Boys Explorers Club - 2016 Snow Cave Building at Mount Baker

Lose Your Mind and Come to Your Senses  The busy mind numbs the senses.  On the other hand, the senses calm the busy mind.

In Explorers Club, we play games, we work on service to the community, we explore Whatcom County’s many natural gems, and through it all the mentors work of modeling and developing traits of honorable men is guided by several mottoes that speak to the essence of what we’re about. Lose your mind and come to your senses is a motto that was apropos to our recent winter outing. If you have a minute and are curious, scan through the rest of the mottoes here. 

Where do you turn to when you realize your mind is so busy it has numbed your senses? At Explorers Club, we just step outside! Or, in Saturday’s case, board “Moose”, our trusty “chool” bus (we covered the S) for the short ride up WA 542 to the Mount Baker ski area in search of some good ol’ snow cave building snow. Friday saw 80 mph winds at Baker and early this week was forecast to be quite warm; Saturday found a sweet spot with cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 30’s…ideal, actually. We must be living right!

After a review of snow play safety focused on Snow Immersion Suffocation (SIS) and avoiding avalanche danger, we high-stepped our way through the 12’ snow pack to a hill that had a safe slope and was out of the way of the skiers and boarders. Time to marinate ourselves in the cold 9” of powder from Thursday/Friday’s fall. 

Ignoring the provided guides on proper snow cave construction, several explorers proceeded to connect with our splendid natural setting by jumping and rolling in pure mind-calming mayhem! And while the five dads and two mentors didn’t join in physically, I’m sure I detected some vicarious play in their smiling faces.

Then down to the task at hand. A well constructed snow cave has several key design elements with a principle one being an entrance that is lower than the sleeping surface to trap warmer air in the upper chamber. Other considerations: vent holes in the roof, block walls lining the entrance path to cut down on the wind and candle niches in the wall. Click here for some guidelines. 

All of that was a little more than we planned on, given that we weren’t to sleep in our caves. Fun was our objective; there was more than enough of that to go around. As was to be expected, some projects saw more progress than others. One explorer could be seen sitting in a small depression in the snow enjoying a snack; a check on a few of the caves in progress found not a single explorer - just dads crawling in and shoveling snow out; a few were large enough to hold several boys and their gear while also exhibiting characteristics of a usable safe haven. This video illustrates the former - 

13 explorers, 5 dads and 2 mentors on the side of a hill covered with 12 feet of snow…when you look at it that way, it’s surprising anything got done. The distractions are real and constant, but bursts of focus and energy translated into good work. Time for more fun? The boys were eager for a snowball fight; the mentors were eager for more work on the caves so we talked it through and decided to work for 10 more minutes and then fling balls of snow at each other. 

Apparently, we should’ve taken more time to work out the details because a few minutes into the battle a disagreement arose concerning the minimum number of feet the thrower needed to observe. It was time to invoke another time-honored Explorers Club motto - 

Collaborate and Compromise We practice participatory decision-making, with all voices heard. Decisions come through learning how to collaborate (work together) and compromise (giving up a bit of what you want so others can get their needs met too). We think about "We, not just Me". “One arrow is easily broken, but not twelve in a bundle.” – Japanese proverb

This is real work for boys this age. Kids ages 7 - 11 begin to problem solve using reason rather than intuition. Truth and honor are evolving concepts in their maturing psyches. Their sense of offense can be very strong. You might have heard, “That’s not fair!” exclaimed a few times. After a few minutes of pointed questions and conversational facilitation from Steve, the issue was resolved and the snowball fight resumed. 

Before long, the conflict was forgotten and a new focus of the play emerged from a neighboring hill covered with pure, undisturbed snow that was crying out to be slid down, rolled across and jumped in. This is what it looks like when a boy connects with his natural surroundings. 

Unfortunately, at this point, the progress of the clock intruded on the fun. A thousand thanks for sharing your boys with us. We are privileged and grateful to get to know and share experiences with them. Click for more photos and videos from our outing.