A great Head-Royce School tradition is to send each class out on a trip at the beginning of the year. Each class, from 7th grade to 12th grade, goes out for two days to do things like kayaking, ropes course or if you're a 12th grader, whitewater rafting. It is a costly, and potentially high liability proposition to send out upwards of 500 students on these trips and I commend the school to it's continued committment to these trips.
This year the seniors, as well as their fellow faculty rafters, boarded the buses at school at 6AM. By 10AM, we arrived at the put-in point on the Middle Fork of the American River. I must note that for the last 8 miles of the drive I got what I term "Chapmaned". Let me explain. Our Head of School is named Paul Chapman, and he is a great, if not one of the best heads in all of America. He has been at Head-Royce for 20 years. He, like me, is an adviser to seniors, and he drove up to the river in his own car, but rode the last 8 miles on the buses with the rest of us. Lucky for me, he rode those last miles next to me. Paul likes to chat with his faculty. He remembered that I was a Geology major and kept asking me questions about the topography we were driving past. I did my best to tell him what I knew, but my petrology was always weak and I could never tell him what kind of rock we were looking at. In addition, Paul told me that he had heard from various parties that this particular trip along the Middle Fork of the American River was perhaps TOO wild for our students, and he was therefore doing some personal fact-finding. Lucky for me, the drive ended before he could begin to ask me things about curriculum or other school issues.
The Head-Royce seniors and faculty were divided into thirteen rafts. The trip was a total of 18 miles. In the first five miles there were class III and IV rapids one right after the other. The most stunning of them all was one of the first, called Tunnel Chute. Here is a visual...
A view of a raft entering the rapid from the rear (top)
The rapid itself is no wider than the width of a raft necessitating that we all get down and make sure we hold our paddles up so nothing sticks out. The rapid is about 200 feet long.
The raft bounces hard at the bottom. Make sure to be centered low in the boat.
Right after the rapid, you go into a tunnel to recover and celebrate. Here is a raft coming out successfully on the other side.
You get the idea that the day is full of great excitement. Along the way, there were opportunities to swim and enjoy the sun and river. I will say that before lunch, I dove into the water voluntarily once, was pushed in by one of my boatmates (still unknown who that was to me) and then when our boat was doing a cool trick, I fell in unexpectedly.
After lunch there were more rapids, the most dramatic being RUCK-A-CHUCKY, a class VI. Yes, you read that right, class 6. We are not allowed to run that rapid, so much walk around. It is a rapid with a 35 foot drop. Unbelievable.
That night, we camped along the South Fork. Here is a view of the river from our campsite.
South Fork American River at twilight
After dinner, we had a slide show and then a great senior class talent show. It is amazing how talented these students are. We had singing and music. WOW. Afterwards, senior class president Nick Dantzker (my advisee!!) asked the students to recognize and thank people and classmates that they would never publically thank as a way to appreciate the class and to start of their senior year with a positive note. It was awesome, and there were tears. Some students said some pretty amazing things.
One thing that came out was the great bond that the lifers of the school have. These are the students who started way back in the fall of 1992 as kindergarteners. At that time, there were 36 and 25 are still classmates. Here's a picture of them.
Class of 2005 lifers
Congratulations to the lifers and all the class of 2005. Have a great senior year. It was a great fallout and do yourselves proud this year.
This year the seniors, as well as their fellow faculty rafters, boarded the buses at school at 6AM. By 10AM, we arrived at the put-in point on the Middle Fork of the American River. I must note that for the last 8 miles of the drive I got what I term "Chapmaned". Let me explain. Our Head of School is named Paul Chapman, and he is a great, if not one of the best heads in all of America. He has been at Head-Royce for 20 years. He, like me, is an adviser to seniors, and he drove up to the river in his own car, but rode the last 8 miles on the buses with the rest of us. Lucky for me, he rode those last miles next to me. Paul likes to chat with his faculty. He remembered that I was a Geology major and kept asking me questions about the topography we were driving past. I did my best to tell him what I knew, but my petrology was always weak and I could never tell him what kind of rock we were looking at. In addition, Paul told me that he had heard from various parties that this particular trip along the Middle Fork of the American River was perhaps TOO wild for our students, and he was therefore doing some personal fact-finding. Lucky for me, the drive ended before he could begin to ask me things about curriculum or other school issues.
The Head-Royce seniors and faculty were divided into thirteen rafts. The trip was a total of 18 miles. In the first five miles there were class III and IV rapids one right after the other. The most stunning of them all was one of the first, called Tunnel Chute. Here is a visual...
You get the idea that the day is full of great excitement. Along the way, there were opportunities to swim and enjoy the sun and river. I will say that before lunch, I dove into the water voluntarily once, was pushed in by one of my boatmates (still unknown who that was to me) and then when our boat was doing a cool trick, I fell in unexpectedly.
After lunch there were more rapids, the most dramatic being RUCK-A-CHUCKY, a class VI. Yes, you read that right, class 6. We are not allowed to run that rapid, so much walk around. It is a rapid with a 35 foot drop. Unbelievable.
That night, we camped along the South Fork. Here is a view of the river from our campsite.
After dinner, we had a slide show and then a great senior class talent show. It is amazing how talented these students are. We had singing and music. WOW. Afterwards, senior class president Nick Dantzker (my advisee!!) asked the students to recognize and thank people and classmates that they would never publically thank as a way to appreciate the class and to start of their senior year with a positive note. It was awesome, and there were tears. Some students said some pretty amazing things.
One thing that came out was the great bond that the lifers of the school have. These are the students who started way back in the fall of 1992 as kindergarteners. At that time, there were 36 and 25 are still classmates. Here's a picture of them.
Congratulations to the lifers and all the class of 2005. Have a great senior year. It was a great fallout and do yourselves proud this year.
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