There is a man who works for NOLS as a re-rationer. Kay Harris shows up to meet courses in Utah every 7-10 days for what we like to think of as a miniature Christmas. Only instead of gifts, we get food!

Kay is known for many things. His truck, his Vietnam veteran status, his mustache, his storyteller's voice (think Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski)...actually, if I didn't know better, I'd say Kay and Sam were the same person, or twins, or something. But one of the things Kay is known best for is a very special experience he is able to share with some NOLS courses.

Kay came a day early for our second re-ration, with a trailer full of not only food, but a large old oil drum, piles of wood, tarps, tent poles, and more. After doling out our much-anticipated rations, we began to set up with Kay, setting up the tent poles in a cross, laying the tarps one at a time over the poles, building a stone cradle inside, hauling the oil drum out and stacking wood for a fire...we were preparing for Kay to guide us in a traditional Native American sweat lodge.

The history of the sweat lodge or sweat bath is long and rich. The idea pervaded through many native cultures, including Eskimos and the Mayans, of a sweat bath, to cleanse not only the body, but the mind and spirit as well. Lodges were traditionally built (in North America) on the "hot rock" model, the same basic idea that went behind our lodge experience. Traveling tribes would build their lodge frames from willow branches, with three crossing in a dome shape, and two wrapped around to bind the structure together. The frame was then draped with blankets or skins, depending on the tribe and how much influence they had from the white man's trade. To heat the lodge, extrusive igneous rocks (or other highly durable rocks) were superheated in a large fire, which sometimes took all day to build and stoke, and carefully placed in a pit in the center of the lodge on forked sticks.

Though in our ceremony, everyone was welcome to take their own perspective and gifts from the ceremony, many native tribes saw the sweat as a chance to commune with the gods of the earth, to share the legends of the tribe, to cleanse themselves of evil, and even to precede the peyote rituals.

I cannot truly relate how wonderful and intense this experience was for me, but later, in the wee hours of a very late morning, as I sat by the barrel fire, I felt cleaner than I had in a long time. If you ever have the opportunity to do a sweat lodge, keeping in mind all the safety precautions, I suggest you take it.

This morning we jump back on the bus and head out on our climbing section, 11 days at Split Rock and 9 days at Sinks Canyon. We'll be doing everything from top rope to sport to protection placement, and even, I hope, getting to try lead climbing. Either way, I'm sure to come back covered in chalk and with raw knuckles bound with tape, and probably in the best shape of my life. I can't wait. I'll be back in town on May 13th, and back to CT on the night of the 14th. From then, the true trip review will begin, as I stitch together the best photos and video from the whole semester. Tune in then!

Your Adventurer,
Nick

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