1st day of Tracking Intensive

​We met at Mahalo Saturday morning for Introductions.
Facilitator: Mark and Markus - TA: Adam, Kevin + Sarah - Elder: Jen
18 participants, a little more than half are women.
Some Anake, some past TI, some others, some new, some East Coast, some Texas

General orientation, what we will learn, where we will go, then sit spot

For lunch break I set up my tent, which took forever. Not sure if ties will work, but I want to test my gear and get comfortable getting uncomfortable – so I can enjoy backpacking. Want to do at least 2 nights next time. I hope I won’t be as miserable as last time trying to sleep in the car. I don’t know what else to do then to get to my goal then.

I quickly ate some crackers with tuna for lunch – missed out on conversations over lunch which seemed fine. My FOMO was handled well. I always seem to underestimate how much time stuff takes.

After lunch we met to talk about our learning goals in a smaller group with our assigned TAs. I'm with Kevin. We shared which path we most likely will take. I was happy I had some chance to listen in on the first couple of people as I felt I’m completely missing out on lingo. I can't even tell what I don't know and what I am interested in, because everything is new.

I shared that I want to do this to improve my Naturalist skills. I want to be able to tell good stories about wildlife and inspire more people to go and play outside. I also want to build my confidence and find valuable connections.

Then we had a lesson on different categories of landscape in the PNW and what groups of animals we might encounter. We also went through some categories and signs of footprint morphology.

After that we went down to the Pond of the Otter with Mark and Jen. There were many many tracks of humans, but hard to find any from animals. We found a dead bullfrog, one feather, 2 more dead bullfrogs, then duck tracks, different sizes, all waddling around. Then a track that looked a bit like deer but it wasn’t. We found a better one very distinct with lots of details. Beaver and a beaver slide. Also a big cat like print from something like a bobcat.

For dinner I went to town for Thai with Ellen, Amber, Justin, Margret – Jen joined us later and 2 other WAS Elders not part of TI. Conversations over UU, Elder events,…

After dinner break we had a session about our expectations regarding track journaling and Markus showed us some more tracks on slides.

Great first day with a great group of people!