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Watauga’s Trailblazers Club Prepares for their End-of-the-Year Trip by Miles Page

The Trailblazers Club on their most recent trip, where they paddled down the New River. 

Photo credit: the Trailblazers Club



As the year begins to wind down, clubs hold their final meetings to signal the start of exams and the year’s close. Clubs may have celebrations during their usual meeting time to say goodbye to the year’s club experience, while others opt for bigger, bolder ways to ring in the end of the year. Traiblazers Club, a brand-new club this year, chose to honor and celebrate their achievements by doing what they love most: outdoor excursions. 


The Trailblazers Club reinvigorated interest in outdoor sports like archery, fishing, and paddling. Ms. Katie Gray secured a $10,000 grant from NC Outdoor--an organization that provides funding for high school outdoor recreation--to re-form the Trailblazers Club, which had been present in some capacity in the past, and merge it with the Flyfishing Club. 


Mr. Eric Britenstein, a science teacher at Watauga, helps to run the club. 


“The most frequent thing we do in our weekly meetings has been that we are meeting in the afternoons after school to alternate cleanup days on the Greenway and ‘adventure days’ where we hike, flip rocks, and check out cool things,” Breitenstein described the club.


The club has had multiple excursions as the school year is coming to an end, including a camping trip in early spring to explore the New River and learn more about the skills needed to live outside.


“Our big camping trip that we just completed was a paddle down the river,” Breitenstein described. “That was in New River State Park, paddling for three or four hours on the New River’s calmer parts. We learned how to make a campsite, cook dinner from things you find around your campsite, and how to start a fire with flint. We got poured on that first day, but it was really fun.”


The club’s explorations will conclude in May with a climbing trip in the wild areas near the Blue Ridge Parkway. 


“The Mountain Alliance kids are going to be our guides for the climbing trip, and we certainly see ourselves as similar groups,” Breitenstein explained. “Right now, we are scheduled to be at Holloway Mountain Road to boulder and toprope. We will also be walking from the high school to Center 45 to climb on the 17th. Climbing will be a great experience for our kids to do more stuff outside and get involved with outdoor sports outside of the high school.” 


The club has proven very successful and will be expanding next year to include more ‘excursions’ and outdoor experiences in-between normal club meetings at the high school. Interest in the club has been high and the advisors expect large numbers of signups and participants for next year’s club lineup.


“We anticipate doing a big trip in both the fall and spring of next year,” Breitenstein said. “Maybe we’ll do some fly-fishing. The club is meant to be all about outdoor sports, like things with fishing and archery. Hopefully, those are trips we can take the kids on, and more are to come.”



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