Outdoor Highlights – Disappointment Peak

It wouldn’t be summer without a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks. It also wouldn’t be EDTS without our guest speaker and friend, Matt Hulst. Departing at the early hours of dawn and driving through a wild land fire north of Missoula, we made our way to Grant Village in YNP for 4 days and then headed towards Jackson for 2 nights at Colter Bay in GTNP.

Over the past three summers we’ve happened upon quite a few traditions for our annual Yellowstone trip. These include stopping for gas station cappuccinos/McDonald’s at the truck stop on HWY 93 and I-90, hitting up the Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance to the park, swimming in the boiling river, reading the park incident report and praying that we don’t get ourselves into an sticky situations with the wilderness, reading stories from the book, “Deaths in Yellowstone” and praying that we don’t get ourselves into any of those situations, dodging lightning and taking cover at the general store, cooking and eating camp food like we’re gourmet chefs (we eat like kings and queens on this trip!), frequenting Old Faithful, heading to the Tetons, stopping at Pizza Hut in Butte, MT within a few days of the “Evil Kinievil Festival” and hearing horror stories from the Pizza Hut employees and, finally, debating if we have enough time for a quick stop at REI in Missoula before heading back to Lakeside.

A huge highlight of the week was our camp sites. After baking in the scorching summer sun, totally exposed, in St. Mary’s back in week 4, we actually had to put on our down jackets each morning as we crawled out of our sleeping bags into the surrounding pine tree forest which made up our site.

Both campgrounds provided that wonderful outdoor classroom which facilitated a week full of impact. Matt Hulst joined us last summer at Rick Huffman’s and he once again taught on the tangible kingdom and story of God this year. A big thank you congratulations to Matt and his new wife!

While in the Tetons, the staff had some time to reflect on the first half of lecture and look towards both the second half as well as 2014. We were amazed at the accessibility of hikes and climbs and we spent one afternoon attempting to summit Disappointment Peak. It lived up to its name and we did not make it to the top this year. We’re hoping to be back in 2014!

Entering last week’s  EDTS everyone was excited to head out into the wild again for another trip. Our guest speakers, Tee and Kathryn Gatewood from Arbor Dale Presbyterian Church in Banner Elk, North Carolina, joined us for our week and taught on grace and holiness.

The team has really started to come together as a community as evidenced in our times of prayer & worship, work duties/meal prep, outdoor skill sets and learning/lecture processing times. It is great to see each member of the team (staff and students alike) bring their gifts to the group and bless each other with the blessings that God has given them.

Outdoor highlights of this last week include our mountaineering session where we practiced self-arrest on the snow fields and various hikes in the Many Glacier area, including a trek to Iceberg Lake (which was still full of icebergs!).

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edts

Ready to make the jump.

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This Isn’t Just For You

In our first week of SBS, one of our teachers had us write down why we came. I wrote this in my notebook, “I came