By Andrew Jordan ’18
THE ROUNDUP
The Brophy Outdoor Leadership Training club, BOLT, teaches vital skills through outdoor excursions.
The creators behind BOLT are co-presidents Carson Kurtz ’18 and Chris Agnone ’18 which is facilitated by moderator Mr. Cooper Davis ’11.
“Chris and I have always been big outdoorsmen through hunting trips, backpacking, and camp outs,” Kurtz said. “With me being an Eagle Scout and Chris being an avid hunter we both realized that there needed to be an immersive club at Brophy dedicated to the outdoors.”
Kurtz and Agnone came up with the idea for the club last summer.
He continued by explaining that the objective of the club was to “expose Brophy students to the outdoors and the beauty of Arizona’s backcountry.”
In their first year, they have led trips to Wet Beaver Creek, Piestewa Peak, Camelback Mountain and Hell’s Canyon.
“We did some hiking and cliff jumping out there, that was our biggest trip of the year,” Mr. Davis said.
“For next year, Mr. Davis, Christopher and I plan on creating a specific itinerary for trips so that we can stay more organized and fit more trips into the year,” Kurtz said.
Although there are over 100 members of BOLT currently on the official email list, only about 15 are active members.
“I would love for the club to expand,” Kurtz said. “This is a good leadership experience for Chris and me, so we are discovering effective methods to encourage students to get involved and participate in BOLT trips.”
“In the future I really hope to see it build in a way towards what you see on a college campus with their outdoor offices in running a series of trips with different teachers and different locations, like what the OFJ does with immersion trips, but more focused on wilderness, travel and camping” Mr. Davis said.
With experience in Boy Scouts, Kurtz and Mr. Davis attempt to instill the skills of leadership.
“What I found is that experiences in the outdoors really harbor an environment to develop leadership skills, whether that’s physically leading people to a destination or the amount of communication in planning and organization it takes to plan a trip,” Mr. Davis said.
There is still an opportunity for those that are interested in taking part in this club, as their final trip will be the first week of May.
What is your role with BOLT?
My role as moderator is I help the guys coordinate trip and help lead those trips when we go outside.
Where have you guys been so far?
This year we have done Camelback, Squaw Peak, and also a trip out to an area called Hell’s Canyon and a trip to Wet Beaver Creek. We did some hiking and cliff jumping out there, that was our biggest trip of the year.
Cliff Jumping?
It was probably like 20 feet.
Do you guys have any plans for anything else this year?
This year, coming up in the first week of May we are going to do a backpacking trip out near prescott, that’s going to be our last big trip of the year and then next year we are hoping to have a little more formalized schedule of trips and try to do about eight trips next year.
Where do you see this club going in the future?
In the future I really hope to see it build in a way towards what you see on a college campus with their outdoor offices in running a series of trip with different teachers and different locations, like what the OFJ does with immersion trips, but more focused entirely on wilderness, travel and camping.
Explain the whole leadership thing.
What I found is that experiences in the outdoors really harbor an environment to develop leadership skills, whether that’s physically leading people to a destination or the amount of communication in planning and organization it takes to plan a trip.
