SOARing in Texas with Chris Kiefer

Introduction

My name is Chris Kiefer. I am 14 years of age, and I am from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My immediate family consists of my mom, Anna Kiefer, my Grandfathers, Joe Traigle and Carey Long, and Katie Pryor, who is not related to me, but she is a very close friend of mine and the rest of family, and she is very important to us. I also have two cats, Casey, Kasey, or KC (depends on the day) and Sam. I love to play and talk about Video Games, especially RPG and ones with a good story. I love to read, especially dark fiction, such as works by H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. I also like to write stories, mainly Science Fiction, such as the Travelers Tales series I am writing, and occasional stories more like Lovecraft. I also like to casually bike in the area near my house. I enjoy talking to my friends Grace Bryant, Jeremy, James, and Josh LaCaze. One of my favorite relaxation time things to do is watch TV, like all the CSIs, Storage Wars, Glee, Tosh.0, The Soup, and other crime and/or comedies. I want to become a much healthier individual, with better organization habits. SOAR helps pushing me to be healthy while I am here, and also how to keep the healthy habits. They also teach me how to be organized and keep up with my work and personal items.

SOARing in Texas

The Texas expedition was my first expedition with SOAR, and on the all-and-all, it went really well. After we arrived in Texas, we met up with Wes, the third addition to the field staff, and headed out to Franklin National Park, where I had my first taste of Bivying. The next day I had my first food buy, then after labeling our food and sitting down to eat, the staff told us that there was a storm coming in and that we had a change of plans. We would be flipping our schedule around and be doing our 3 day expedition first. We then drove 5 or so hours do Big Bend Nation Park, where we stayed for the night. The next day we pack up our X-Packs and headed out on the 4 mile hike to our first site. The next morning we awoke to frost and frozen water bottles. We then hiked 3 miles to our next site. The next morning we awoke to light snow fall. We then began the 6 mile hike back to the bottom. The closer we got to the bottom the thicker the snow got and the heavier the snow fell.

Once we arrived at the bottom we were told by rangers that the roads had been closed due to icy roads. We had to stay at Big Bend National Park for the night, but we were told by one of the park staff that we could sleep in the bathrooms. This sounded like a wonderful idea due to the fact that the park would reach record lows that night. We set up in the bathrooms, which were warm and in very good condition, for the night. The next day we left the park and headed to a site at Rio Grande Village. We stayed there for two days, and one evening we went to a hot springs on the Rio Grande. The next exciting trip was to McDonald Observatory where we got to look at planets and star clusters. We then got a constellation tour.

Our next site was at Balmhrea, where we got to swim in the acre size pool. After a couple of days there we went to Guadalupe Nation Park. We stayed there for 3 days, one day we went to Carlsbad Caverns, which was my favorite part of the trip. The Caverns were beautiful beyond any description and could not be captured by photography. We also climbed to the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak. After we left Guadalupe we went back to Franklin Nation Park. The next day we flew back to Atlanta, then drove back to base. Altogether it was a great first expedition. I became much closer to all of my team mates, especially Kyle, who helped me get through the tough hikes by chatting with me. This trip definitely made me look forward to the next expeditions.