The Mountain beckoned in 2011...but couldn't be found

2011 was crazy. First of all it was Mr. John Carswell's retirement year and since so many of the students who took Geography 12 came from the Explore program at Vanier (that Carswell started and ran for so many years) Bourget and I felt it important to include Carswell on our trip. Little did we know that he would have a heart problem flare up days after we returned from the trip and we totally blame it on the fact that since the mountain was obscured...like totally obscured, he led us on a long walk in the hummocks. We also doubled our numbers again...this year taking 82 students on two coach busses. That's right...82 students (our peak number for the trip).

I don't remember if Bourget and I had discussions about the logistics of taking 82 grade 12 students across the border to the USA or not, but at some point we decided that we could handle it and it would be okay. We added Ms. Linsay Duncan and Ms. Crystal Gaudry to the chaperone list for 2011 and began a five year run of taking students to the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, Washington. Again, I don't remember if Bourget and I had discussions about the logistics of taking 82 grade 12 students to a hotel that has an indoor waterpark, a MagiQuest or ShadowQuest scavenger hunt with animatronic characters speaking to its players, a gaming arcade, a "moon glow" mini golf course and bedtime stories for a howlin' good time...for children, but at some point we decided that we could handle it and it would be okay.

Every year, before 2011, we would pass by the Great Wolf Lodge on the way down to Kelso and see the six storey tall "Howlin' Tornado" slide out the window of the bus. Needless to say there were a bunch of "Howlin' Students" asking what it was and how come we couldn't stay there. Of course it was the mountain we were going to see right? Well Bourget and I finally added it to the list and that first year it was kind of fun...but these were the heady days of the Canadian dollar hovering at par to the US Dollar so we were able to distribute the cost across 82 students. Soon, however, our success was our downfall because the Great Wolf became more of a draw for the trip than the Saint Helens expedition and the dollar's value began a slow and steady decline (reducing our ability to make the trip cost effective). I know...blah blah blah logistics and stuff but there came a time when Bourget and I had to ask what was this expedition really all about and we eventually dropped the Great Wolf.

Oh did I mention that our view of the mountain was non-existent this year? Our itinerary was fixed so that Friday we'd go to the Ape Caves and Saturday we'd go to the JRO. Friday's weather at the Ape Caves was stellar...blue bird sunshine skies while on Saturday, heavy clouds socked into the valleys surrounding Saint Helens and we got to see a wall of grey. From this we learned to ask the Forest Service if we could book the Ape Caves and the JRO for both Friday and Saturday so that we could have the flexibility to choose the best viewing day for the volcano. I guess the Great Wolf wasn't such a bad thing after all that year.

Of course we didn't think of the bottlenecks that would happen with 82 students in the Ape Caves all at once

The US Forest Service (Gifford Pinchot National Forest) did provide us with a Park Ranger (Ranger Joy Kocoroski) in the caves...here she is with Carswell

It's always interesting to see how the students make sense of the topography of the lower caves. At points the cave feels so large that you could drive a bus through it and at other points it closes in on you.