A lively crew of 19 high school students and 4 college interns joined ARC for our November Retreat to the Mariposa Sequoia Grove this month. 11 students from Tahoe/Truckee, all of them new to ARC, headed down to the Central Valley on Friday, November 8 to meet another group from Dos Palos High School. After a tour of California’s newest university, UC Merced, we headed over to In and Out Burger for some much-needed refreshment, then up to Yosemite.
We settled into our Wawona cabins for the night and woke up the next morning ready to explore the Mariposa Sequoia Grove. Two students from UC Merced’s Yosemite Leadership Program (YLP) led an interpretive tour to the Upper Grove. We had some lunch under the towering hardwoods that surround Galen Clark’s cabin. From this vantage point it wasn’t hard to see why this early American explorer decided to leave society and spend the rest of his days in the seclusion of this primeval forest.
From there, we continued up to Wawona Point and marveled at the spectacular views of the South Fork of the Merced River Valley. With the aid of binoculars, we could spot the rooftop of our cabin nearly 3000′ below.
Later that evening, after a delicious Italian meal, two more YLP students led a discussion of college hopes and fears. Our students enjoyed a hilarious game of I-Pod Shuffle before heading off to bed.
On Sunday morning, Michael Dominguez, resident poet of Fresno and founder of OutWords, led our students in a personal poetry writing workshop. We circled up for our classic Cinnamon Roll Hug and parted ways with the Central Valley crew.
The Tahoe students enjoyed a tour of Yosemite National Park on our way home, stopping at Tunnel View and El Capitan Meadow to marvel in the splendor of this magical place.
It was a fantastic weekend full of exploration, laughter, new friends and personal reflection. Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make this happen!