BACKPACKING BUILDING BLOCKS (B3) COURSE: Practice "Camp" - Magnuson Park

Each 2020 B3 mentor group will be given a time slot where half of the group (no more than 5 people plus the mentor) will meet at the front of the Mountaineerrs building at Magnuson Park and the other half will meet at the back of the buiding at a scheduled time to review the plan for the day, distribute maps and pack your backpacks with your mentor group, discussing strategies for how to load your gear and gear choices that impact pack weight the most.  Then you'll walk with your small group a couple of miles out into Magnuson Park, collect and treat some water, set up a camp, prepare a meal and discuss camp hygiene and Leave No Trace considerations.  Finally you'll repack and walk back to the Program Center for a debrief.  The entire exercise will take approximately 4 hours.

Final start and end times will vary by group so watch the listing and your email for reminders!

As the culmination of the series of informational and hands on sessions that have come before, in the required "Practice Camp" field trip students will have the opportunity to try out the key skills and approaches with their own gear see the gear of others in their mentor group in an actual hike that will end with setting up camp, treating water, preparing a backpack meal and then packing up and walking back.  The practice day will be with your small mentor group for the entire day, and the activity will be set up with staggered start times so that you will interact in person with only your mentor and 4 other students from your mentor group, and masks and physical distancing will be built in to keep everyone safe..   If you don't have your own gear yet or are still missing a few key pieces, that's perfectly OK - we'll focus on giving you a look at a range of different gear contributed by our mentors, helpers and fellow students.

A virtual debrief session will be scheduled after the practice camp as a chance to ask questions and share learnings from the entire course to date.  This session has been called by many past students the most valuable part of the entire B3 course other than the trips themselves!