Experiencing the Great Outdoors and Pushing the Limits in Outward Bound
Unlike my parents, I’m not normally the outdoorsy type. I bike sometimes, hike irregularly, and camp almost never. So when my folks suggested that I take an Outward Bound course, I was pretty much against it. For one thing, it would be during my summer break. I wouldn’t even get to miss school! They still had hope though, so they left out the Outward Bound catalog for me to look at. One day while I was eating a bagel at the kitchen table before going to school, I opened it up and checked out the incredible photos and descriptions of amazing adventures. I was convinced.
I knew I couldn’t go somewhere too far away from Washington State, where I live, as a plane ticket would add more cost to an already expensive trip. I also knew that I would enjoy a course that involved water. I finally chose a two-week course that started on the Deschutes River in Oregon and continued on foot into the Three Sisters Wilderness.
In mid-July, my family drove to the airport in Bend, Oregon, where I met up with the other guys taking part in my Outward Bound adventure. My compatriots for the expedition were eight boys, ranging from twelve to seventeen years old. A few had scraggly beards. Others looked as if they had never seen the sun before, their pale faces smeared with sunscreen, a few blotches of skin missed. We took a bus to the river where we met our instructors: Scott, a tanned man with a neat beard, and Drew, a wide-eyed guy out to befriend us all.
On the river portion of the course, we learned about the “leave no trace” policy that Outward Bound encourages. It included cleaning our entire campsite each day, not leaving any food or garbage, and also cleaning our dirty bowls by sloshing some water around in them and drinking that water! When we did this for the first time, I almost spit out my mixture from laughing as I watched the grimaces on the other kids’ faces. Think about it though: if everyone dumped out even small bits of leftover food, the amount would have an impact on the whole food chain of native animals.
The river portion of the trip sped by with laughs and lots of splashing. We cooked for ourselves, set up our own campsites, and even went down a rapid without our rafts. Bloody Mary, as the rapid is called, is a great hump of water that arches above the river before plunging you into froth and chaos. Riding that rapid was the most fun experience of the river adventure by far.
Our transition from river to mountain brought a welcome bus ride to the Scott Pass trailhead. While on the bus for a couple hours, we laughed, sang, and talked about life at home. By the time this comfortable respite came to an end and we hefted our sixty-pound packs onto our backs, we were much closer. We were ready to have some fun up in the Three Sisters mountains. The wildlife was incredible as we hiked. The trees growing tall and skinny, the birds chirruping to our banter, and the sounds of a bubbling stream by our side all welcomed us to the real wilderness.
At our first campsite, the instructors taught us to purify water with iodine. We simply added two to three drops of iodine to our water, waited for about twenty minutes, and drank. They warned us though that iodine can be poisonous if you use too much. Pure water is very important in the backcountry. Without it, you are susceptible to diseases from contamination.
On our fourth day in the mountains, we came across snow. The white slope we were traversing was at a perilous angle, so we had to be careful to step in the grooves made in the snow by our leaders. Once we reached a lower hill, we learned how to glissade. In its roughest sense, glissading is snow surfing. Now I understood why we brought helmets with us! We surfed down the short hill, bumbling, slipping, and shouting through our laughter. Many of us ran back up the hill to do it a few more times.
What I had thought would be a long adventure was finished all too soon. The days -- packed with effort, new places, new friends, and new learning -- passed so quickly. Yet the sum of the days left me, left all of us, changed: we were stronger, we recognized and appreciated what our bodies and minds can accomplish, we had gone beyond our limitations. For a time, we had no need or desire for our iPods and computers. After our trip, it was something more real -- yet intangible at the same time -- that we needed: the challenge of a steep slope, the sting of cold water on our faces, the satisfaction of nourishing food, laughter among friends, and the experience of time in the wilderness.
