Covenant Heights Outdoor Education

Eagle Ridge

choutdoored — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:28:53 +0000

Hey guys! We hope you had a great time learning about the outdoors. You should be ready to go exploring with your map & compass, GPS, and wilderness survival skills. You should also have a better understanding of the ecosystems you encounter now that you did tree ID and found macro invertebrates in the stream.

Making Fire in Wilderness Survival

Let us know what your favorite and least favorite class was while you were here, your feedback can help us make covenant heights outdoor education better for next years students!

Northeast – Group Two

choutdoored — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:44:51 +0000

We hope you had a rocking time up here at CH. You certainly scaled some big rocks and furthered your knowledge of geology. We were impressed by what you already knew, you must have some good teachers. Students either made it to lunch rock or to the top of twin sisters, either way you got to see the effects of glaciers on the rocky mountains.

On the summit of Lunch Rock

One of the best places to see the work of glaciers is Moraine Park, from lunch rock you can peer down on the lateral and terminal moraines. In the photo below, the terminal moraine is the hill at the far end of the big meadow. A 1,000 foot thick glacier pushed that up! On the right side of the picture, the highest peak is the twin sisters.

Looking Down on Moraine Park

Now that you guys know more about the earth, we want you to remember to take good care of it so we can continue to enjoy it this way for a long time. Let us know about what you enjoyed and learned up here!

The Human Earth

Immanuel Lutheran

choutdoored — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:50:29 +0000

Brrrr…it was cold up here this week. You guys toughed it out and we had fun tromping around in the snow with you. One of the best parts of having snow on the ground is being able to see animal tracks better. It was very evident this morning that our camp has a lot more wildlife then you see during the day!

Let us know how your time up had an impact on you

Here’s a few pictures from our time together compliments of Katie.

Josiah Teaching Trailside

There's a Bear!

Trailblazer

choutdoored — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:43:55 +0000

We hope you enjoyed your time up here challenging yourself on our ropes courses and learning all sorts important outdoor skills, including first aid. You’re ready to get out there and explore nature like we did on our day hike.

Enjoying the view of Hallets Peak and the rest of the Continental Divide

We were impressed with your enthusiasm and courage. Whether it was overcoming a fear of heights, scrambling up rocks at alluvial fan, or attempting to hold your feet in icy cold mountain water for as long as possible. Our new record is 5 minutes and many students made it to that mark!

Scrambling up Alluvial Fan

The cold water challenge

Leave us a comment and let us know how your experience up here changed you.

Northeast – Group One

choutdoored — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:39:48 +0000

We hope you guys enjoyed learning about nature up in the Rockies this week and all of the hiking we did. On our Lily lake hike you became experts at identifying trees. You got to know Douglass Fir and a bunch of different pines.

Paul teaching how to identify Limber Pine

On our dayhike some of you summited twin sisters, if you want to see the view from the top again check out this video. Another group hiked through the beaver meadows area and summited Lunch Rock. From Lunch Rock we could see the glacial features of the continental divide up close.

Hiking uphill from Lunch Rock

It was a really windy on the rock, but that was ok since it kept smoke away from the prescribed burns nearby. The park service was burning trees that had been killed by the mountain pine beetle, and other vegetation, so they won’t be fuel for a bigger, natural fire later. On both hikes we walked through dense lodgepole pine forests, those trees are like giant matchsticks, so its important to prevent fire up here.

Enjoying a quiet moment in the meadow

Whether your on the summit of a mountain, next to a stream or in a sunny aspen meadow, its always nice to sit, relax, and enjoy nature quietly. We encourage you to try this at home or next time you’re out in the wild. Leave us a message and tell us if you do!

Cooling off our feet after a day of hiking

Rice

choutdoored — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:59:01 +0000

What is it?

This was the first time students from Rice came to visit us and we hope you come again. We really enjoyed your curiosity and interest in class. On our day hike in the park students were already applying what they learned in class to explore nature.

We all took time out of our hike to get to know trees better; we identified a few species than saw how the mountain pine beetle can harm them. The beetle tunnels into the bark of trees that are weak from drought, old age, or overcrowding. Trees like the large Ponderosa Pine shown here that have plentiful resin are able to push the intruding beetles back out.

Dead Beetle

We saw a few beetles stuck in globs resin that couldn’t survive the trees defenses.

When we got up to Cub Lake we saw some trees that were not so lucky. There were may brown Lodgepole pines surrounding the lake. Lodgepoles are smaller and grow close together so they have a tougher time with the pine beetle.

What is it?

At cub lake we used what we learned in water ecology and searched for some different macro-invertebrates. We found lots of snails and a really amazing caddisfly larvae in the water.

Caddisfly Larvae

The caddisfly we found was using a hollow plant stem as a home, sometimes they build protective cases out of small pebbles and silk. Next time your near some water look for some of those bugs that are intolerant to pollution.

Enjoy the rest of fall, and throw some leaves up in the air!

Fun in the Aspen Grove

Erwin

choutdoored — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:58:27 +0000

Exploring Alpine Brook

Water is an important resource for us here in Colorado. We hope you came to understand the importance of preventing water pollution in our water ecology class. We encourage you to get to know your place in the South Platte Watershed; figure out how run-off from where you live ends up in the Big Thompson then onto the South Platte. How we treat our watershed impacts the ecosystems downstream.

A Rat-Tailed Maggot

When we investigated our little Alpine Brook here at camp we found all kinds of macro-invertebrates. Next time you are near some water, pick up a rock and see what you can find. One of the coolest larvae we found is the rat-tailed maggot. This little guy uses his tail as a snorkel to breathe through. As an adult he will be a hoverfly, a fly that is sometimes mistaken for a bee due to its yellow markings.

We enjoyed having you guys up here, tell us what you enjoyed

We Love Outdoor Ed!

Rock Ridge

choutdoored — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:25:32 +0000

ELK!

We closed out the month of September with three sunny autumn days perfect for enjoying the changing colors. The apsen tree and the bugling elk take center stage up here in estes park and we saw both up close.

The aspen is one of the largest and oldest living things on earth. We learned how aspens send out shoots to form new trunks and so all the trees in a grove are connected. The largest grove is in Utah and it covers 107 acres, has 47,000 trunks, and is believed to be 80,000+ years old. A blue whale only weighs 200 tons.

A Beautiful Aspen Crown

However, aspens may be in second place to a fungus. In eastern Oregon a Honey Mushroom covers 2,400 acres. Fungus spreads small strings through the ground called mycelium, the actual mushroom is like the fruit of the fungus and it pops up above ground to spread spores.

Getting Started on Our Hike

We hope you guys enjoyed your time up here, leave us a message!

Cache La Poudre

choutdoored — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:23:35 +0000

We hope you enjoyed challenging yourselves up here in the mountains. You guys went big on high ropes, zipline, and the day hike. Two groups summited the twin sisters and another two went up to gem lake. The view from gem lake of the Estes Park valley is one of the best and from atop twin sisters we could see all the mountains from RMNP down to the front range. In the picture below you can see Lumpy Ridge in the middle of the picture, Gem lake is located on the far right of the ridge.

Hiking to the very top of the Twin Sisters

We hope you enjoyed learning about some rocky mountain ecology on your hike. You can continue to explore the natural world, especially since your school is right near the river it is named after. The Cache La Poudre actually starts on the north side of the Mummy Range in RMNP at 9,000 feet, the same elevation as Covenant Heights.

Resting at Treeline, the Mummy Range is in the background

Check out this video from the summit of twin sisters then click on comment and let us know how outdoor ed helped you grow and what you learned.

Walt Clark

choutdoored — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:43:05 +0000

Looking towards Longs Peak from Lily Lake

We had some great weather this week to go with a great time. You guys work hard, challenged yourself and learned a lot.

We went on two different hikes, one around lily lake and the other up twin sisters. One group of highly motivated students made it up to the summit and back in three hours. We’d say that’s easily a covenant heights record. We also seemed to have many injuries, this may have something to do with that speed you demonstrated (or darkness + good acting at campfire).

We hope you guys enjoyed tree ecology, not many schools learn about trees for an entire class. Now that you are experts, try to identify trees at home and at school. If you want to review the ones you saw up here, check out our Plantlife Page.

Let us know what you enjoyed about your time up here.

The view from the top of Twin Sisters