Jumping Off Mountains by Dominik Stallings

JUMPING OFF MOUNTAINS

The Advanced Biology fieldtrip to St. Mary’s Peak was described by many students as “amazing” and “awesome”. The trip started on Oct. 9, at 8:15am. Everyone was pretty well-prepared for harsh conditions, as Mr. Ligas said there would be knee-deep snow on the mountain, for which he was only partially right, since it was only that high on the peak. The weather at the parking lot was not as bad as we thought, still many had thick jackets and coats, double socks and mighty hiking boots. Everyone had to take a device with them that could take photos of the trees, how they grow, and us hugging and loving them dearly.

The way up to the mountain was interesting as we, the students, actually saw what we learned in class: The bark beetle infestation. We saw what those beetles have created, or destroyed, to be more precise. Pretty much all the trees were covered in clumps of tree sap, resulting from a defense mechanism, which the trees use to flush out the invading beetles. But it seems that this defense is useless and they still die. You could say that all of the trees are doomed to die. But even though this is very sad and environmentally important for the mountains, nobody seems to care. There is nothing that we could possibly do, we can only wait and see what nature does.

As we almost reached the top the whole class sat down together and had lunch. We got our lunch mostly from the gas station down the mountain. Mr. Ligas asked us if we wanted to go to the top. Only six of us wanted to including: Jarred Brown, Leon Ochs, Kaylie Durglo , Morgan Schultz, and myself, Dominik Stallings. We were ready to conquer the mountain, and that is what we did.

 Everybody climbed all the way to the lookout, mostly ignoring if there was a trail, since everything was covered in snow. As everyone was on the mountain we all had group pictures taken, and also selfies. The trip down was most likely the best since we could just jump down and roll around in the snow.

Everyone who went up had fun and a great experience. As everyone got into the bus we immediately told about our little adventure and took off our boots and wet socks. The whole class also went to Arby’s as a sort of treat; I’m guessing everyone went to sleep early that evening.

By Dominik Stallings