Anthony Cyr and his eighth-grade classmates headed into the woods Tuesday night for an adventure few had ever experienced.

By noontime Wednesday, Cyr had determined that winter camping had its drawbacks.

“Cold,” said Cyr, a student at Dr. Lewis Libby School in Milford. “It’s really cold. Uncomfortable.”

During the day, Cyr allowed, things were fine. But when he had gone to bed on the first night of a three-day, two-night excursion at Maine’s Youth Fish and Game Association on Pickerel Pond, he found that his sleeping bag wasn’t quite as warm as he had hoped.

“Sleeping [was tough],” Cyr said.

Cyr and his classmates split up into groups, with most sleeping in Adirondack shelters. A few gave up on the crowded shelters and pitched tents. But all were learning something, teacher Steve Kingsbury said.

“What I have is a group of youngsters with a wide variety of exposure to outdoor activities,” Kingsbury said. “For some of these kids, it’s a brand new experience. They have the challenge of making fire, cooking their own food. Some of these kids have never even cooked their own dinners.”

Another challenge Kingsbury poses to the students is one that parents may wish they could emulate without causing civil war at home.

At these retreats, which are part of the school’s Resiliency program, certain common objects aren’t allowed.

“My goal here is to provide kids with an opportunity to be challenged by the outdoor environment and have something that is very different from what they have at home,” Kingsbury said. “So I don’t let them bring electronic devices like cell phones, MP3 players, and video games.

“I’m very up front about that,” he said. “[I tell them] this is a challenge to you, to survive these three days under conditions that are perhaps less than favorable.”

Faced with that challenge, the students adapt, learn and many thrive.

Cyr, who spent a chilly night trying to sleep on Tuesday, admitted that the food has been fantastic … even if he was a bit unsure how it was prepared.

“Last night we had a guy that cooked Coke chicken,” Cyr said. “I don’t really know what it was, but I think he poured Coke as like a barbecue sauce and mixed it on a chicken and put it in a Dutch oven. It tasted pretty good.”

Classmate Kyle Kelliher, who has done a bit of winter camping in the past, chose to take a more hands-on approach.

“We’re eating fine,” he said. “Last night I came up with a new recipe for chicken. I just took a couple spices and threw it on the chicken, cooked it up. It tasted pretty good. Pretty spicy, though.”

As expected, Kelliher wasn’t willing to share his special recipe, nor disclose the spices that made his concoction taste so good.

“That’s gonna be kept right in my own head,” he said with a laugh.

In addition to cooking their own meals, students tended their own campfires in front of the Adirondacks, with varying degrees of success.

Some of the less experienced campers seemed to subscribe to the more-is-better school, and loaded piles of wood on top of barely lit fires, effectively turning their blazes into smoking messes.

“Find finger-sized wood,” teachers kept advising. “Finger-sized.”

Kingsbury had students bring their own survival kits, in which they packed objects they’d need if they were lost in the woods.

Some of those kits, like the one packed by Hanna Backus, were pretty conventional.

“In my survival kit I’ve got toilet paper, because you never know when you’re gonna have to go, because you never know how long you’re gonna be out there,” Backus said.

“Food, in case I get hungry, matches so I can light a fire,” she said, continuing to explain her choices.

Nearby, friend Sarah Mitchell had all the essentials … and a few more.

“Lip gloss,” she said, displaying the tube before realizing it might not qualify as an “emergency” item.

“Um. [It’s] Chapstick. Lip balm,” she said, trying to explain.

When reminded that she had also packed a pretty cool pair of sunglasses, Mitchell good-naturedly admitted that there’s more than one way to survive in the wilderness.

“Well, you can’t look bad if you’re rescued,” she said with a giggle. “You’ve got to look good. You’ve got to impress the people who are rescuing you.”

WCCC students climb Katahdin

While Milford’s eighth-graders learned some of the basics of winter camping this week, a group of Washington County Community College students were back in Calais, reliving a more advanced winter adventure they recently completed.

Scott Fraser, an adventure recreation and tourism instructor at the college, said the group of six students, one instructor, and two additional guides spent four days attempting a winter ascent of Mount Katahdin.

The party left Jan. 27 and returned Jan. 30.

Three of the students, along with one guide and Fraser, reached the summit, while others challenged themselves in different ways and completed other portions of the journey.

“There’s a technique called ‘challenge by choice,'” Fraser said. “It’s really all about allowing students to set their own goals and decide what their limits are.”

For some students, that meant striving for the summit. Others overcame barriers by hiking for two days and 15 miles just to reach their staging point at Chimney Pond.

Student Katie Smith of Baileyville said that she was a bit apprehensive in the weeks before the trip.

“I was kind of nervous about it,” Smith said. “For that three weeks [before the adventure], that’s all I thought about.”

Smith began the ascent, which quickly became challenging and frightening when they climbed up a snow-covered slope and emerged above the tree line.

“We had to traverse and go side to side so that we didn’t lose our footing,” she said. “We had to kind of lean up the slope and use our ice axes.”

After sitting down for a break and putting crampons on her feet, Smith said she made a mistake.

“I turned around and looked back, which I never should have done,” she said.

Smith found a rock to sit on and decided she could go no farther up the slope.

A guide stayed with Smith and the pair worked their way back down Katahdin, while the others continued.

Among those who continued was Stephen Donohue, a student from Hilmar, Calif., who came to WCCC just for the adventure recreation program.

“It was challenging, but it was well worth it,” said Donohue, who was one of those to complete the challenging climb to the summit.

“Getting to the top made it all worthwhile,” he said. “The 360-degree view was breathtaking. But it was cold out there, so we didn’t stand around to enjoy the view forever.”

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.