It was June of 1979 and I was a brand new counselor. The second week of camp I was assigned to Wilderness under the tutelage of the long-haired bespectacled pied piper of Lutheridge, Tony Yount. What the heck was he thinking? I was barely older than the campers, I knew nothing about camping, I was the slowest hiker and one of the shiest counselors on camp.
Off we went to Upper Cove Creek. Tony saw something in me I hadn’t seen in myself. I learned so much on that week in the woods! Tony taught us to ditch our watches, go with the flow, pitch tents, fix breakfast for 30, creek walk, and hike up Looking Glass following Tony’s tall legs all the way up the mountain. Whew, what a hike.
As I got to know Tony and hear his stories of his adventures traveling I decided that I wanted to try a national park tour. I’ve made many trips to the parks with many friends since then, always calling Tony for advise for best routes and out of the way places to see. He would always give me great advise and then heap insults on my head. I would try to heap insults on his head, but he was always too fast for me.
Later as a middle school art teacher, the chorus teacher and I began to take trips with kids to NYC to see museums and theater. This we did 20 or more times, and I liked it. One year the chorus teacher told me that she no longer wanted to take kids on the trip. I began to think about what I wanted these kids to see. I knewI wanted them to learn from National Parks and camping. I wanted to give these kids the wilderness introduction that Tony had given me. Again I called Tony, my National Park phone a friend, and laid out my plan.
For the last part of my career, every summer, I took groups of middle school kids to National Parks in the west. Everything I know about taking kids camping across country I learned from Lutheridge and from Tony Yount.