Point Reyes Newsletter – 2011

2011 Rm. 22

Crossing the Swamp

By James Bedichek

Crossing the Swamp is a game of teamwork. The class works together to pass wooden planks from person to person to step onto to get to the other side of the “swamp.” If we run out of time, we don’t get dinner. Also, if we step into the swamp, then everybody including the people who already crossed the swamp goes back to the beginning. The first group of people failed because someone stepped into the swamp, but the second time we succeeded.

The Night Hike

By Graham Delman

The Coyote call was sounded; Otak announced that the night hike was about to begin. As everyone lined up, the line began to move.  Otak asked everyone to sit/squat. Then he told a story about a Native American boy named Tecumsa. His grandmother explained to Tecumsa that his grandfather was delirious. So Tecumsa set out with a deerskin pouch to get some water. Many things scared him along the way, but Tecumsa kept on walking to the stream. Finally, Tecumsa ran back because he saw a giant white eye staring at him in the river. His grandmother calmed Tecumsa down, and when Tecumsa got to the river, he saw that the giant eye was the reflection of the moon. He got the water, gave it to his grandmother, and fortunately to say, Tecumsa’s grandfather lived. 

Then, there was the solo sit. Otak organized an orderly fashioned line. Otak had us sit 20-25 ft. apart along a trail for about 5 minutes. Sadly, there was a lot of shouting, and a tad of swearing. Otherwise, it was a fun experience. The campfire was fun too. As we sat around the campfire, everybody shared their experience at the solo sit. After that, we all roasted marshmallows. 

The Wonders of the Telescopes

By Byron Phelps

This year, my father brought his 2 telescopes and one pair of binoculars to Point Reyes. They are the following: his planetary telescope, his solar telescope, and his large 20 x 80 binoculars with its award-winning mount, made by my dad.

The planetary telescope is an unusual instrument because it’s a refractor that has a lens, and most telescopes use mirrors. Using the planetary telescope, we looked at the moon, Uranus, Jupiter, and Jupiter’s 4 brightest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, which are known as the Galilean moons, because Galileo first saw them in a telescope.

Using the solar telescope and the binoculars we looked at the sun. The binoculars had special aluminum (The aluminum is so thin that you can see through it. The filters allow approximately 5% of the light through) that allowed us to look at the sun without hurting our eyes. Warning- Do Not Try This at Home.

The binocular mount that we used to hold up the big binoculars won an award at the Riverside Telescope Makers conference. The reason it won an award is because it can raise and lower to suit different people’s heights while remaining trained on the same object.

I’m glad that the class liked the telescopes, and I’m sure my dad will be happy to bring them again.

Food

By Aaron Zucker

The food at Point Reyes was very good.  The first night we had pizza and Katie’s potato soup, but there was also salad and garlic bread. On the second night we had tacos, burritos, salad and, of course, Katie’s soup.  

For breakfast we had Apple Jacks and three other types of cereal for breakfast.  There were also bagels and some of the best pancakes made by Byron’s dad.  

We packed lunches both days: a sandwich, bag of chips and bag of cookies.  there was also fruit.  

The Morning Hike

By Devony Hof

Our class woke up bright and early the first morning at Point Reyes.  We all went down to the Lodge to grab a cup of hot chocolate when Otak announced the Morning Hike. We started down the same trail we used for the night hike. Soon we came to a beautiful riparian forest with Spanish moss hanging down from trees, a combination of algae and fungi. 

Speaking of fungi, we saw a lot of mushrooms. First we saw silvery-white, then muddy brown, then a cool one with little indents all over it. But by far the coolest one was the amanita muscaria, a toxic red mushroom with cottage cheese-like dots that gives you hallucinations. 

We continued on and went quite far, farther than any group that had come before us! Then we arrived at a lovely view and went on a little farther. After that we turned back. We saw some things on the way. A shelf fungus, trees burned in a big fire and a tunnel of trees. 

Then we arrived back at the corner where the hike started and got excused for breakfast. 

The Muddy Hollow Trail 

By Ishan Balakrishnan  

The Muddy Hollow Trail has been closed for 10 years. So, we were thrilled to find out that we were going to hike it. First we hiked down a path that led to the Muddy Hollow. The trail was quite muddy.  Along the sides there were various different plants like sticky monkey flower, Cow Parsnip and others. We saw mushrooms of various sizes. We also came across a fuzzy black caterpillar, many banana slugs, and a rat’s nest. We saw many Turkey Vultures, some Hawks and a dead bird. Most of it was a great sight. In many places the trail’s direction had been changed because it was so muddy! Finally, the trail led to the saltwater marshes, we arrived at the Limantour spit. It was quite an adventure hiking the Muddy Hollow trail. 

Beach Clean-Up 

By Katherine Chancellor 

At Point Reyes we went to a beach called Limantour to clean it up. Some of the opinions on the beach were, “Boring. I had to do all the work with no help from my partner,”-Momo. “Fun. The adults found trash, Maya dove on it while I picked up the trash she had dropped,”-Isabella. “Sucky. I didn’t do anything throughout the whole thing,”-Selena. “Fun. I liked walking around and looking at mutated dead birds and crab parts,”-Aaron. “Excellent. Good activity for the kids,”-Otak. “I thought it was fun,”-Sarah. While we were collecting trash, we hiked down to Limantour. Some articles of trash we found are socks, pants, plastic straw wrappers and cigars. We found loads of trash on this trip. I wish people would stop littering and make this a cleaner Earth, but if they do, next year we wouldn’t be able to clean it up again. 

Limantour Spit

By Isabella Phillips

After we finished hiking Muddy Hollow trail and eating lunch, we were full of energy to hike down Limantour Spit.  We hiked though grass almost as tall as our waists on either side.    I was at the back of the pack and when I started walking over the dunes I heard a “whoopee” from the head of the pack.  There was the ocean.  Some people were thinking “finally” when they saw the ocean, others were thinking “yay!”, the rest were not thinking anything because they were so excited to jump into the waves and get their feet wet.  But first we had the beach clean-up.

Otak gave instructions, plastic bags and gloves, and we went off in pairs.  While we walked we saw many animals: seals, sandpipers, the endangered snowy plover, sea gulls, turkey vultures, and even a killdeer.  

When we finished picking up trash everybody played in the waves and built sand castles.  Some got soaked, even though we were not supposed to go deeper than our ankles.  Some girls made a huge sand jail that was really cool.  After the long day we were ready to go back to our cabins.

Sunset Hike 

By Madeline Lurie 

It was the second day of Point Reyes and the Sunset hike was about to begin. The students who had not gone on the Sunset Hike last year were excited to experience it for the first time. The students who had gone on this amazing hike last year were just as excited because the Sunset Hike is a big part of the Point Reyes experience. But some students, not heeding the warning words coming from the unlucky fifth graders who had not gone on the hike last year, decided to abandon the hike. “The sunset hike is leaving!” Otak said, and so the Sunset Hike began. The hike was on a trail to a destination and back. 

Part 1: The way there seemed long. Mostly people just chatted or focused on avoiding the numerous poison oak plants. The trail was fairly wide, but since the poison oak stuck out a bit, only 2 people walked in a row. After a little while, we reached our destination, the Sunset Trail viewing point, an area with a breathtaking view of the sunset.

Part 2: The sunset was so spectacular. I think I will remember it for my whole life because it was very majestic and colorful.  Some of my classmates were being a bit silly at one point (making crazy videos) and generally being entertaining.  I took an extremely nice photo of the sunset, and before I knew it, we were hiking back to the Ed Center. 

Part 3: On the way back it was a little darker than before. At one point, we thought we were lost, but on adult said we were on the right trail. Also, some students were singing “Paw Paw Patch,” an extremely annoying song. It is especially annoying if the singer of the song puts your name in the song. 

Cabin Wars

By Joey Best and Jenny Avila-Zavala

Joey- It started when the boys opened the girl’s cabin windows and threw rocks at the screen. It was so annoying that the girls went outside of their cabin. When they did, it got physical. The girls pushed them, teased them and slapped them. The boys who didn’t want to fight either stayed in their cabin or went to the Ed. Center. Later when the boys were throwing rocks at the girls’ window, teasing and singing a song called “Banana phone”, the girls opened OUR window and were throwing rocks. I’m not sure, but if I had to rate who won, I would say the girls did.

Well, someone has gone and did it. After some students, including me, finished an optional hike, the Sunset Hike, two students were at the bridge saying, ”Hello Suspects” when the hikers were crossing the bridge. I didn’t know why at first, but some girls told me that their cabin was trashed. For example, some girl’s stuff was across the room. Later our teacher called us in the library to ask us what happened and what we said. I said I think I saw either a boy a girl, coming in with a cabin lantern, and I saw a pillow hit the window, I thought, “it probably some pillow fight that the girls are having”, but I was wrong.

Some kids freaked out about the cabin incident.  And they thought they saw a teenager running with a gun. Our teacher and another adult searched the cabins for an intruder, but there was no one there.  The new rule was that whoever needed to use the bathroom, had to go with a buddy. On Thursday night, the boys and the girls apologized about the “war” we had. Then on Friday we packed up and left. If the one-who-must-not-be-named is a 4^th grader, PLEASE DO NOT TRASH ANYONE’S CABIN!!!

Jenny- BANG, BANG, BANG went the windows of the girls cabin. This is the start of the War. The girls who were in the cabin went outside screaming in the boy’s faces. The girl’s then had a meeting, which was called the Plan. The plan was to start singing ‘California Girls’ at the top of our lungs and throwing rocks at the boy’s cabin. When the boy’s saw us, they started singing ‘Banana Phone’ which is the most annoying song in the world. Then, they started walking into the girl’s cabin. The girls inside the cabin whacked the boys with their hairbrushes when the boys broke into the girl’s cabin. Then, things got crazy. The boy’s in the girl’s cabin and the girls in the boy’s cabin. It was funny at first, but then it got annoying. 

The next day, Thursday, something strange happened. The sunset hike was optional, so some people stayed back. The girls went to the Lodge to play games in the Library. On the way there, Katherine popped her knee. Then, another girl came in and said the girl’s cabin was trashed. We ran to the cabin and saw all the sleeping bags on the floor and belongings scattered everywhere. We saw that two boys were outside. We asked them if they had done it. They sweared on their life that they had not. We went back inside because one of the girls needed to find her flashlight. 

When Otak came back from the sunset hike, we told him what happened. Otak went inside the girl’s cabin to take a look. When he came outside, he said all the students should go to the library. He held a class meeting. There were many different things that people said. Some adjectives were, ‘trashed’, ‘messed up’, ‘total disaster’, and ‘complete chaos.’ 

At dinner, the mystery escalated to the point of a ‘teenager running around with a gun.’ I didn’t believe this because the Ed Center is private property, and Otak did a complete search of the area. Also, if a teenager was there, he would have scared all the deer away. After dinner, Otak said he wanted to have a meeting with the girls. He said that could easily have been one of us, or we didn’t realize how messy our cabin was. Otak told us to apologize to the boys. Apparently, Otak also told the boys to apologize to us. They gave a little speech about how sorry they were, and then we went. We learned that two groups can work together without a ‘War.’

Note from the Editor- For all you worrying parents, this ‘War’ ended PEACEFULLY.

Birds

By Ayush Gupta

Point Reyes is a premier world class bird watching site, with a vast array of species, as Otak told us.  Luckily for us, we got to see many of these wonderful birds.  

On the first day, we saw a great blue heron that was not particularly shy.  We closely followed it along the path until it flew away.  This was the introduction to all the surprises we would see at Point Reyes.

The second day was birds galore.  During the morning hike, we saw a fascinating bird.  Perched upon a charred tree was the largest hawk many of the kids had ever seen.  We saw many more birds on the like to Limantour Beach.  When we were walking from the Ed Center to the Muddy Hollow trail, we saw multiple turkey vultures, identified by the ‘v’ shaped wings.  Near the youth hostel, we saw a black phoebe and a robin and several sparrows.  

On the Muddy Hollow trail we saw a great egret, a great blue heron, several coots and a group of ducks.  On Limantour Spit it seemed like the turkey vultures were putting on a show for us.  They swooped within a 15-foot range of us.  Under the shade of a bush we found the remains of a seabird: beak, feathers, flesh and all.  While we hiked across the bridge to the parking lot, we saw a Northern Harrier, identified by the white strip at the base of its tail.

On the third day a huge, black raven could be seen in the trees while a covey of California quail were next to the cabins.  We completed our Diversity Tally sheet which we used to record all the animals we encountered.  Here is the list of birds: black phoebe, California quail, great blue heron, red-tailed hawk, turkey vulture, peregrine falcon, northern harrier, killdeer, sparrow, scrub jay, murre, coot, duck, great egret, snowy plover, robin, raven, sea gull, sanderling, dowitcher, crow.  Of all the animals we saw, the bird list was the longest.

Plants at Point Reyes

By Ayush, Gupta

We saw many plants at Point Reyes and most of the time we were surrounded by them.  Whether it was a plant to marvel at or it was in insignificant wee, each and every plant was unique and special in its own way.

The time to spot interesting plants were hike, especially the Native Plant hike.  We saw a wide variety of plants and trees, including arroryo willow, red alder, bay laurel, wild grape, horsetail, cow parsnip, coyote bush, sticky monkey flower, and of course, stinging nettle and poison oak.

Another memorable place to see plants was the Muddy Hollow trail.  On the wooden bridge a couple of people spotted a bright red sprout of poison oak.  We also saw more flowers, including morning glory.

At the Ed Center, Fiona showed us a growth of poison hemlock, a very dangerous plant.  Poison hemlock is interesting in the sense that it looks like many other plants.  If you look at the sprouts, it looks like a carrot or parsley, and the seedpods look like fennel.  Years ago, a woman had to be helicoptered to a hospital because she ate a few seeds by mistake, thinking it was fennel.  Poison hemlock is the plants used to kill the Greek philosopher, Socrates.

Here are some of the other plants on our Tally List: cattail, tule, sedge, blackberry, pennyroyal, thistle, Indian paintbrush, kelp, ice plant, old man’s beard, and lichen.  Since lichen is made from fungus and algae, we used this phrase: “Freddie Fungus was a lichen for Annie Algae.”

Mammals at Point Reyes

By Prahalad Mitra

At Point Reyes we went on many hikes.  On these hikes we saw several species of mammals or their signs: tracks and scat.  We saw evidence of vole, black-tailed deer, bobcat, coyote, harbor seal, and jack rabbit.  

On the first day when we were walking to the creek to do our water experiments, a few of us saw a vole sitting in the grass.  It was brown and a little bigger than a mouse.  After we came back from the creek and were having lunch by the Visitor Center, a couple of us ran by a bush and a jack rabbit jumped out and ran away.

On both nights, we saw several black-tailed deer in front of our cabins.  At first we were scared because we thought the buck was going to charge at us.  But it was just a mom and a baby deer.  One night, behind the bathrooms, we saw a teen-aged buck with medium sized horns.

On the second morning, we had binoculars for our hike to Limantour Beach.  We looked through our binoculars from the front porch of the Ed Center and on the mountains far away we saw a deer which got scared by a coyote.  At Limantour as we were walking by the ocean we saw a head poke out of the water.  At first, we didn’t know what it was, but as it came back and we could see its marking and head more clearly, we saw it was a harbor seal.  

It was very exciting to see animals we don’t usually see in Palo Alto.

Wrentits and Scrubjays

By Selina Xu

Every year Room 22 goes on an overnight to Pt. Reyes.  On the last day the class plays a game called wrentits and scrubjays.  In the game Otak picks three fifth graders to be scrubjays; everyone else is a wrentit.  All the birds are given cups which are their nests.  Otak counts to ten and the wrentits hide their nests while the scrub jays are not looking.  After the countdown, the wrentits come to Otak to be fed, which means getting dry beans which they must take back to their nest.  But the scrub jays can also run and fine the wrentit nests and take all the beans.  This goes on for awhile.  At the end, everyone counts how many beans they have.  For every four kidney beans each bird reproduces once.  If they had a pinto bean, however, that would kill a baby bird.  The goal is to survive by reproducing.

The Big Clean-up

By Maya Starlack

On Friday, all the kids get up in the morning with mixed feelings about cleaning up the Ed Center foot by foot, inch by inch.  At breakfast people were trying to make the best of it, singing and laughing, but really they were tired and dreading the clean up.

Here is a list of some of the jobs:

1. Cleaning the cabins
2. Cleaning the restrooms
3. Cleaning the porch
4. Washing windows
5. Getting wood for the wood pile.

It took us two hours to clean it all.  

After, there was an inspection by Julia, helped by Ayush and Isabella.  

• The boys’ cabin got 7 out of 10

• The girls’ cabin got 9 out of 10

• The bathroom was 10 for 10

• Both adult cabins were also perfect.

The Bathrooms

By Alana Kaplinsky

The bathrooms had fours sinks and mirrors.  There were three toilet stalls and three showers.  The lights were yellowish-green so at night everyone looked like aliens.  

There was a brown wooden bench in front of the showers.  She showers were more like mist and little bits of dripping water.  They did heat up though.

Cleaning one of the bathrooms turned into a disaster.  Everything was going great until we started mopping the floors and cleaning the showers.  There were two mops and one bucket.   There were three people cleaning, so we got another mop and bucket.  We used the mop to clean one of the showers, but it was filled with sand, so it didn’t do any good.  We called it the “cursed mop.”  The mop bucket was really old so when we moved it around it tipped over and all the water spilled.  After we finally got it cleaned up, it knocked over again.

The Earthquake Trail

By Raj Shrimali

The earthquake trail was awesome!  First Otak told us about the quails’ “Chicago” call.  When the guard quail sees a potential threat, it calls “Chicago!” to warn the rest who are nearby to run or fly away. We also saw deer and a banana slug.  

The trail was really fun.  At one point you could see the blue stakes marking the San Andreas Fault line.  Point Reyes is on the San Andreas Fault.  The peninsula has been moving for a long time.  Millions of years ago Point Reyes was near Los Angeles and eventually will make its way to Alaska!  In the 1906 earthquake Point Reyes moved 20 feet.  We saw a reconstructed fence that showed the movement.  Normally, the speed of the movement is about how fast a human’s fingernail grows.

Interviews

By Sarah Salinas

I interviewed eight people and asked them three questions. The first question was what was your favorite thing to do at Point Reyes? Half answered getting to play at Limantour spit was their favorite.  The others liked the hikes.   

The second question was what was the most amazing animal you saw? Some claimed they saw a mountain lion.  Others said the deer were amazing.  One person said they liked seeing a hawk.

The third questions was how was your stay?  Everyone said it was an awesome experience.  I wish I had been there for the fun.

Our sincerest thanks to all the parents who drove, cooked, cleaned, chaperoned, and gave their time and money to help make this fabulous trip happen again this year.  

The students of Room 22

The dates for our trip next year are Tuesday through Friday, Oct. 16 – 19.

Traditionally this is the best weather during the year in Point Reyes.

Our itinerary should include a trip to the lighthouse, the Miwok village, and elk watching at Pierce Point.