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 Appalachian State University. We have also continued working with Hospitality House by 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 New River Big Sweep, setting up and taking down the Valle Country Fair, volunteering at local races and climbing 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. Currently this semester students have performed over 400 hours of service on trips offered by Mountain Alliance. We have 2 service trips left before Christmas to Mary's House on December 6 and to the Hospitality House on December 13 after school.
With great weather this fall many students from Watauga High School spent their time outside on Mountain Alliance adventure trips. We had a schedule packed full of hiking, climbing, biking, and backpacking trips.
We were able to offer 3 different overnight backpacking trips this fall to students. We were also able to take a series of trips to the climbing wall at Footsloggers where students developed climbing, belaying, and safety skills. Other climbing trips included 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 Wilkesboro 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.
The Mountain Alliance Climbing Wall was built at Watauga High School for the club's use and is the first structure of its kind in North Carolina. This summer, as many people know, Watauga High School will be moving to a new location and tearing down its old building. As posted earlier, Appalachian State University's alpine tower was moved to the site of the new high school for the use and benefit of Mountain Alliance. The alpine tower thus gives us an opportunity to recycle the climbing holds on our current climbing wall. 
On Saturday, February 20th, The Mountain Alliance staff and several of its student members got together to disassemble the climbing wall...
...and then load all of the leftover wood into Gus, Mountain Alliance's trusty bus. Once all of the wood is collected, Mountain Alliance is planning on selling the wood to benefit the organization. 
However, this job couldn't be finished in one afternoon! Despite the hard work of everyone participating,
the climbing wall was not completely taken down. There will be an additional climbing wall take-down trip planned for the near future. 
"This seemed like such a big task at the start, but with so many great people volunteering their help, it actually was a lot of fun!"
