You Call This a Vacation?
Sure it is. You just won't realize it until you get home
You can be an armchair athlete and do Outward Bound, but you won't like it much. Before the program, I ran 12 miles a week. After I signed up (paying a deposit on the $2,000 fee), I stepped up the regimen to 20 miles a week and filled a backpack with 30 pounds of books. Still, the course was difficult. The real pack, stuffed with gear and a portion of the group's food, weighed at least 50 pounds. On my 5-foot, 3-inch frame, that was close to half my body weight, and it threw off my sense of balance. When I tripped and landed pack side down, with my arms outstretched and my legs struggling, I looked like a capsized turtle.
Hoisting myself over large logs, deep-knee bending under fallen branches, and squishing through sinking marsh, I twisted my ankles and scratched my legs on every rock and branch. But this expedition was, believe it or not, fun. And it was stunningly beautiful. We passed through areas rich with the scent of pine, and even though I felt as graceful as a rhinoceros, I had to avoid stepping on exquisite wildflowers glowing with yellow, purple, and red.
Drinking dishwater. As does any responsible outdoorsman, Outward Bounders camp to "leave no trace." We cooked over fuel stoves instead of campfires, and to clean our bowls, we poured in a bit of water and scraped the remaining food particles into the liquid. Then we drank it. Personal hygiene was equally primitive: We dug holes 6 inches in the ground and found new--and necessary--uses for leaves, pine cones, and snow. By the second week, I hardly noticed.
What many Outward Bounders fear most is "the solo"--up to three days during which students are left alone in the wilderness to reflect on the trip and plan strategy in the event of a bear invasion. I was no different, imagining myself looking around fitfully, wondering what was making that terrifying sound. But my solo, 24 hours, wasn't like that at all. I lounged during the day and fell asleep long before dark. If bears came, I snored through it.
During the most difficult moments, though, we leaned on one another. We spent hours negotiating fields of rocks so treacherous that at one point my legs shook, and tears came to my eyes. But when a student ahead of me offered his hand and another behind me provided words of encouragement, I imagined a string tying us all together. And soon I realized what the English sailors had proven to Kurt Hahn 60 years ago--that being brave is just as crucial as being physically fit. In the end, Outward Bound was as much a journey into myself as into the great outdoors.
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