Jennifer Vidal, the new Adventure Education teacher, is hosting a three day ice climbing trip that will take place sometime in January in Ouray, Colorado. Vidal plans to take juniors and seniors currently taking her class as well as those who took the class last year. Eaglecrest will merge, as they often do for these types of trips, with the Cherry Creek High School’s COLT (Creek Outdoor Leadership Training) club. Currently, the amount of students and teachers attending is unknown.

     “The best place in the state to climb ice is in Ouray,” Vidal said. ”It’s a little mountain town and they have an ice park there which is basically a canyon and they pump water up to the top of the canyon and sprinkle it down [to] make man made waterfalls and in the winter it turns to ice.”

     Before the trip takes place, there will be three meetings where the itinerary is gone over, gear is checked out, and a checklist is gone over verifying the students have the necessary belongings with them as well as the menu is made.

     On the first day, the sponsors will go over the safety aspects as well as how to climb. During the second and third day, students will get to apply their knowledge to the ice.

     This trip will be continuing the tradition created by the Outdoor Education Program in the 80s. This tradition of taking students on trips was started by former Adventure Ed teacher Lynn Evenson and the Adventure Ed teacher from Cherry Creek High School (both now retired).

     “They built all the curriculum we use today and they started taking kids on backpacking trips and camping trips and canoe trips. It really started getting popular in the 90s,” Vidal said.

     This will add to the many trips Vidal takes every year. This is Vidal’s third year of going on the ice climbing trip with Cherry Creek Schools. Before that, Vidal took kids in Douglas County  to Ouray every year. She also takes two personal ice climbing trips a year. Vidal is currently looking forward to the trip and new experiences that it offers.

     “I love taking kids on trips like that especially when it’s something they’ve never done before,” Vidal said. “When you get done with the trip, there’s just this special bond you have because of something neat that you did in the outdoors.”