The Pacific Chorus Frogs Navigate at Lookout Mountain

Into the woods for our opening circle

The Pacific Chorus Frogs gathered for their second outing of the fall season at Lookout Mountain Forest Preserve. This place is a special spot for Explorer’s Club. It sits on the outskirts of the dense area of Bellingham development and as such provides a good opportunity to observe tracks and sign of some of the more typically elusive animals (ex: cougar, bobcat, bear). Additionally, it's relatively untracked forests are home to some rare plants (yew trees) and lots of fungi.

Some of the fungi that we saw today

Today, the Pacific Chorus Frogs were tasked with a challenge. Their earth skill for this season is the Art of Navigation and as such their challenge was navigation oriented. For their challenge, they were tasked with leading us through the trails at Lookout Mountain to a small waterfall about one mile away from the parking lot. The only tools that they were given were copies of maps of the area. The mentors knew that the Pacific Chorus Frogs would need to utilize their collaboration and compromise skills to come to consensus about which way to go when the trail forked. In this sense, this challenge included an introduction to navigation while at the same time requiring strong group leadership and circular decision making. During this whole challenge, the mentors would not step into their circles; they had to make decisions about where to go and come to consensus around those decisions on their own.

Hmm, which way to go?

It took a while for the boys to get into a comfortable decision making rhythm. The first couple of circles were difficult as their selected Leader of the Day struggled to find a way to quiet the group down so that they could actually listen to each other. Eventually, a couple of other boys stepped up and helped the Leader of the Day fulfill his leadership duties and the decisions became easier and easier to make.

Are we there yet?

At the conclusion of our challenge, when we had reached the red “x” on the maps that we were handed, we got the see the motto The Map is Not the Territory (another way to think of this: you can’t eat the menu, it is just a representation of the food) in real life. On the map, it was indicated that a waterfall would be here for us to wonder at and play around. What we found was a small creek - hardly a booming waterfall. It was so different than what the map made it out to be that even the mentors wondered for a bit if we actually were in the right spot! As it turns out, we were certainly there. While the boys were originally disappointed by the lack of a waterfall, that disappointment quickly faded as we found the area to be rich with discoveries: small animal dens, deep creek pools and plenty of sticks and big logs to make a bridge with.

Big, old growth nurse logs

Navigating steep creek banks

Vine maple, thimbleberry, salmon berry and ocean spray

Exploring down stream at the creek

More fungi!

Today, the mentors had to remind the Pacific Chorus Frogs to stay safe more than they should have to. All of the Pacific Chorus Frogs know that they are the first ones who are responsible for their safety; indeed, the actions they choose to take directly increase or decrease their level of safety. Despite this, sometimes our excited energy and rowdy behavior can make us forget this fact. So, we had to revisit our S.T.O.P. model of personal safety check ins a few times today. Because safety is fundamental to what we do in Explorers Club, we had to bring the group together a couple of times today to specifically call out unsafe behavior and a lack of awareness among many members of our group. This is not unexpected for groups in only their second year, and the mentors were thankful that no one was hurt and for the opportunity to talk about responsibility and safety with the Pacific Chorus Frogs today.

To see the rest of the pictures from our day, click here!