White team, Blue team, Yellow team
White team, Blue team, Yellow team
September 16, 2007
After a few hours of morning rain on previous day, we got back a very sunny and perfect hiking day on 9/16. I got a team of 61 signed up for this first New Jersey activity for Nature-You. I led hiking here 2 times years ago. To play safe, I went Yahoo Map help that supposed to get an updated driving direction. But, the problem was on road sign this time. It took Jessica 30 extra minutes to lead the group to the parking lot. All cars except Dr. Hsu’s had problem to see the small turning sign at the corner street. I thought I urgently needed to have a high tech. GPS now.
We started the trip at 10:30 after a short briefing at the parking lot of Pyramid Mountain. Since we could get free map from the Park, more people interested on knowing what would be my plan. I led the group hiked on blue trail to climb the 934 feet peak which might have exhausted some new hikers. The visit to Lucy’s Overlook was nothing because there was not even enough standing space for 60 people. I served Jessica’s homemade brownie at that spot to slow down the team.
We reached today’s highlight, Tripod Rock before 12 noon. It was the only place in this trip that could accommodate 60 people to have rock to sit, I decided to take early lunch here. I served Jessica’s homemade tea leaves egg which was well welcome again by most people. It turned out, my hands smelled tea eggs whole day before I could wash my hands at home.
The trip continued smoothly by visiting Whale Head Rock and Bear Rock. The steep slope at Red trail defeated some first time hikers so the team was segmented. I knew it was undesirable either to slow down the fast team or push the beginners team. At the Bear Rock, I decided to assign Moon to lead the fast group to take a more challenging section and Jessica to lead the beginners group on the easy White trail to go back. We further broke down the fast group into Yellow team and Blue team because some teammates could not catch up the front. I led the Blue team while Moon kept leading the Yellow team. We were home safe and likely everyone got what they wanted. The fast hikers could climb one more steep slope and enjoyed the fast pace while the beginners could spend more time on photo taking and relax walking.
With the assistance of reliable leaders and walki talkis, it was a good trial today of team splitting according to different level of participants. If I could be sure about where were other teammates whom were led by experienced and capable leaders, I thought it would be more practical in future of Nature-You’s trip. This way of handling trips would include more friends they liked to join my trips while I could not schedule two different trips on every weekend.
