Every day, living and working at Spring Lake Ranch offers countless opportunities for the intersection of fun, community, and the natural world—from haying on a beautiful hillside, to eating meals together on our picnic tables, to throwing a frisbee on the lawn. Why would we purposely engage in outdoor recreation when we are already spending so much time working outside on crews?
Outdoor recreation encompasses hikes, backpacking and canoe trips, camping at the lake and ski trips. These activities can all happen on the Ranch property, but there is something special about leaving our comfort zone (literally and figuratively) to head off into the wild. Physical challenges show us we are capable of more than we think. The resources we use when we test ourselves mirror the work we do in our interior lives.
The occasional hardships we encounter are part of what makes the trips a bonding experience. People connect over the bugs and the triumphs. We take on new roles, supporting and joking with each other, problem solving and lending skills and perspective that make the experience more fun and more meaningful. For instance, no one on the rainy camping trip to Camel’s Hump will forget the “all-you-can-eat ramen” when the downpour filled our bowls faster than we could drink the soup. A mini community invariably forms on these trips, a safe space where people can share openly and connect outside their usual social groups, houses, and work crews.
A resident who was new to the Ranch remarked at the end of one of the trips that the experience made him feel like he had finally landed in the community.
But it’s not all rainy ramen soup! It’s skiing with friends on a powder day. It’s snowshoeing out to a cabin and playing cards by the woodstove. It’s canoeing down the Connecticut river and setting up camp on the banks.
One resident had done a lot of backpacking in the past. “It feels good to connect to something I haven’t done in a while and to know I can still do it,” he said after the trip.
“I wish everyone at the Ranch could have this experience,” one resident mused as we sat around the campfire watching the moon rise.
What can we do to make the incredible landscape that surrounds the Ranch more accessible for outdoor recreation? For the last few years we have been updating our camping equipment with lighter and more functional gear. There are already challenges to getting outside; we don’t need lugging around heavy tents and sleeping bags to make things more difficult. Some gear, like our summer sleeping bags, we sewed ourselves on crew. Other gear has been purchased or donated. When this year’s Wish List is published later this summer, people can donate to help us grow our outdoor recreation program.
Connecting to nature, to others, and to ourselves forms the heart of our work at the Ranch. What better way to do that than by challenging ourselves to climb a mountain? And what better way for friends to celebrate that accomplishment than by sharing a not too watery bowl of ramen soup?
