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My Rambling Inquiry

Byramblingteacher

A walk in nature walks the soul back home.

Mary Davis

Well, we lucked out and got spots on the West Coast Trail for my limited window this summer. I am pumped! We did it for the first time last year with our 11-year-old son. I loved it so much, I’d have turned around at the end and walked straight back to the start. My husband did not feel the same way. At all. So I did not expect to be booking it again with him so soon. But when your 15-year-old daughter announces out of the blue that she’d like to hike it with you, after a hard no the previous year, what can you do? We barely get 10 mins of her company at dinner these days, so a week on the trail with her, well, too good a chance to miss!

Linking my free inquiry project to my next West Coast Trail adventure is an obvious choice. It’s all I’m thinking about right now anyway. So backtracking to last week’s free inquiry task, I will use this post to develop my inquiry, following the 5 steps outlined in the Inquiry Toolkit from the Pacific School for Innovation and Inquiry.

Step 1: Starting

Some initial questions I can think of around the West Coast Trail are:

  • How can I best prepare for the West Coast Trail this time round, especially given the constraints on my time between now and then?
  • What are some ways to up our backpacking game and enhance our experience of the trail?

Step 2: Deepening

This stage involves researching and reflecting on my initial questions as a means of scaffolding to a deeper set of questions:

  • Revisit Blisters and Bliss, aka the WCT bible.
  • Research hacks and tips, particularly around ultralight backpacking.
  • Chat about last year’s hike with husband and son.
  • Consider existing camping equipment.
  • Think through my schedule over the next few months.

Step 3: Refining

Following the above exercise, my questions have become more specific:

  • What is the history of the West Coast Trail?
  • What are the flora and fauna of the West Coast Trail?
  • What can I learn about the Indigenous Peoples, whose land the West Coast Trail runs through, and who now act as trail guardians?
  • How best to train for the West Coast Trail?
  • What is the best itinerary for our group from South to North (the opposite direction from our last trip)?
  • How can we shed weight from our backpacks (something I am endlessly obsessive about)?
  • How can we best survive multiple days of rain (we found 48 hrs was our limit last time – the Crab Shack showed up just in time!)?
  • What hiking can I do in and around Stockholm during my Practicum there in the Spring?
  • What will our meal plan be (we need to accommodate a vegetarian this time round)?
  • What are some constellations I can learn to identify, beyond the few I know?

Step 4: Planning

For this project, learning activities will be based around researching a selection of the above topics, and then using blog posts to record what I learn. I’ll aim to learn new WordPress skills with each new post too!

Step 5: Learning

The blog posts will outline my learning!

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