey ahead, we all arrived at Kroka base camp Monday, September 2nd. After a beautiful potluck, and an emotional goodbye, 12 teenagers, ages 15-18, and three wonderful instructorss disappeared into the Kroka woods. And that’s where we start our journey.
Welcome Circle on Arrival Day for this 2024 Fall Semester
To begin, let’s introduce our Legends of the Southwest group:
Introductions
Nalia –Age 16, from Pilot, VA. Nalia is one of our two food managers and has both the coolest hat and the coolest adventuring stories, which she loves to share.
Uli– Age 16, from Montague, MA. Uli has such high, positive energy and is our other food manager, along with Nalia. She loves telling a funny joke or story that without a doubt keeps our group laughing.
Cecily– Age 16, from Peru, VT. Cecily keeps our group entertained, whether it be with a silly voice or acting as dictator in the card game “Mow” (she is the only one who knows the rules). She is also one of our two gear and repair managers.
Oscar – Age 17, from Portland, ME. Oscar is our other gear and repair manager and is super open minded. He loves to hear differing opinions and makes sure that lunch has music by playing some guitar.
Cinder – Age 15, from Temple, NH. Ironically enough, Cinder is our fire and kitchen manager. They always have a big smile on their face and the most infectious laugh.
Sol – Age 16, from Athens, VT. Sol, or Soloman, is our energy and firewood manager and brings the chill vibe to our group. He is also constantly wearing his super cool sunglasses! (They’re prescription.)
Sarah – Age 18, from Natick, MA. Sarah is the easiest person to talk and you know she’s always listening and taking things in. She is our hygiene and medic, and can be counted on to add her honest opinion.
Hazel – Age 16, from Cambridge, MA. Hazel brings the energy to our group. She is super positive, super helpful and is always singing. She is also our logistics manager and has a lot of passion for that job.
Cedar – Age 16, from Calais, VT. Cedar is our shelter manager, making sure our home and future homes on trail are perfect. He is a hardworking guy always offering to help, and he can’t wait for all the climbing and biking we will be doing.
Savi – Age 16, from South Range, WI. Savi is our token Midwesterner! She is in charge of van, trailer, and water. She has the biggest heart and is always looking out for the group.
Gabe – Age 18, from Weston, VT. Gabe’s big job is sweep, waste, and trail magic (he gets to surprise us when spirits are low with something wonderful!). He is super hard working and is also willing to lend a hand. He’s also always a little chilly.
Kaia – Age 18, from Montclair, NJ. Kaia brings lots of organization, focus and keeps the group on track. She tends to know what’s happening next. Kaia is also our scribe (currently writing this blog for all of you)!
All of the “jobs” that were just talked about are called “Big Jobs”. A “Big Job” here at Kroka is the job you are responsible for everyday during your time on expedition and at base camp. We each requested our top three choices and then our instructors best assigned our preferences.
We awoke on the first morning to a second first: the first frost of the season. After a surprisingly chilly night and a decently rough sleep we began our first of many busy days. Our days as semester students are jam-packed and our schedules look pretty similar each day.
Uli making bread at Honey Hollow
Schedule
6:00 – 6:30: Wakeup! Stretch, have a pre-chore snack, and meet in the field for chores.
6:30 – 8:00: Chores! This is the time the whole Kroka community works together on separate chores to keep Kroka running smoothly. Some chores include splitting wood, gardening, cleaning the bathrooms, and taking care of the farm animals.
8:00 – 9:00: Breakfast! This takes place at our basecamp, Honey Hollow.
9:00 – 9:30: Sit-spot! This is when we take time to sit alone with our thoughts and observe our surroundings.
9:30 – 11:15: Academic classes! The classes we’ve taken so far are poetry lessons with Liz and New England Geography and Cartography with Nathan.
Hazel and Cedar brainstorming their “I am From” poems during class
11:15 – 12:30: Fitness! Sometimes a run, a yoga class, a swim, or a bike ride, but always something that keeps our bodies strong and moving.
12:30 – 1:30: Lunch! At base camp we eat lunch with the whole Kroka community up at the farmhouse. This is also the time we have our daily shower rotation, music, and laundry.
1:30 – 4:30: Big job work, farm block, or knife making! We have been rotating in groups of 6 between doing work for our big jobs, making handles and sheaths for knifes, and farm blocks which include harvesting or processing food for our expedition.
4:30 – 5:00: Little Big Jobs! During this short period we have time to do some daily tasks we are responsible for within our Big Jobs.
Sarah picking apples for cider
5:00 – 6:00: Study hall! This is the time we all head down to the boathouse to work on the academic assignments we have been given for that day. Sometimes this is responding to a prompt and others we are given projects to work on. This week we have been instructed to make maps of New Hampshire and Vermont as well as write our own “I am From Poem”.
Cinder, Uli and Hazel hafting knives in Kroka’s workshop
6:00 – 7:00: Dinner! We eat dinner as a semester crew down at Honey Hollow. By this time we are all getting super tired and that’s when we start letting some of our sillies out.
Cedar, Savi, Kaia and Sol process farm produce for expedition with Alexis during Farm Block
7:00 – 8:30: Evening meeting! Each night, we try to have an evening meeting and if we have time and have finished everything for the day, maybe some free time. Each night our instructors guide us in evening meeting to recap the day plan for the following day, respond to a question/prompt or discuss other things that need to be talked about.
8:30 (ish): Bedtime! Oh how we love our sleep.
And that’s what the days have been looking like here at Kroka base camp. This amazing group of students has been getting closer and closer everyday and are getting terribly excited to leave for expedition. But before that, we’ve been learning lots of things at Kroka to prepare us for the Southwest and our smaller New England expedition, which we are departing for on Monday.
Base Camp
On Thursday, we were given our mountain bikes from Roberto! This was very exciting because it meant we could start regularly biking and meant we could travel around the Kroka campus faster. No more walking up the big farmhouse hill, now we get to bike it! For some of us it is our first times on mountain bikes, while others are pros, so it was really nice getting time to be acquainted with them before leaving on expedition. During this time we also spotted two porcupines in Gaspe field. As we joked, one was smooth, almost pet-able while the other was spikey.
On Sunday, we had a rappelling lesson with Dave at a nearby rock face called The Profile. Here, he taught us many rappelling skills that we will be using canyoneering in the Southwest. We all had an absolute blast slithering down the rock face.
On top of The Profile, rappelling with Dave
We have been splitting in half to do our Big Job, Knife making, and farm blocks. What are all these things one might ask?
Big Job – A “Big Job” block means you are given tasks to complete that pertain to your Big Job. For example, fire and kitchen manager makes sure we have all the necessary supplies and materials to make a whole fire and kitchen set up on expeditions: i.e. bowls, spoons, matches, pots, etc. The medic packs the first aid kits; the food managers plan, ration and pack out all of the food for expedition; the camp manager prepares the tents; gear managers prep all the boats and bikes, and on and on.
Savi, Cedar, Kaia and Cecily sewing sheaths for their knives
Farm Block – If you didn’t already know, Kroka is a farm! We use resources from our farm such as fruits and veggies and this week we have been making them into things we can take on expedition. With farmer Jacob and apprentice Alexis, we’ve made cilantro pesto, as we just missed the basil, tomato leather, which will be turned into sauce or soup in the Southwest, and sundried tomatoes. Our last farm block we had a little treat and made some lemonade, which lasted us a couple days.
Oscar helping with chicken chores
Knife making – We were tasked to make knife handles and sheaths. We began by choosing names from a hat and that person was who we would gift our finished knife and sheath to.
Knifemaking class with Roberto
Each day, we spent hours in the workshop with Roberto, sanding, carving, and sewing to make beautiful gifts for our new friends. Finally, we gifted our knives to our friend in a beautiful ceremony.
Gabe filing the handle of his knife
Savi sanding the handle of her knife
See you soon!
This first week has been incredible, with so many shared laughs, stories and hugs. We are already such a close group with far too many inside jokes that keep spirits high and our noise levels even higher. We can’t wait to get to the Connecticut River and finally get on our righteous expedition! As everyday passes we get closer as a group and closer to heading south and west.
Stay tuned to hear all about our adventures. Until the next blog,
Your scribe, Kaia
