Last Friday, the School’s Outdoor Ed program held its most recent trip hiking Mount Pierce.

Students climbed onto the “mellow bus,” as they have affectionately named it, and started the 2-and-a-half-hour drive to Conway, New Hampshire, to hike Mount Pierce.

Pierce is a 4000-foot mountain in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. To ascend the mountain, hikers need to take the Crawford Path, the oldest continuously hiked trail in America. The 6.4-mile hike included a stop at the Mizpah Springs Hut and a site where gray jays ate food out of hikers’ hands.

The Outdoor Ed program has been operating for 25 years, according to trip leader Ted Barker-Hook.

“The purpose of Outdoor Ed, to me, is first and foremost to encourage students to get outdoors [and] experience the natural beauty of New England,” Barker-Hook said. “While doing that, I hope to give students the confidence and skills needed to do more hiking, camping, canoeing, et cetera, on their own and in a way that protects the environment while keeping them safe.”