2010Fall Newsletter

“We learned how to work together. We learned how to be there for one another. We learned the meaning of friendship.” -Flare Ammerman, Mountain Alliance Student

For 20 years Mountain Alliance has provided adventure and service programming to the youth of Watuaga County. Our mission is to "Grow leaders through service, adventure and experience." The Mountain Alliance Leadership Developement Program provides students with a supportive environment to make friends and grow as individuals. Our programs are free for any youth of Watauga County in 9th-12th grade. This year we have continued to offer a full calendar of service and adventure programs to students after school, on weekends, and

for extended periods over school breaks.

This fall at Mountain Alliance has been packed full of service and adventure trips. We kicked the year off in August by helping out at the annual Big Sale at Appala-chian State University. We have also continued working with the Hospitality House, taking students there once a month to cook for residents. This trip is always a favorite for students to work on their culinary skills while helping out local residents. Other service trips this fall included the local residents. Other service trips this fall included the New River Big Sweep, setting up and taking down the Valle Country Fair, volunteering at local races and climb-ing events, and helping build mountain biking trails at Rocky Knob Park. Rocky Knob park is going to be a great resource in the future to Mountain Alliance. When completed, the trails will range from beginner to advance and will be a great local option to take students mountain biking. This semes-ter students have performed over 400 hours of service on trips offered by Mountain Alliance. With great weather this fall many students from Wa-tauga High School spent their time outside on Mountain Alliance adventure trips. We had a schedule packed full of hiking, climbing, biking, and backpacking trips.

Watauga County Youth in Action

We were able to offer 3 different overnight backpacking trips this fall to students. Climbing trips includ-ed going to Table Rock and Holloway Mountain. Biking trips offered this fall ranged from biking around Boone to trips to Virginia for the Virginia Creeper trail. We were also able to take trips North Wilkes-boro to bike the Overmountain Victory Trail. With winter quickly approaching, caving season is just around the corner and we are looking forward to offering students a full schedule of trips for the spring.