Outdoor Ed Hikes 4,000 Foot Peak

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.