Adventures of Fall Break

From hunting in the Elkhorn Mountains to a road trip through Yellowstone National Park, Carroll students scattered when fall break began Friday, October 23.

“My dad and I had been planning this since August,” said Brooklyn Lorenz, a sophomore civil engineering major from Great Falls, Montana. “We were up before 5 a.m. every day looking for elk.”

Lorenz said the two hunted public land in the Elkhorns south of Helena. They had hunted together every fall since Lorenz was 12 years old.

“Even when we didn’t get anything, it was the only time all year we got to just be outside together,” Lorenz said.

Kelly Gregor, a sophomore civil engineering major from Fairbanks, Alaska, and three of her friends drove to Gardiner, Montana, and spent two days camping in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley.

“We live a few hours from Yellowstone, and none of us had been,” Gregor said. “That felt like something we had to fix.”

The group camped and split the cost of gas. Gregor said each of her friends budgeted about $100 for the trip.

For Cyrille Wangama, a sophomore psychology major from Spokane, Washington, the break meant a flight home to Spokane. He had not been home since move-in day in August.

“I missed my family’s cooking more than I wanted to admit,” Wangama said. “I had sent them a list of what I wanted for dinner every night.”

Celia Bohrman, a junior accounting and financial assistance major from Missoula, flew to Wisconsin over break to visit her grandmother. The two spent a few days exploring together, with a walk along the lake, a stop at a local farmers market, and plenty of time in her grandmother’s kitchen.

“She promised to teach me her apple pie recipe this time,” Bohrman said. “She’d been saying that for years, so I held her to it.”

For Bohrman, the trip was a chance to slow down halfway through the semester. “Things got so busy at school,” she said. “It was nice to just sit on her porch, drink coffee and catch up.”

Gilbert Hunter, a history major from Guernsey, and four friends visited the Hot Springs at Broadwater.

“After midterms, sitting in a hot spring was all I wanted,” Hunter said. “We’d been counting down for weeks.”

Slade Jones, a freshman accounting and strategic major from Missoula, stayed in Helena and worked three shifts sorting donations at Helena Food Share, which served families across Lewis and Clark County.

“During the semester, I never had time to volunteer,” Jones said. “Fall break was the one week I actually could.”

Not every plan involved leaving campus. Olivier Yannis Borgol, a junior communications and business major from Berlin, studied for exams, hiked Mount Helena and shot hoops when he needed a break.

“Honestly, a quiet campus was the best place to study,” Borgol said. “I had the library almost to myself.