Wednesday, April 24, 2019

"Bear Island" at Congaree, Part I: Going There

The Bear Island trip took a detour this spring: when Hurricane Florence took out all the beach campsites on Bear Island, Alyssa and I cast about for some alternative sites that could, within reasonable driving distance from Coker, provide beauty, inspiration, and primitive camping at a reasonable fee.



We found all that, and more (torrential rain, huge old growth cypress, lob lolly pine, and gum trees, snakes, a terrific visitor's center with an informative movie), at Congaree National Park, just south of Columbia, less than two hours away. 

A large clearing, surrounded by six campsites, Bluff Campground: our home for three days and two nights.
Long-needle pines, blue skies, bird calls - and a 0.8 mile walk over wooded trails and board walks from the Visitors Center (with flush toilet bathrooms, water bottle filling station, and a spigot for dishes and feet) - presented a camping opportunity gentler and more protected than the windy ocean beach of Bear Island. Paradise indeed!


Students applied for twelve spots to complete their various projects: six of them signed up for Art, and six of them signed up for Interdisciplinary Studies. We scheduled the obligatory "tent pitching clinic" on a windy day outside Davidson Hall - thanks to a generous donation, we were able to loan out weatherproof light-weight tents, sturdy backpacks, stoves, and warm sleeping bags to students.

 An evening of questions and answers outside Davidson Hall - about half the group were novice campers (one student actually chose the phrase "I saw people tenting in a movie once and it looked hard" to describe his camping expertise), and we wanted to make sure everyone knew how to bear-bag food, limit weight to carry, and feel comfortable with the whole adventure.

Another lesson learned last year: we packed "emergency rations" for each tent group - obviously keeping the traveler demographic around 18-22 years old and limiting the time frame to three days, we didn't seriously anticipate any losses, but nobody wants to share a tent with a hungry fellow camper.




We set out at 9:00 in the morning on Friday, April 12th - the weather forecast was a bit mixed, but we were promised some sun in between the rain (showers, thunderstorms) - and, which was a relief after last year's adventure on Bear Island, temperatures above 60 degrees throughout.

We pitched camps in a torrential downpour (how to loop a rope around a pine to fasten a tarp became an important lesson right off the bat) - which let up, to an afternoon of muggy intermittent gray skies, just as soon as all tents were set up.



Down by the Congaree River, all hiking trails were flooded - even the boardwalk, usually stroller-territory, was a few inches under water in sections. There were some beautiful snakes (a common Brown Watersnake, a Black Snake, according to the ranger we consulted later - and the largest, fattest leeches ever! leeches the size of small trout!) - had we been able to actually get into the swamp trails, we might have seen more - but - never mind trail conditions and the weather. We had put an excellent crew together, and they proved pretty impervious to the rain.

Work was done - drawing and writing, completing of questionnaires, exploring, guitar lessons.


Some students looked at big things

 - and some students looked at small things.

There was quite a bit of "Seeing What's There," reflecting the original title of the course (and echoing a 1989 Evergreen State College class).






Not everyone wanted to hear about "negative space" - and yes, in nature "the light keeps changing," which obviously can be a challenge for photographers and those making drawings. But yet. We saw things.




Some of us talked a lot - sometimes about art.


Of course, a good bit of time went into just being there - spending time and getting to know students from other disciplines (we had representatives from Criminology, Physical Education, Computer Science, English, and of course Interdisciplinary Studies, aside from the solid Art contingent) - participating in fellow students projects, and just running a camp surrounded by very large trees.

 


Some of us cooked a lot - ramen noodles figured prominently on the menu, as did apples. Someone brought stew - and shared with those who did not bring stew. (Most of us did not bring stew.)

That big Coleman tent? It weighed a ton, and it took on a little bit of water - but eleven students fit into it during one of those thunderstorm-rains and played "Bullshit" - a game of cards, I am told - and laughed very hard. Also an important part of the Study Away experience.










Some of us were just really proud to be in the woods at all - setting up a tent, keeping everything dry, exploring the trails and hanging out.



We saw rain. Sometimes we did not see the rain coming, but eventually we all saw it come down. Only those who had squirreled away firewood under their tarp got a camp fire the second night - Alyssa and I did not.


But then the sun came out again - for a lovely couple of hours - and weather, muggy and wet and persistent, can only do so much to a camping adventure.






A dinner started late then ran into the dark - and the column of dish washers and teeth brushers snaked into the dark woods with some hilarity - lights and pots clattering and ambling in the night, like miners returning from a shift.




We left late on Sunday morning - sometime between a quick shower and a more pronounced downpour. Students started packing early - we knew we had a window.

All of our fabulous new tents had kept us dry, everyone was in fairly good spirits, and our Bear Island Study Away trip, this time to Congaree National Park, closed on a note of general satisfaction. Many skills were acquired (how to pack a backpack! how to pitch a tent! how to light a tiny stove! how to read trail signage!), and other qualities just came to light: kindness and helpfulness and curiosity. And coping with rain.



Stay tuned for the next post: a report on student projects completed during our Congaree adventure!
(All pictures thanks to Alyssa's and my iPhones - no professional photographers with us this year!)