A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
For me, that one step started on February 14th, 2009 at 5 o’clock in the morning.
One would think that combining students from rival schools Seaholm and Groves on a weeklong trip would be unexpected but it ended up being one of the most enjoyable trips for everyone involved.
“[It was] one of the best things I’ve ever done,” said Karen Otzen.
Though the trip didn’t actually start until February 14th, the participating students prepared by climbing over 23 floors with a 30-pound backpack at the Southfield Towers.
Teacher Paul Van Ermen, who works in the Experiential Learning Center at Groves High School, has offered the Grand Canyon trip for the past few years but due to a lack of interest they haven’t been able to go.
This year, however, there was a high interest from both Seaholm and Groves and everyone able go.
Groves student Mariah Van Ermen was able to find out about this trip through her dad and his department.
“It sounded phenomenal,” said Van Ermen.
I am extremely grateful I went. This trip was challenging, life changing, extremely fun and all the participants were happy to not only bond with students from Seaholm, but with Groves students as well. We created friendships that will last a lifetime.
“I’m so glad I got to meet new people from Groves,” said junior Dara Holliday. “We knew nothing about them so it was refreshing to just become friends with them without the reputation drama”
Van Ermen faced similar challenges.
“I conquered a couple fears and did a lot more than I thought I would ever be physically capable of and learned some important things about myself in the process,” said Van Ermen
The participating students met at Detroit Metro Airport to fly to Phoenix, Arizona, which takes approximately 5 hours, but due to the plane having to get de-iced, it took another hour and a half until the participants were able to leave, and then take about an hour-long connect flight to the Flagstaff Airport.
From there, we drove the hour and a half drive to the Grand Canyon. The weather at the top of the Canyon was frigid.
When the participants got to the Grand Canyon they were able to run over to the tourist ledge and look out over the Grand Canyon.
When Holliday first saw the canyon, she didn’t know what to think.
“It was pretty much silence, you just had to try and take it all in,” said Holliday.
At dinner, we met the guide Wendy Johnston, who has both lived and raised her son in the Canyon but has also experienced the Grand Canyon, trails herself.
Johnston was a huge help throughout the entire trip with her expertise about the Grand Canyon and gave everyone a ton of support.
We spent the night of the 14th at the lodge, and in the morning we headed off to establish base camp which took us around 6 hours.
On the hike down, the participants hiked in a mild temperature, with snow, ice, mud, puddles, and sometimes were two feet from the ledge.
Each student had around a 40-50 pound pack, including a sleeping bag, a ridge rest, clothes, and community food.
The base camp was where we slept and ate each day and in the morning we left on day hikes during the day.
On our first day hike we hiked down to Burrow Springs, which was a stream where we were able to pump and filter our own water and also eat lunch.
After we hiked back up and ate dinner, we went to sleep underneath rock ledges where the temperature dropped to below 30 degrees, but we were well prepared with our 0 degree sleeping bags.
The next day we hiked down to the Colorado River where we ate lunch at Phantom Ranch and then hiked back up “Old Miner’s Trail” which only 11 people a year hike up. It was an experience for everyone. It was mostly rock and didn’t even look like a trail, but everyone made it up without a ton of effort.
That night everyone was tired and was thankful that the next day we were going on our solos.
Sometimes we went to Solos, where Leeandrea Boyer—also a teacher at Groves High School, Johnston, and Van Ermen took us to separate spots where no other student could see each other and we were to do whatever we liked within the boundaries that our guides gave.
Everyone enjoyed having a day to themselves where they were able to read, eat, think, and just take in one of the natural wonders of the world.
After five or six hours, our guides came and picked us up and leaded us to Johnston who showed us 800-year-old petroglyphs that were still visible.
Our solo day was our last full day in the canyon. That night we had one of our nightly group get together where we met up, lit our candles, and everyone shared a high point of their day.
In the morning we had a cold breakfast, repacked our packs, and hiked back up to the top in five and a half hours.
When we got back to the lodge we were able to take showers and eat real food—instead of dehydrated food. Before everyone went to bed, we all met up together in Van Ermen’s room where we wrote down the places, things, and things that we felt we accomplished and then shared within the group a few of each thing.
After we were done, we were asked to pass our sheet of paper to someone next to us and everyone shared something that they saw we accomplished or a personality trait that they liked within us.
In the morning, we woke up, finished packing, grabbed breakfast, and drove back to the Flagstaff airport.
We flew back to Phoenix where we had to hurry and catch the flight back to Detroit.
When we arrived in Detroit it was bittersweet because everyone was sad that our trip was over.
Everyone said their goodbyes but we all knew that we are still going to stay in touch. Van Ermen is so grateful to “be able to look back after a couple hours of climbing Old Miner’s Trail or walking up South Kaibab Trail and being able to say ‘I just did that’ is the best feeling I could possibly imagine.”
“I’m glad everyone came. It wouldn’t have been as great if one of the people didn’t come,” said Scott Meldrum.
