Southwest River Expedition

This three-week river expedition descends the Green and Colorado Rivers and retraces the steps of famed explorer, John Wesley Powell. This course requires a commitment to completion as well as to adventure; challenge and deep down accomplishment and is perfect for motivated teens ready for more than the average summer.

This course follows much of the route first pioneered by John Wesley Powell and his nine companions of the first expedition to explore the Green River and the Colorado River in 1869. Your river expedition descends through seven of the major river canyons he traveled on his historic journey and stops just short of following Powell through the Grand Canyon. You will travel over 225 river miles and run famous named rapids like Hell’s Half Mile, Disaster Falls, Coal Creek, Capsize and Satan’s Gut. In addition, you make this journey in two different types of river craft: 16-foot paddle rafts and sit-on-top hard-shell kayaks. You become a family with your boat mates, cooking together and sleeping under the stars. In short, this course is one of the most extensive and unique whitewater river experiences available anywhere. Be prepared to have fun while learning about boating, natural and human history, and John Wesley Powell’s Green and Colorado River explorations.

The Outward Bound Difference
At Outward Bound, you learn a tremendous amount about wilderness travel, safety and outdoor ethics, and much about yourself: how you adapt to change and deal with stress or challenge, how you work with others and realize your potential as a leader. In every segment of your course the focus is on technical, environmental and safety skills, but the emphasis is on developing as a person and as a group. The trust and camaraderie that develops between you is the key to your patrol’s success, and half the meaning of your Outward Bound course. Through shared adventures you learn to accept and respect one another’s differences, minimizing each other’s shortcomings, while maximizing each other’s strengths. Some people have a natural aptitude for route-finding; others discover a knack for cooking tasty meals, or tying knots or mediating disputes. Each member of the patrol makes a valuable contribution to what becomes a smoothly functioning team, capable of feats that would be unthinkable for an individual member. Through miles and miles of travel, through sunshine, thunder, wind and rain, you all become each other’s friends and heroes.

Successful completion of your course demands mastery of skills, trust, fitness, confidence, tenacity, leadership, initiative and compassion. The promotion of these qualities, and the discovery of what’s in you, is the purpose of Outward Bound. We look forward to your participation in this unique and challenging adventure.

Course Description
At the course start, you join a boat crew of 5-7 students and an instructor to begin the 4-5 day paddle rafting expedition through Lodore or Yampa Canyon, Whirlpool Canyon, and Split Mountain canyons, all within the bounds of Dinosaur National Monument in northwestern Colorado and northeastern Utah. You learn all about your raft and how to pack it, and then launch on the river and float into one of the most stunning canyons in the West. As you go downriver, your instructor introduces you to the important elements of a wilderness lifestyle: environmental stewardship, outdoor cooking, camp craft, safety and first aid, as well as the basics of river travel. Through daily discussions, your instructors help you and your group to discover the larger lessons to be gleaned from these activities and skills. You spend most of each day paddling through magnificent canyons and working together to position and maneuver the boat through both flatwater and whitewater. You learn commands, ruddering strokes, how to see obstacles and how to anticipate the force of the current from far enough upstream. You learn a new vocabulary of river terms, including sleepers, holes and tongues. Leadership plays an important role as each member of your group serves as captain, coordinating the efforts of the crew to effect needed changes of attitude (angle) and position in the river. These skills are tested in the many obstacles in the rapids and occasional major drops you encounter in the heart of the canyon. In places, the rims of the canyon rise thousands of feet above, enclosing you in a remote world of rushing water, delicate ecosystems and unbelievable beauty. As you drift peacefully with the current through placid sections, you have moments to relax and soak up the grandeur of the canyons. You explore side canyons, and hike to see fascinating archeological, geologic and historic sites.

After completing the first leg of the journey, you transfer to the launch point for Desolation and Gray canyons of the Green River in east central Utah. This is also the point where you and your crew step out of your raft and into our small craft fleet, a combination of sit-on-top hard-shell kayaks and rafts. Sit-on-top kayaks combine stability with maneuverability, and provide day after day of fun in the 90 miles of Desolation and Gray, including many class I-III rapids. As you learn to guide these sleek craft, you draw on the river-reading skills you developed in the first section to help you successfully navigate the river. You learn the new skills specific to kayaking: eddy turns, bracing, surfing, and self-rescue. You again travel close together and spot one another through rapids. With these boats, however, everything depends on you: your effort, your planning, and your decisions. Each rapid run brings a new level of confidence and great sense of accomplishment.

For the next part of your expedition, you will transfer again to launch in rafts on the lower Green through Stillwater Canyon, the last major canyon on the Green before its confluence with the Colorado. Though the river lacks whitewater in this section, it is still a spectacular stretch of water that meanders between monumental sandstone formations: Cleopatra’s Chair, Upheaval Dome, Turks Head, and The Butte of the Cross. This is an area rich in artifacts and ruins from the ancient Anasazi culture, the same people who built the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and left signs of their once flourishing culture throughout the Four Corners area. You may make a number of stops to see remnants of their occupation of this area a thousand years ago.

Just below the confluence of the Green and the Colorado in the heart of Canyonlands National Park, you prepare for your final descent through Cataract Canyon. Your exploration of this last and most challenging stretch of whitewater may be carried out in the style of the 1869 Powell expedition; with no maps or direct assistance from your instructors, without knowledge of what rapids, falls, and boulders lay ahead. It requires all your combined efforts and judgment, all your self-confidence and newly acquired river skills to safely make progress through Cataract, with its high imposing walls and numerous big-water rapids, including the famous Mile-Long Series and the three Big Drops.

As the course progresses, you learn about your muscles, your endurance, your strength of character, and your sense of humor. Your physical comfort, know-how, and self-confidence improve. On the river, you and your crew develop rhythm, power and finesse all of which require precise timing, good communication and solid teamwork. By the course end, you will likely realize that there is far more ability in you and the other members of your patrol than you initially thought.

NOTE: While rafting itself -riding down a rapid- is not as physically challenging an activity as backpacking, you do need to be adequately fit to paddle aggressively and to enter and exit the raft (you should be able to get out of a swimming pool without using a ladder). You should also know that hiking is an almost daily element of the course.

To enroll in this course click the enroll button next to the course dates that work for you. To shop comparatively on line visit our Advanced Course Finder or better yet call one of our expert Admission Advisers at 866-467-7651. Course tuitions listed below do not include our Application Fee or Transportation Fee.

Region: Utah

Activities: Rafting, sit-on-top kayaking, rock climbing, service, solo

Additional Information:
Application Fee
Transportation Fee

Dates	Days	Age	Location	Tuition	Course	Enroll
06/14/08 to 07/05/08	22	16-18	Utah	$3495.00	VRN856
07/15/08 to 08/05/08	22	16-18	Southwest - Utah	$3495.00	VRN857