Engagement – Effective Communicators who actively and empathetically listen, speak and discuss (E21) Three weeks ago, I was able to experience for the first time in my life, snowshoeing. (crossedthat one off my bucketlist.) It was a great experience being able to trek through the snow, with our destination being summiting Mt. Sapporodake. Little did I know that this experience would turn into one where we as a whole outdoor class would need to exercise our communication and thinking skills to our full extent as our trip turned into one where it became a literal matter of life or death.
We started our experience by hiking up to the hut which was located halfway up the mountain. Our group consisted of my outdoor class, and our teacher, Mr. E, as well as a volunteer supervisor, from niseko. For the first night we stopped at the hut, made dinner(hamburgers) and then we relaxed and played cards until we called it a night. All was well on the first day. The next day we woke up and decided to summit the mountain. We started out with 6 people. 5 students and the supervisor from Niseko, however due to circumstances, the supervisor and one student had to return to the hut, while the four of us continued to the top. At this point we were without an adult, but we were led by an experienced leader, Krzysztof who effectively led us to the summit, where we were able to take in a breathtaking view and take shirtless pictures. (these pictures above are some pictures from the summit.) On the way back to the hut however, we met our supervisor, who was making his way to the summit. We offered to go with him to the summit, but he told us to go back down to the hut, and would only be 20 minutes behind us. Naturally as students, we agreed and left him. Little did we know that this would be a mistake that would challenge us as a group for hours. After a descent that consisted of us jumping down ravines and sliding down cliffs, we made it back to the hut. We then waited for 20 minutes, then 30, then an hour, after which we realized that our supervisor might be missing. We then exercised our communication skills and told our teacher exactly what had happened with the missing individual near the summit, and we then tried to communicate with the man using our walkie talkie system. We then actively listened for any response. There was none. We made the decision to split up once more, one group going back to the bottom, while the other would go with the teacher to look for the missing man. I talked with Mr. E. and promised to call if I found anything or heard anything, and that we would call Mr. P. our emergency contact if we had no information by 3 pm. We then parted ways. Little did we know that the missing man had gone all the way back down to the bottom of the mountain, as my group showed up to the car, we were relieved to find a smiling safe man sitting in the car. However, we still had three members looking for this man at the summit. Through a series of communication mishaps by this individual, the search party kept searching for him for three more hours. When we eventually got back together, we had a talk with the individual, and through discussion we were able to figure out that he had gotten lost and had gone in a completely different direction out of radius with our walkie talkie. Furthermore, he did not know how to use the walkie talkie which had led to further confusion and the search party looking for an extra few hours. Through this experience I was able to learn the importance of communicating effectively, and the importance of listening to directions, and seeking them out if you do not understand something. Also one extra lesson I learned from this experience is the importance of the buddy system no matter how old you are. I do not have any pictures from the search as I was not a part of the group, and while the man was missing, we did not feel like taking pictures, so these pictures are what I have.) My goal is to use the buddy system whenever there is a chance to get lost from now on, as well as embrace nature and head out with my buddies whenever possible, because this was a great experience overall, I love nature. Also, I will always make sure everyone in the group has an emergency plan, such as a meetup point and walkie talkie knowledge.
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Tadashi ShichidaSenior @ Hokkaido International School Archives
June 2020
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