Lake Crescent view from Camp David, Jr.
Olympic Odyssey is what we call our week-long, outdoor education, 8th grade field trip. We take 8th graders to Camp David, Jr. on beautiful Lake Crescent and use that as our take off point to their odyssey. This is the time of year where some of the things they are learning in school come to life. For when do students get to go out and do or see the things they are learning about in school?
My group started off Monday by visiting the Port Angeles Feiro Marine Life Center (inside joke coming; do NOT poke de feesh). Then we visited the Elwha Dam and the Glines Dam to see them before the removal starts this September. Students researched the plans for the removal of those dams and on Monday they got to actually see them both and sketch them including the surrounding ecosystem. In three years the dams will be down completely and the lakes will give way to a river as it was over 100 years ago. Those two dams, put up in the early 1910’s, haven’t generated enough electricity to be of any use so the Klallam tribe has been working to get them taken down. For 100 years five species of salmon who used the Elwha River Valley have been denied. The Klallam have made hatcheries to keep the salmon from disappearing entirely.
The Elwha, lower, Dam
Tuesday my group visited the Makah museum in Neah Bay. What a great museum, so serene and full of great artifacts and history. We walked the Cape Flattery trail to view Tatoosh Island just as in the novel 8th graders read, Ghost Canoe. And we played in Hobuck Beach. What a grand view of the power of weathering as the waves carve out our state coastline!
Wednesday students were able to choose between two different Ozette Beach hikes and a hike to Sol Duc Falls. Eighth graders were none too happy with me. See the Ozette hikes were supposed to be either a nine mile hike or a six mile hike. The Sol Duc Falls hike was supposed to be a 1.6 mile hike. But the map was confusing and I started them off in the wrong place. By the time we reached the falls and returned to the bus we had walked 6.5 miles. Oops 🙂 . In the evenings (well Tuesday and Wednesday evenings) students bathed in the sulfur spring waters of the Sol Duc hot springs.
Sol Duc Falls
On Thursday students enjoyed a tour of WA state’s own Hoh Rain Forest followed by a trip to Rialto Beach after driving through Forks (home of the Twilight movies). At the Hoh students got to experience a temperate rainforest after learning about rainforest ecosystems in Science. At Rialto we hiked a mile and half to the Hole in the Wall and then back to the bus just in time to head back to camp.
On the last day we visited Ediz Hook in Port Angeles to stack rocks and eat then we stopped at the Sequim Dungeness River Audobon to learn about nature in our own backyard before we headed home.
Sequim Audobon
Ediz Hook
Everyday we started with a hearty breakfast. We’d pack our lunches for the day and return to another home cooked meal at camp. We take our cook with us every year. Thursday night the 8th graders performed skits they wrote about a totem animal each team chose. They wrote the skit like a oral storytelling myth and parents were invited to watch. The skits were great and I heard some wonderful stories. Eighth graders end their time in middle school with this wonderful odyssey just as they began middle school in 6th grade with their Cispus experience. Outdoor education is doing well in Chimacum Middle School.
