"A long climbing expedition is one of the few situations in modern life when you have the opportunity of really living on the edge, of pushing yourself to your physical and mental limits. Most of the time we are not required to come anywhere near those limits, and even if we want to, there are so many comforts and temptations forcing us into an easier style, that we never really learn where they are. There is a value in knowing your limits, I mean really knowing from actual experience. I know I can survive in conditions that are marginal. I may never have to do so after this expedition, but having done it once, I know I can probably do it again. That knowledge eliminates alot of low-level anxiety. If someone dumped me on the street in the clothes I'm wearing, I could somehow survive.

It also makes normal life easier. Relative to laying your life on the line getting down a mountain in a snowstorm, a case of the flu is pretty insignificant. After melting snow for water over dirty kerosene stoves that won't work half the time, turning a faucet is a damn miracle.

I think most people's limits are a lot farther on than they believe. Consequently, they live life holding themselves back for fear of sailing off the earth. Once you realize this -- that you have more reserves than you'd imagined -- you're free to explore and experiment, to take risks -- emotional, mental, and physical -- that you'd never dreamed of taking before. You're free to laugh at yourself when you fail (because, in most of life, failure is not life-threatening; merely a learning experience) and relish the simplest of pleasures.

I don't advocate everybody packing off to the Himalayas but I think its good to do something that involves risk -- preferably mental as well as physical -- to push yourself beyond what is comfortable. To hell with the mentality that would build fences around every cliff, outlaw hang-gliding, put a hard-hat on every cyclist. Life itself is less precious than the ability and freedom to live life to its fullest."

--The Griffon

Introduction

Outward Bound® is an international organization made up of 5 wilderness leadership schools in the US and in 26 foreign countries. Click here For technical course information from the official Outward Bound® USA Homepage.

I attended Outward Bound twice. The first time was in 1989, the summer before my junior year in high school. It was a 23 day alpine mountaineering course at Pacific Crest Outward Bound School in the Sierra Nevada mountain range located in California. Although the rest of the members of this first course I undertook found the experience to be invaluable, most of them identified with the quote by Mark Twain, "I am glad I did it, partly because it was well worth it, and chiefly because I shall never have to do it again". *chuckle*. I for one knew I would return for I more favoured the following quote by Woodrow Wilson Sayre, taken from Four Against Everest:

One can't take a breath large enough to last a lifetime, one can't eat a meal big enough so that one never needs to eat again. Similarly, there are such values as warm friendship tested and strengthened through shared danger, the excitement of obstacles overcome by one's own efforts, or the beauty of the high, quiet places of the world. But these values can't be stored like canned goods. They may need to be experienced live--many times.

So I did what most people would call a Stupid Thing. I decided to take another course the summer before I entered college (1991). I signed up for a 23 day alpine mountaineering course in the San Juan range of the Colorado Rockies.

I wrote a journal of my experience this time, since I damned myself for not doing it for the first course. Instead of making this a site where you just find out technical information on Outward Bound, which is what I was going to do at first until I realized you can already get that info on their official homepage (see link above), I would rather be more creative in my approach to describing what Outward Bound is like. I would like to present to you this journal that I wrote on the first half of the course the week after I returned from my adventure. It is a very personal account, exposing the good, the bad, and the ugly of my character. But I am hoping that making it public will be enough vivid detail to encourage others to partake in what will be the grandest, most unforgettable adventure of their lives. So, here we go!!! Just follow the links :o)

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Conclusion


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