Confidence Camp- "Final Exam"

Today was the "final exam" phase of the week. Last night I gave everyone a map, a compass bearing, and a distance to travel, which they plotted on their maps.

Today we went to a section of National Forest that was 1 mile by 0.6 mile. No trails, a few old roads. It was bounded on all sides by roads.

Each person had a different course to follow. We sent the person with the longest walk on her way first. See her out there through the leaves? She was also the youngest participant. See my strategy there? <wink>

Each had the goal to find either Cathy's car, Miki's car, or my car. We weren't trying to trick anyone. We were at specific locations along the boundary roads.

Everyone mostly stuck to map and compass only falling back on electronics for some occasional verification. Here comes a successful bushwhacker out to find me.

We came back with the same number of people we left with! Celebretory pizza at the end of a full week.

Here we are- six confident campers with Cathy and me as staff.

This whole experience went better than my wildest dreams. These ladies were so enthusiastic and kept telling me how much fun they were having. They caught on to plants to watch for very quickly. They loved the firebuilding.

I was particularly pleased that when sent off alone to find their way through this forest section they chose to do it primarily without electronics. My goal was to induce a little bit of stress, but set them up for success, and that's exactly what happened. One person got a little off course, but we found her with no real issues. And she said she probably learned more by her mistakes than if she'd gone directly to her goal.

I haven't done much this afternoon, and I may just watch a movie tonight. I need to chill and let some of this percolate.

If I'm going to keep doing this (and I am), I need to raise some money for a bit more infrastructure. Pondering Kickstarter. You have to be a non-profit to get most grants, or find a non-profit that will sponsor you.

Some walking occurred today, but I have no idea how much. Maybe a couple of miles. I was mostly at my car waiting to pick up and drop off campers who were orienteering through the woods.

See Confidence Camp- Day 5

Confidence Camp- Day 5

Today, we talked about Thermal Regulation (prevention and responses to getting too hot or too cold). Then we went outside and practiced hanging a cache to make your food more critter-resistant. Here is someone attempting to throw the rope over the bar that is attached to my deck. The bar is 15 feet off the ground, and that is really a minimum height to achieve a good cache.

Once the rope is over the bar (usually a tree branch when you are backpacking), you load up your bag, and raise it to be at least 10 feet off the ground, 3 feet from the branch, and 6 feet from anything vertical (the tree trunk is being portrayed by the deck post). Those are minimums. Higher and farther is better.

We actually had a beautiful day! It got really windy in the afternoon (and took my tent down again), but that didn't interfere with our activities.

This was kind of a leftover from the firebuilding days that didn't get completed because we ran out of time. Everyone tried a "metal match," which is a firestarter that isn't bothered by getting wet. This is a rod made of an alloy of metals that throws sparks when struck with a hard object- a metal bar is provided. I got a wad of dryer lint to ignite.

Everyone got to try it, and a few managed to light a firestarter.

Then we covered some more "classroom" topics and did an exercise on declination.

After dinner was a short prep time for tomorrow's "Final Exam." There will be no failures. Because even if someone does not manage to find their goal (bushwhacking through unfamiliar woods to a specific place) they will have learned things. Don't worry, I promise not to lose anyone tomorrow either.

Each participant charted their course for tomorrow on the map.

And now, I am just about done for one more day. My energy level has been amazing all week. These campers have had so much enthusiasm that it's just pumping me up.

I think I can safely say that I'll be doing this again- Good Lord willin' and the crik don't rise.

See Confidence Camp- Day 4

Confidence Camp- Day 4

We managed a phenomenal amount of activities today!

First up, we went foraging for edibles. A cattail stand is a veritable supermarket.

Checking plants in a field. We went to a number of locations near my house and brought back various roots and greens to cook, and a whole gallon bag of salad greens.

Then we went to the creek to get water. No "easy outs" this morning, except I let them use real shovels for the digging.

We split into 3 groups and each built a small fire. Each one roasted one set of roots and boiled some greens. The cattail roots also got boiled.

Made sure everything was boiled adequately to kill any organisms in the creek water.

Our beautiful buffet! Except I didn't manage to get the bag of salad in the picture because we were keeping it in the shade under the table.

And the sampling! There was nothing that everyone disliked. A few people preferred one kind of green or root over another, but the experiment was a huge success!

We checked the solar stills, but they didn't have much water because we had to take them apart too early, because we needed the pans to cook. Shuffling the sessions due to weather messed up the schedule for the pans. But some water was collected. We did see that they work if given more time.

After a lunch that was more hearty than a few bites of greens and roots we settled in for an afternoon of more serious compass work. Working with a map to take bearings and estimate distances.

Then I took one person from each team to a location out of sight, came back and gave the remaining team members bearings and distances. They had to go find their partner. Then they switched and I took the other person to a different location. All teams came back without any huge problems. It's always good to end the week with the same number of people you start with.

Finally, the weather made an outdoor activity enjoyable. We are having so much fun and learning. Yes, I'm learning things too. For example, I hadn't tried the cattail roots in spring. At other seasons I would call them edible, but not tasty. The springtime ones were actually yummy. I've learned that the letter T after an elevation number on a topo map means that the elevation was determined from aerial photos, not from a ground survey, and is thus less accurate. People ask questions, and if I don't know the answers I try to find them.

We are all approaching tired, but what a week! I'm learning which lessons fit into the time slots, and which need more time. And I have a great, enthusiastic group of campers.

See Confidence Camp- Day 3

Confidence Camp- Day 3

Um, well, last night was exciting. (one of the campers took this from her tent!

The morning was pretty cold but it was only drizzling, and that even stopped before we got to the woods. We practiced with our compasses, and then we bushwhacked a short distance to find the North Country Trail using electronic mapping apps on our phones.

Along the way, everyone was pretty excited to find some of the edible plants we looked at yesterday.

After a restaurant lunch, we came back and worked on learning some basic knots.

Everyone made a map display board to help them remember their work.

One more activity for the day- we built two solar stills. One has clear plastic and the other has black plastic. We will compare the results tomorrow.

Cathy then brought us another great dinner! It's only 9 pm, and my handouts for tomorrow are all ready, even though I decided I needed to add one more page of explanation for tomorrow. I might make it out to my tent before dark. We got that set up again. I could sleep in the house, but that doesn't seem right if I expect the campers to sleep out.

Miles walked in 2026: 164.2 (not counting all the walking from the house to the campsite and back)
Hike 100 2026: 54.3

NCT in Lake County, MI, about a mile near Ward Hills.

See Confidence Camp- Day 2

Confidence Camp- Day 2

Confidence Camp is great, but we mostly stayed inside and did lessons that don't require being out in the rain.

Everyone did have time to lay and light their own fire this morning- before breakfast! And I got a picture of each participant with her fire. It was sprinkling even before we finished this.

We headed for the house where we spent the rest of the day- eating all meals and doing workshops that didn't require outside activity. It was cramped, but we succeeded. Here is part of a map-reading discussion.

Then I had bell practice, came back, and some of us watched Lost on a Mountain in Maine. Then we had a thunder and lightning storm, but my tent had blown over and things were getting soaked (the things I put in the tent to protect them, right?), so a couple people who were still up helped me schlepp it all in the car. It's now all back in the house and spread all over drying, and hen I had to print stuff for tomorrow. If the house didn't look like a tornado strike before, it sure does now!

The weather for the rest of the week looks good. Tomorrow we are off for a session in the woods. Everyone is doing great. Those wavy lines on a piece of paper are starting to mean something to people. Every one got a fire going without any real problems. Someone said to me last night, "You make it look easy," and I said, "It is easy when you have everything ready like this." "This" being my "rules" for building a successful fire.

Well, I'm sleeping in the house tonight. There wasn't any good chance of getting my tent back up in the dark. And I am more than ready to crash.

See Confidence Camp Day 1