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Students on WRFI courses regularly share special bonds that last long after the weeks they spend together in the field, and the 2018 Colorado Plateau crew is no exception. The group of seven spent two months together in the American Southwest backpacking and canoeing their way through the stunning and diverse region while learning about themselves, each other, and the resilience of the Colorado Plateau’s landscape. After spending so many evenings curled up in sleeping bags under the stars together, they came to call themselves “desert larvae”. Of these special moments together, Sierra Diemling says “You simply cannot connect with your peers or educators in a classroom setting the way you can when you're backpacking in the wilderness with them.”
In the years since, they’ve made efforts to stay connected, from backpacking together in the Wind River Range, staying with one another when visiting their respective cities, and planning camping trips as a way to reunite. One of the larvae also came up with a creative way to keep everyone together in spirit when they can’t be together physically. In a jewelry making class the year after their course, Sarah Bartz fashioned bracelets for each of her classmates and used a specially-tipped hammer to imprint a pattern on the outside and “WRFI 18” on the inside as a way to celebrate the anniversary of their shared journey. She used a moment of inspiration in the field for her concept: “On our last day [in Dark Horse Canyon Wilderness], during the hike out, we made our way up out of the canyon through a forest of Aspen trees. We had been hiking all day, gaining a lot of elevation, and my exhausted but wonder-fueled brain took a mental snapshot of the late day shadow and light, the sound of young leaves fluttering in the breeze, and the crisp spring air. The pattern seen on the bracelet is meant to emulate the texture of an Aspen tree.”
This spring will be six years since the desert larvae of Colorado Plateau have been together in a formal setting, but the connection they share remains. As Sarah sees it: “We all are living in far away places now, but luckily have many core bonding moments and many aligned interests. It’s comforting thinking back to the glimmering slice of time we shared in the canyons, rivers, and mountains of the Southwest.”
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