The Crux is Open!

This weekend was the grand opening of the Crux: Champlain Valley Climbing Center! We had a great turnout...appoximately 200 people came by to climb or check out the building, including a number of people who came on both Saturday and Sunday!

If you haven't been by to see the new facility, stop in at some point this week for the rest of our opening week celebrations. You can find a full schedule of the events we have planned here.

Below are a few pictures from the opening weekend:

Da CRUX!

The time is creeping closer and closer....
....for the opening of.....
THE CRUX!

The grand opening is scheduled for this Saturday, December 5th from 10am-8pm. There will be food, drinks, music, and most of all CLIMBING!

There is over 1000 sq. feet of climbing, 17 routes, a bouldering cave...we've got it all. We are the Crux, Champlain Valley's climbing center! Come check us out!!!!

Working on the Snow Tubing Hill

We had our first snow fall last week. Although it wasn't much, it has turned our thoughts to winter fun: cross-country skiing, building snow shelters...and snow tubing!

Our snow tubing hill isn't a place that we spend a lot of time in during warmer months, but we've been up there in the last few weeks getting this hill in shape for the winter.

Maintaining and improving the hill is an ongoing, multi-year project. Last year we rebuilt the berm to change the path that the tubes took down the hill, allowing for a longer ride. We also started putting in a new drainage system at the bottom of the hill, which tended to be a little swampy.

This year we've been continuing work on the drainage system. The drainage ditches have been dug, and now we're working to spread a few inches of gravel on the bottom before we cover them with dirt again. This is slow, back-breaking work: we can't get a tractor down there to work (actually, we'd be able to get it down the hill, but it would never get back up again), so we're using person-power instead. We got a load of gravel dropped off at the top of the hill, and have been taking it down to the ditches one wheelbarrow-full at a time.

As you might imagine, this is a big job, and we only have a limited amount of time before the snow flies. We'll get as much done as we can, but I imagine that this will be a job that continues into next year!

Rock Talk and Walk

Despite the chilly temperatures outside, myself, Ed Romanowicz from SUNY Plattsburgh, and three others trekked up Rattlesnake mountain to learn all about the geology of the area. We started with a brief intro here at Pok-O, where we got to look at maps of the area. We talked a lot about how there used to be a sea here in the Champlain Valley, the glaciers that once enveloped the area, and the rifts that are forming the mountains around us.

After that, we bundled up and headed out to the mountain. Along the way, Ed stopped and showed us some interesting features. More commonly, we stopped him, with the phrase "Whoa! What is that rock? Why is it pink/black/green/spotted? What did that to the rock? How did this rock get here?" and more. We reached the summit, and despite what looked like dreary gray skies created a gorgeous winter view. Mt. Mansfield of Vermont was snowy and beautiful, the slides on Giant Mountain were bright and white, and the sunlight streaming through the clouds lit up Lake Champlain.

We stayed on the summit for a little bit, but the wind chased us down. We hiked down the trail (asking just as many--if not more--questions as on the way up) and made it back to the van.

My favorite fact of the day: The Adirondacks are comprised mostly of anorthrosite, a granite composite. This is one of the few places in the world that this rock is found. The only other place that it is found on the crust so predominantly is in Labrador, Canada. But (and here comes the coolest part) anorthrosite is also the material that makes up the rocks on the moon! Out of this world, eh?

All in all...it was a "rock"ing good time! (I couldn't resist!)Here's a picture of Ed and our guests on the top of the mountain.

See you next time!
Liz the Naturalist

First Snow!

Snow has been falling in some of the higher elevations for a few weeks now, but down in the valley where we are...not yet. Until Now!

The Pok-O Staff woke up to snow covering the ground, our cars and all the trees! It was just a dusting, and it melted away by lunch time, but its a sign of fun times to come!

Snowshoes, cross country skis, and snow tubes here we come!

What are YOU excited about for winter?

SEAD

A few times each season, we have a SEAD day here at Pok-O. SEAD stands for "Staff Enrichment and Development." These days are days for us to expand our own knowledge about topics we teach about here at Pok-O, both to provide professional development for staff members and to further improve our program.

On Monday we had a SEAD day in Montreal. Our primary destination was the Biosphere, Montreal's Environment Museum. Most of the current exhibits focus on the St. Laurence River Watershed, which includes Long Pond! Most of what we teach about watersheds in our Pond Ecology class focuses on the water that is going into Long Pond...so it was really interesting to learn more about where our water is going when it leaves Long Pond.

We also were fascinated by the structure of the Biosphere. The museum is housed in a giant geodesic sphere. The sphere was originally built as the U.S. Pavillion at the 1967 World's Fair. After the Fair, it remained a popular tourist destination, until a fire destroyed that outer covering in 1976, leaving only the frame of the sphere behind. Eventually a new building was built inside the sphere to house the Environment Museum, though the outer covering was never replaced.

The sphere was designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, a visionary architect, engineer and inventor. Fuller was devoted to sustainable design, and spent his life designing buildings, cars, and other technology that would help reduce the number of resources used by people in their everyday lives. Fuller was well ahead of his time on the issue of environmental sustainability...he was thinking about these issues as early as the 1920s!

After we left the museum, we took some time to walk around the old city in Montreal. Perhaps the highlight of this point in the day was when we passed a restaurant that had decorated for Halloween with gibbets! Brian was very excited to see them. (Read the post about Haunted Homestead to find out why...)

Haunted Homestead

Last weekend was "Haunted Homestead", the Halloween program that the Outdoor Education runs jointly with the 1812 Homestead Farm and Museum. Despite the rainy weather, we had a great turn out, and we hope that all of our visitors had fun!

One of the main components of the program is the hay maze that we set up in the main barn at the Homestead. It's quite an endeavor to build---approximately 400 bales of hay, arranged into a maze that traverses 2 stories of the barn, all structurally reinforced with re-bar and braced with cross beams across the top...and then decorated with scary scenes at every turn! In the end we had a maze that, according to reviews, was pretty terrifying.

We also had a "haunted hayride" through the woods of the homestead. Along the trail riders encountered (or were attacked by) a homicidal clown, and doctor who killed his patients, a chainsaw serial killer, a living scarecrow, Sasquatch, and a few other scary folks as well. We were especially pleased to have the Drama Club from the Willsboro Central School working with us on the hayride this year---they set up a cannibal scene that, based on the screams that always came when the wagon went past their station, was one of the highlights of the hayride.

In addition to the volunteers from the Drama Club, we were also happy to have the freshman class from Willsboro Central School join us to run the concession stand. Proceeds from concession sales went to the class as part of their fundraising efforts for class trips.

All in all, it was a great event. Thanks to everyone who came, and all of our volunteers!

(If you were wondering what that picture at the top of the post was...it was a gibbet that we constructed to hang along the hayride trail. Gibbets were iron cages that were used to display the bodies of executed criminals. The gibbets were commonly hung along highways and waterways as a deterrent to other would-be criminals. Brian had the idea to make a gibbet for Haunted Homestead last year, but we weren't able to pull it together in time, so he had hung onto the idea for this year. He was very proud of the end result.)

Various Programs

There have been a lot of things going on here at Pok-O recently...it's hard to keep up with it all on the blog! Here are photos from two different programs that we had last week...

On Friday, most of the staff traveled down to Corinth, NY to run a team-building program for some of their middle schoolers. It was a beautiful day there--and somewhat warmer than it had been in Willsboro--so the staff certainly enjoyed being out on the football field at the middle school. We took a variety of team-building activities with us, some of which are shown in the next three photos.

Then on Saturday we hosted a Wildlife Tracking Hike for the local community. The hike was led by John Davis and Chris Maron of the Champlain Area Trail Society. We didn't see many animal tracks, but we saw some signs of wildlife, including the woodpecker holes pictured below. We also simply enjoyed the beautiful day and a the view from the top of the mountain.

This week we're setting up for "Haunted Homestead", the Halloween program that the Outdoor Ed Center and 1812 Homestead run jointly. The haymaze is well underway, and plans are in the making for one of our best haunted hayrides ever! We hope we'll see some of you there...

Goodbye Adam!

As Stites mentioned in his post yesterday, today was Adam's last day working at Pok-O this fall.

Here's a classic photo of Adam that Liz took today: Adam just after throwing a frisbee. Among Adam's many contributions to Pok-O, he instituted the tradition of the staff playing frisbee while the kids load onto the buses before leaving.

We will certainly miss him, and hope he'll be back again to visit!

MId-Season Report

We have turned the corner on our fall season. During the month of September, we averaged around 80 kids at PMOEC each day, but that number has been cut in half for the months of October and November. This is giving us a little more time to focus on our After-School Programs with different local schools, our curriculum and program development and, of course, our Community Events- Haunted Homestead, Underground Railroad and plenty of others. Also, we are about to say goodbye to our seasonal instructor, Adam Reed, who will be leaving at the end of this week. I had heard wonderful things about Adam from last year's staff and from all of the Pok-O-MacCready Camp employees, but unless I had seen his expertise with our students, I would not have believed it. Adam has the patience of a monk and the energy of a bumblebee. Combine those with his intensely optimistic disposition, and you've still only scratched the surface of one of the more genuine individuals I have had the chance to meet. Adam will be missed as the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, but he will be welcomed back with open arms if he chooses to return in the spring. That's all for now from the Director's desk.