To read part seventeen of day four, click here.

There was a moment where no one spoke. I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing – “please let us be sleeping in the building, please!!“

Rebecca asked the question no one else dared to ask. “Hey Jen? Where are we sleeping?”

Jen looked at Katie and grinned. It made me nervous – that could either be a good thing, or a bad thing.

“Well… How would you guys like to sleep in a building tonight? We don’t have to, if you wouldn’t like it.”

The car erupted with cheering. We were all so excited! All of a sudden I had a bad thought – were we going to have to go to the bathroom outside?!? I said a quick prayer that we would be allowed to use the bathrooms. I didn’t think they could be that cruel, but you never knew…

Jen started telling us that this was an office building where they let crews sleep sometimes. We would be sleeping in the library, and we had to be quiet because there might be other crews sleeping there. It was almost midnight, and we didn’t want to wake anyone up.

She said that we were going to be allowed to go to the bathrooms two at a time. She said to get your sleeping bag and your toiletries and lean your bag up against the side of the building where she would show us. When she asked if we understood, we all nodded our heads very quickly, looking at each other with excited grins. No one said anything that might slow us down – we wanted to get to that bathroom!

We ran to the back of the car, to the trailer. We pulled out our packs and started hiking through the rain to the building. We went around to the back of the building and sat our packs under the awning. Pulling my gear out did not take me long, so I was one of the first people who walked through the door.

The door opened into a small room, about the size of my bedroom. I wondered how we were going to fit everyone into this room – not only was it tiny, but the walls were lined with bookcases, filled with books and three ring binders. There was also table in the middle of the room with chairs around it. I didn’t think we were going to fit in, and I was right. A couple of people ended up sleeping out in the hall.

Putting my stuff down in the corner and spreading my sleeping bag out only took a minute. I wanted to get my space “staked out” so no one was sticking their feet in my face. I put my clothes sack at the head of my sleeping bag, pulling out my sweater. It was nice to be in air conditioning, but they had it on really cold!

My feet were aching, so I took off my boots. It was a relief to go barefoot – I hadn’t walked barefoot in four days and my feet were tired of the boots! I grabbed my ziploc of toiletries and stood up. I saw Katie leaving for the bathrooms with two of the guys and ran towards them. I told Jen that I was going with Katie as I ran past her, and caught up to Katie quickly.

I opened the bathroom door and stared for a second. Toilet! Sink! Running water! Hot running water! The awe and gratitude we all felt was pretty ridiculous, but after going without things like that for four days, you really appreciate all of them.

Things like brushing your teeth may seem like something so simple, but it was an amazing experience. Instead of having to blow all of the foam out of my mouth, dispersing it, I was able to just spit it out into a sink. I was able to actually get my retainer clean. (Anyone who has had a retainer will understand how nice that was. LOL) I was able to wash my face, and I even enjoyed the roughness of the paper towels as I dried it.

Feeling clean, knowing my retainers were clean… I don’t know how to describe the emotion. 😀 It was just amazing. I was brushing my teeth for the second time when Katie came to tell me (and Tullia who had come in) that we had to hurry up, the other girls wanted a turn. I finished brushing my teeth, put my toiletries away with a sigh and left the bathroom.

Going over to my corner and dropping off my headlamp, toiletries and bug stuff took me a second, and then I was sitting down in one of the comfy chairs. They had a lot of padding, and I think I almost fell asleep sitting there. My eyes were shut and I didn’t want to open them, but I knew we still had to have Twilight Meeting, so I couldn’t fall asleep.

Forcing my eyes open, I looked around to see who was in the bathrooms and who I could talk too. I found myself looking at Luke, who was staring at the half empty bottle of Pepsi on the table. He picked it up, eyeing how full it was.

“You know you can’t drink that, right Luke?”

He stared at the soda, obviously wanting to drink it.

“It’s only about a liter… I could drink that!”

I glared at him in disapproval. With a sigh he put the bottle down. I grinned at him, my grin turning to a glare again as he walked over to the box of pizza sitting on one of the bookcases sitting under the window. He opened it to reveal one piece of pizza. My stomach growled involuntarily as the smell spread through the room.

Luke looked at me, daring me to challenge him. I took the bait.

“Are you really going to eat that? I think the others would kill you if you did that. We all want pizza as much as you do.”

“But Dora, it’s three meat pizza! It’s calling my name.” He trailed off, staring at the pizza. (Remember, Dora is the nickname he gave me?) I got out of the super comfy chair and walked over to him, taking the pizza box and shutting it. I put it back where it had been before sitting down on my sleeping bag that was right there.

“You’re mean. You know that, right? I want pizza…”

I ignored him. 😀

Bobby was looking at a book about Ashville that he had pulled from the bookcase, so I went to look over his shoulder. We saw some really interesting pictures before Jen came in and told us to follow her for Twilight Meeting.

We had a short meeting. Jen and Katie told us that we had done a good job getting Ben down the mountain, and there were a couple of other things that I don’t remember. We were told to go to bed, and I went willingly. It was after midnight, and I was tired!

When I crawled into my sleeping bag, my eyes closed almost immediately. I opened them a crack as I felt Kayce bump my feet, closing them the instant I saw he was moving his sleeping bag a bit. All around the room people were saying good night, except for a couple of the girls who were still talking. I didn’t understand why on earth they were still talking, so I just said good night, rolling over and ignoring them. I think I fell asleep in less than a minute.

Day Four was an interesting day. We had a pretty good morning – the views up on that mountain where we were writing were gorgeous! The oatmeal for breakfast was really good. The huge rocks? I’m never going to forget those. Never ever. I don’t think I’ll ever forget singing kids songs as we hiked down the mountain either. And I know I’m never going to forget getting Ben down the mountain.

Getting Ben down the mountain completely changed our crew’s relationship, I think. We were a family. We would help each other with anything after that. I would have done anything for any of them after that. And I think they would have done anything to help me.

Which is good thing – I was going to need a lot of help the next couple of days on the water.

Click here to read the first part of Day Five.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part sixteen of day four, click here.

I don’t remember how they actually got Ben into the car, I just remember it took a while. I remember “yelling” at someone to move over and let Ben have the middle seat so he had a spot for his ankle to rest, but I don’t remember much else.

Sitting closest to the door in the second row was my favorite place to sit, and I managed to get that seat. Luke was next to me, and Kayce was next to him. While we had the car lights on, I opened up the letter that had been handed to me as I was getting in. It was from Matt and Whitney at the NCOBS office, thanking me for sending them soap and telling me good luck. I was glad they had gotten their soap and they liked it – I had sent it to them to thank them for putting up with my endless questions. 😀

Putting my letter away, I pulled out my journal.

“It looks like Ben will be staying with us! I hope so – I would feel so bad if our crew had to split up. Ben getting hurt united us. We are more like a team, a family now. Hopefully by the end of this course we will be even closer.

I wish I could have done more to help Ben. Every time he would thank me for giving him water or making them take a break, I felt weird. I don’t think I did that much. Everyone else did so much more than me. All I did was carry the water.”

Just as I finished writing that, we started moving and the lights went out. I put my journal away and tried to talk to Luke, but he decided that he was going to a nap and if I wanted to keep my head I should leave him alone.

OK, just kidding there. Mostly. 😀

I leaned back against the seat and sang songs in my head, looking around at where we were going. What I could see looked really pretty! Of course, I couldn’t see much, but whatever.

We had about a two hour car ride to get to our “mystery campsite”. It was supposed to be a three hour trip, but the French Broad River, (where we were supposed to be) didn’t have enough water in it for us to canoe on. So we were going to a different river.

After about twenty minutes in the car, I leaned forward and tapped Ben’s shoulder. When he looked back at me I asked how his ankle was doing. He told me that it was ok, it still really hurt but it was doing better. I smiled at him and tried to rest my head against the back of my seat. My head hit something hard – something that was NOT the back of the seat. I shifted so I could see what it was, and because of the dark it took me a minute to realize what it was.

It was Bobby’s head – he had crossed his arms on the back of the seat and was resting his head on them. I glared at the top of his head for a minute before I realized that it was not going to do anything. I tried to mimic him, but my torso was too short to comfortably reach the back of the seat in front of me. I sat back up and looked around.

Maggie, Sarah Margaret and Rebecca were in the back row. It looked like Sarah Margaret was sleeping, and Maggie was showing Rebecca something on what I assumed was her camera. Bobby was resting his head on the back of my seat, and Tullia was using his back as a pillow, while Jordan was using Tullia as a pillow. In my row, Kayce was resting his head on the window and Luke was leaning up against his shoulder. Up in the front row Bruce was half asleep, his head shaking as the window that his head rested on shook. Ben sat staring straight at the rearview mirror, not moving at all.

I wanted to lean my head back, but Bobby was still in the way. I decided that I really wanted to put my head on the back of the seat, so he needed to move.

I pushed at his head, but he didn’t move.

I pushed again. He still wasn’t moving.

Wondering if he was this hard to wake up in the mornings, I thought about asking Bruce and Ben if they knew how to wake him up. I decided that I would try a couple more times before disturbing the silence.

I pushed his head to the side, to the other side, then pushed it up so he was looking straight at me. There was still no movement, no recognition, no nothing. I could not believe how hard it was to wake this guy up, and I did not envy the guys, who had to wake him up every morning.

I had just quit and was sitting in an uncomfortable position when Bobby moved, pulling his arms out from under his head. He slapped at the back of his neck like something had bit him there. Resting his chin where his arms had been, he looked at me and said, quite simply, “There was a fly on my neck.”

The look on my face must have been quite interesting, as I stared at him for a moment. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. All of my pushing hadn’t done a thing, but he had woken up because there had been a fly on his neck?!?

A questioning look crossed his face as he asked me why I was looking at him like that. I explained, laughing at his reaction. He started to sit up and stopped, like he was only just realizing that Tullia was using his back as a pillow. I tried not to start cracking up as he tried to get Tullia off his back without waking her up, but he couldn’t.

He gave up and shook his back, waking her up. When she woke up and moved it woke up Jordan, and they both sat up and stretched. We talked for a minute before they all settled back to sleep.

Sitting around doing nothing was boring, but what else could I do?

About twenty minutes later, Luke had a bad dream. How do I know he had a bad dream? Because he woke up with a jump, almost pushing me off the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes, and when I asked what was wrong it took him a minute to reply. “There was a bear. You guys all ran away, leaving me, and it mauled me.”

It was tempting to make a reference to what he had said earlier about bears, but I didn’t. Telling him that he had said “I would give any bears a big hug or smile them down” wouldn’t help the situation. I told him that we would never leave him, and that I would be the one who got mauled because I was the slowest. He grinned at me before settling back down and falling asleep again.

We had been in the car for almost an hour. I was getting really bored, so I was happy when Rebecca asked if they could turn on the radio. I wanted music! It had been over three days since I had heard any music, and I wanted to hear some so badly. 😀

Katie turned the music on and most of crew woke up. We spent the next hour or so singing, laughing, dancing if we wanted to. We heard songs like Call Me Maybe, Give Your Heart A Break, What Makes You Beautiful… I had never heard some of the songs before, but I picked them up quickly. Apparently it’s pretty easy to pick up a song if you hear it at least three times in one hour. LOL

We got off the highway and started driving on a gravel road. It was bumpy and anyone who might have been asleep was awake by then. I don’t think they were asleep – we were singing pretty loudly. But they might have been…

We pulled into the parking lot of a building that had a sign out front.

It said something like “North Carolina Outward Bound School”.

Jen turned off the car, turned to us and said, “We’re sleeping here tonight”.

We all looked at each other, looks of amazement and then fear on our faces. Were they going to make us sleep outside with this building right here?!?

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part fifteen of day four, click here.

When we were all finished packing our packs, Bobby was missing a water bottle, Luke was missing his jacket, and nobody knew what Ben was missing.

They had gotten something else for Ben to put his foot on, so I dragged my pack over to the trailer where all of the other packs were. I pulled out my black mat and headed over to where everyone was sitting for dinner. I put my mat down and within one minute I had two people sitting with me. 😀

I looked over at Luke and Bruce and started cracking up. They were taking a nap. But it didn’t look like they had intended to take a nap – it looked like they had sat down and keeled over. Their heads weren’t even on the mat! LOL

I guess they were tired after helping Ben?

It was time for dinner, and we were all hungry! I was glad to eat – I hadn’t eaten Snack with everyone earlier because I didn’t want to get thirstier, so now I was really hungry.

Dinner was Potato Chowder, Quinoa and Cornbread. It smelled delicious! I was just glad I didn’t have to make the cornbread – it looked like it was really complicated to cook.

The food arrived, and we woke up Luke and Bruce. They sat up and Luke asked what was for dinner. When he heard quinoa, he grimaced. He asked if it was the crunchy one, or the soft kind. I had no idea what he was talking about – I had never heard of a crunchy vs soft thing with quinoa… When we asked him why it mattered, he said that he liked one of them, but not the other. He couldn’t remember which one he liked though. LOL

Our instructors, Josh and Benji said to eat without them, but save them some food. We ate quickly, everyone eating as fast as they could because they were so hungry. At least, that’s why I ate so quickly. I think Luke ate so quickly so he could get it over with – he decided that we were having the kind he didn’t like. 😀

Despite being really hungry, I only ate 3/4 of my bowl. I was really starting to worry – I wasn’t eating enough. And I hadn’t eaten enough since the second evening. But I couldn’t force myself to eat anymore, so I handed my bowl to Bobby.

After dinner it was time to clean up, pack up our gear, filter water, etc. We had to get our water bottles filled by Kayce, pack up the rest of our stuff and take care of our camp chores. Jen told me that since some of the girls had cooked dinner for me and Luke, we should help with cleanup.

I hated cleanup. Scraping the pots was one of the worst jobs. Guess what job I got stuck with? Oh well – I didn’t have to cook the cornbread. That was what I kept telling myself. 🙂

The adults were all still talking. At least, Jen, Katie and Josh were talking to each other. Benji was talking to Jordan and Tullia. I wasn’t there for this conversation – I was cleaning the pots. But it became a crew joke, and by the sixth day we all knew the conversation as well as Jordan and Tullia did.

Apparently it went like this:

Jordan and Tullia: So, is Benji your real name? Or is it something like Benjamin?

Benji: No, no. It is not Benjamin. But you wouldn’t understand my real name – it is from Peru!

Jordan and Tullia: Oh, really? What is it?

Benji: It’s Benhamin!

Jordan and Tullia: Oh, so… Benjamin!

But when they repeated the story they didn’t just say it. They said it in “the voice”. I’m not even going to attempt to explain the voice. Let’s just say that it was something that all of the girls on my crew did, except me. I couldn’t get my voice to do it. 🙂 But two weeks after I got home, I managed to do it. (How do you explain that?!?)

I’m sorry if that didn’t seem really funny – it was funny at the time. I still find it funny, actually. But I have their voices in my head saying it. I can still hear them laughing so hard that everyone else would laugh with them, unable to stop. It was one of those laughs that would make you laugh, even if you didn’t find whatever it was funny. You would laugh just because they were laughing.

Random laughing at nothing happened pretty often on my trip. 😀

It was getting dark quickly, so I grabbed my headlamp put it on so I could see to finish the pots. We got them done and packed them up. It was time to get all of the packs in the trailer – someone packed up Ben’s stuff so we could get it in the trailer with the rest of them, and then it was time to get in the car.

Bobby helped Ben hop over – then we had to get him actually in the car.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part fourteen of day four, click here.

We emerged from the trees hearing lots of cheering from our other crewmates who had stayed at the bottom of the mountain. Also known as Maggie and Rebecca. LOL.

Shelby was gone, but a guy named Benji was there. Now that I think about it, Josh might have been at the bottom when we got there… I think he went with Jen to get water and stayed down there with Maggie and Rebecca. I don’t remember. I just remember the cheering and the relief that I felt when we made it to the trail head. I stayed behind Ben until he was sitting down on the bench by the shelter. They were looking for something that they could use to prop his foot up, so I took my backpack from where Tullia had dropped it and brought it over.

But I couldn’t just pick it up by the shoulder straps and move it over. Nope, these backpacks are different. I couldn’t move my backpack without it being on my back – it was just too heavy. I had to put it on my back, fasten the hip straps, and then move it to wherever I needed it. Did I mention that most of the time when I tried to put it on I needed help to get back on my feet?

I didn’t need help this time though -I grabbed onto the post that was supporting the shelter and used that to pull myself up. I walked back over to where Ben was and dropped my pack, making sure I didn’t hit his ankle. It rolled over and I stood it up.

It rolled over. I glared at my pack. Maybe glaring at it would make it listen to me and stay up. I stood it up again. Was it going to stay up? It was staying…. I turned to walk away and looked back just in time to see it roll over again. I was done. I leaned it up against the bench, stuck some rocks around it and waited. It was staying, but I knew that as soon as I turned my back it would fall over again. I couldn’t stay though, so I turned like I was going to leave and whirled around again to see if it was staying up.

It was staying up! I grinned at Ben who was looking at me like I had two heads. He smiled at me as he put his ankle on the top of my pack. I headed over to where some of the girls were cooking dinner – I was supposed to be making it, and I needed to thank them and ask if they needed help.

Cooking the dinner that I was supposed to make…

They told me that they were doing fine, and I should go take some stuff out of my pack. Nobody was clear on what we were supposed to be taking out, so I went to ask Jen what I was supposed to take out. She told me to take out any of Bobby, Ben or Luke’s stuff and put it on the ground, my water bottles, bowl and spoon, and what I needed for the car ride.

I went over to where Ben was sitting and asked if I could get into my pack. He moved his ankle off of it and I opened it up. I grabbed a jacket and my journal – I wanted to write some stuff in the car if I could. I pulled out the ducky suits and carried them over to where Bobby and Luke were trying to find all of their stuff.

We started trying to gather all of Ben’s stuff for him. It wasn’t easy – if it wasn’t yours, you had to decide whose it was. And it wasn’t easy to tell… The best way was to ask Luke or Bobby if it was theirs. If it wasn’t, it was Ben’s. We started a pile for each of them and just kept making the piles bigger and bigger and bigger. We finally had all of their stuff out of our packs, so we all started packing our packs. At least, we thought we had all of their stuff out.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part thirteen of day four, click here.

I should’ve known. This was the guy who drank a full liter of water in twelve seconds flat. I should’ve warned him before handing him the water.

But I realized there was nothing I could do about it, so I didn’t say anything. I told a couple of my crewmates that we were out of water, and they told the others. Now we were just trying to get down the mountain as fast as we could, without hurting Ben. We needed to get to water as fast as we could.

After another half an hour of hiking, it was 6:00 and we were at the last mile marker. It said we were a half mile from the trail head, so we had about an hour left. Nobody was complaining about being thirsty yet, but I knew that people were thirsty. I couldn’t do anything about it, but it made me worried.

I knew that a bunch of us could get dehydrated, and Jen and Katie had told us that getting dehydrated in the wilderness was not fun. I was mostly worried about myself, Jordan and Bruce. I had made sure Ben was drinking, and I made sure Luke and Bobby got a bunch of the water since they were helping him. But I had only had four sips of water, and I don’t think Jordan and Bruce had drank much more than I had.

I was so thirsty. We started crossing all of these little streams that ran across the trail, and it was taking all of my self control to not start scooping water from them and drink it. The only reason I didn’t was because Jen and Katie had said that the bacteria in the water would make you feel worse than the dehydration would. We only had one hour left, and Jen had said she was coming back with water… I just hoped she would get there before my thirst got the better of me.

We stopped to take a picture of everyone about fifteen minutes after we passed the mile marker.

So close!

Right after we started walking again, we heard whistling. It was Jen! And she had water! And we were all so excited! 😀

She was carrying a baby seal and four or five water bottles. Most of the crew got ahead of Ben, but I stayed behind him. I liked being behind Ben – it meant I could keep an eye on him. I like mothering people, and as the smallest of my crew I didn’t get many chances to mother people. So I took my chance when people got injured. 🙂

When we had reached Jen, I took the last bottle she had. I didn’t care that it was someone else’s – I had already shared germs with half the crew and even if I didn’t like that idea, I was too thirsty to care.

I made sure Ben had a bottle and was drinking it before I opened my bottle, careful not to spill any. I didn’t want to spill any of the precious water!

I drank almost the entire liter. 😀 There wasn’t even an inch of water left, and I finished that by the time we got to the trailhead. I remember feeling so thankful for Jen, and so thankful for water. I had never been that thirsty before, and it was a little bit scary.

When I was done chugging all that water, I looked around. Our entire group was standing around with looks of satisfaction on their faces, which made me laugh. Jordan asked me what I was laughing at and started cracking up when I told her. The guys all looked at us like we had two heads, which just made us laugh even more….

Jen was saying that she couldn’t believe how far we had gotten! And she couldn’t believe that Ben was putting weight on his ankle – when she had left us he was still needing two people to help him.

There were about five minutes of laughing and talking before it was time to move down the trail. We had a half a mile left, and by golly, we were going to make it before dark!! (I don’t know why it looks like it was dark in the last two pictures – we could still see easily…)

We were going faster, everyone feeling better after having all the water they wanted. It’s amazing what water will do for you! We had to slow down after a while though – it looked like Ben was hurting more, so I told them all to slow down.

As we were walking Tullia kept saying “It’s not much further! I remember when we passed through here! C’mon guys, let’s pick up the pace! We’re almost there!”

It didn’t work – we kept hiking at our steady pace. It had gotten faster than when we started, but it was still pretty slow. Even though Ben could put some weight on his ankle, he was still in a lot of pain.

I was getting really tired – apparently the adrenaline from getting water had worn off. It had been 20 minutes since the water, and there was still no sign of the end of the trail. Despite Tullia saying it was right there. 🙂 We all just wanted to get off our feet and off that trail.

Finally, twenty five minutes later, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, ok, it wasn’t a tunnel. We saw the light at the edge of the forest. 😀

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part twelve of day four, click here.

I was really glad that Tullia was hyper. Because she was hyper, she looked at me and decided that I was too tired to carry my pack. She insisted on taking my pack, and I didn’t argue! I took it off and felt much better. 😀 I pulled the two water bottles off the chest strap and handed Bruce his empty one.

Tullia put my pack on – at least, she tried too. She got her first arm in and tried to swing it onto her back. The other shoulder strap wasn’t anywhere near her shoulder. She put it back down on the ground, exclaiming “Brett, you are really tiny!”. She loosened all of the straps and tried again. I helped her swing it up onto her back and held it while she tightened the straps till it was comfortable.

While I was helping Tullia put my pack on, they decided to test if Ben could put any weight on his ankle yet. He could! So when we moved on, he went down to one person helping him. That one person was usually Bobby, but sometimes it was someone else.

Only one person helping Ben!

I was just carrying Jordan’s water bottle and the trekking pole. Taking my weight really helped with my ankle and how tired I was, so the only thing that was really bothering me was how thirsty I was. I took one more sip of the water, knowing that I was not going to get anymore water until we had gotten more. We had to save the rest of the water for Ben.

Bobby took a break, letting Kayce help Ben. A bunch of the crew started walking in front of Ben, getting so far ahead that we could barely hear them. I was just walking behind Ben, watching where I put my foot and where Ben was going, when all of sudden I realized I couldn’t really hear the rest of the crew. Katie put a stop to that, calling them all back. She said that we were going to stick together, and for a while they stayed together. Then some of them started drifting ahead again. They didn’t go too far though, so Katie let them.

With only one person helping him, Ben would start lose his balance sometimes. That was when I was glad I was right behind him, because I was able to keep him from losing his balance completely. When he started leaning too far to one side, I was able to push him back up.

The fact that he was able to put some weight on his ankle was amazing. We had all thought he wasn’t even going to make a half mile, back at that first mile marker. Over a mile (and two hours) later, he was starting to put a bit of weight on his ankle and he wasn’t deathly pale anymore. He still looked exhausted though, and I didn’t know how much further he was going to go. We still had almost a mile to do, and we were almost out of water. So he was going to have to do it without water…

I gave everyone a drink, telling everyone except Ben that the water in the bottle was the last of it. Everyone just had a sip, all of us leaving it for Ben. We still didn’t tell him how far we had to go, and the fact that we were almost out of water. He was doing better, but he was still a mess. 😀

He kept thanking me, which made me feel kinda weird. I didn’t think I was doing anything, but looking back I realize I was doing more than I thought. I didn’t think that monitoring the water and walking right behind Ben and watching him was helping that much. But what didn’t seem like enough to me was helping others. I didn’t play a major part in getting Ben down the mountain, but I helped. And that’s what is important.

It was probably about 5:30 when we took our next break. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the break perfectly. We were down to a quarter of a bottle of water. Ben was starting to get pale again and was walking differently then he had been, so I wanted him to stop for a bit and drink. I called a break when we got to a good spot and handed Ben the water bottle. I was opening my mouth to warn him that he shouldn’t drink too much… when he drank the entire thing.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part eleven of day four, click here.

We decided that it was time to take an even longer break and eat Snack. Ben said he didn’t want any, and they made him eat it because he had barely eaten any lunch. I said I didn’t want any and they were ok with that – I had a record of not eating much and still being fine.

I was starting to get hungry, but I didn’t want any for a reason. Snack was a salty trail mix. Salty foods make me really, really thirsty. And we were really low on something that would quench my thirst. 😀

Bobby was sitting there stuffing Snack in his mouth, and I warned him that he was going to get really thirsty and we did not have much water left. He told me that he would be fine and continued to eat it.

I told him about the mile marker we had just passed and got to see his incredulous expression. I told him that it had taken us an hour to walk the first half mile, so we only had three hours left. He told me that he didn’t know if Ben was going to make that. He said that he was doing everything he could to get Ben down the mountain, but he didn’t know what Ben’s limit was. I didn’t know what to say – I just told him that he was doing a good job, and as long as he didn’t swing Ben anymore, he would be doing better. I was able to get him to smile with that, so that was good. I like making people smile. 🙂

I remember thinking that Bobby really changed that day. Up till then he was just a huge jokester, always ready to make people laugh. But when Ben got hurt, Bobby stepped up and helped him the entire way. We all did. But Bobby barely left Ben’s side – he only took breaks from being one of Ben’s “crutches” when he absolutely needed one.

We were just finishing Snack when we heard voices on the switchback underneath us. We looked through the trees and saw Katie’s head coming up! Josh told us to not let her catch us taking a break, so we jumped up, put Snack away, pulled our packs on and headed down the trail again.

We met them at a switchback. It was Katie with Tullia, Sarah Margaret and Kayce. They didn’t have any packs, since they had dropped them off at the bottom, so they took a turn helping Ben. First it was Bobby and Tullia, then Kayce took over for Tullia. Luke took over for Bobby, and it just kept going.

I felt bad the entire time we were getting Ben down the mountain. I couldn’t help Ben like everyone else could, I couldn’t carry a lot of weight. All I could do was encourage everyone, carry the water and try to manage it, and make sure they weren’t pushing Ben too hard. I wanted to do more!

About a half an hour after they had joined us, we took a break. Jordan handed me her water bottle, and I made everyone drink some. I only took a sip, knowing Ben and the people helping him needed the water more than I did. While we were resting and drinking, Josh, Jen and Katie talked. They decided that Jen would go ahead for water. I was glad to hear that – we had finished Bruce’s, so we were down to Jordan’s bottle, which was only about half full.

I clipped Jordan and Bruce’s water bottles onto my chest strap – I didn’t know who had Bruce’s pack, since he was helping Ben, and I didn’t want to bother trying to find it. It was easier to keep carrying it, and since it was empty it wasn’t heavy.

We said goodbye to Jen and started walking again. It was 4:30, and we still had over a mile to go.

A half an hour later, at 5:00, we passed the next mile marker.

One more mile to go.
Two more hours.
Less than a half a bottle of water.

I was getting really tired. My ankle was hurting really badly, and I was so thirsty. But I didn’t say anything, because I felt bad saying anything when Ben was doing so well. He had already done so much better than we thought he would, and he was still going.

He was still going, but he was starting to slow down. He was getting tired, and so was everyone else. Everyone, except Tullia. Apparently her adrenaline was through the roof, so she was bouncing around, cheering people up, being all hyper…

I fully appreciated how hyper she was later….

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part ten of day four, click here.

Jordan slowed down to walk with us, and we told her about the sign. I’m sure the look of shock on her face matched the one on mine. She said that Ben wasn’t going to make it, and no one said anything. There was nothing to say.

I started trying to compare the distance we had walked with how far it is around a track, but I can’t do it. 😀 My mind just won’t compare it anywhere near accurately, so I gave up. We stopped to take a break again, and Bruce and Bobby switched places. Ben drank some more of his water, and I found myself comparing how much he had drank to how far we still had to go. If I was doing it right, he was going to run out of water in the next half hour or so.

Jordan, Luke and I told Bruce about the distance we still had to go, making sure we were far enough away that Ben couldn’t hear us. He was so tired, in so much pain, and we all decided that we were not going to tell him how far we had to go. We also didn’t tell him about the water – we all knew that he needed it the most.

We started taking small breaks more often. Ben was getting really tired and needing more water. He was taking two or three sips at almost every break now, and we were stopping every five minutes. He didn’t sit down or lie down on all of them – he would stand holding onto a tree. And the breaks were only for about a minute, before Josh would say that it was time to go on again.

A half an hour after we had seen the sign, we stopped for a longer break. Ben sat down and Bobby flopped to the ground next to him. I tossed Ben’s water bottle to Bobby, who handed it to Ben. He finished his water, and I tossed my bottle to Bobby so he could pour some into Ben’s. He opened it and drank a bunch of it, and at that point I didn’t even care. He poured the rest of it into Ben’s water bottle and tossed my empty bottle back to me. I asked Jordan to help me get it back in my pack, since it was almost impossible to put your own water bottle away.

We started off again. We were all starting to get tired, not to mention Ben. I don’t know how we were still going…

I think it was right about there they decided that we needed to pick up the pace. You know how you do the “1, 2, 3!” thing with kids? Where you pick them up and swing them? Bobby and Luke started doing that with Ben.

From the back it looked a lot like this again

It looked really awkward, this run then jump thing they were doing, but we were going faster. The only problem was, they were swinging him really far, with not a lot of time for him to get his balance in between swings. I let them go for about five minutes before I made them stop. Ben had asked for a break, so they sat him down and I handed him his water. Then I pulled Bobby to the side and told him that he had to stop it. He didn’t want to stop, because we were going so much faster. But I told him that they were hurting Ben, and they needed to stop.

He grudgingly told me that he would stop. Then he asked me why Luke and I had been looking so worried earlier. I told him about the water situation – I guess we had forgotten to tell him about it until then.

We hiked for another 20 minutes, continuing to take small breaks. Right before we took our next long break, we passed another mile marker.

Do you know what it said? One and half miles.

It had taken us an hour to walk a half mile. I nudged Jordan and pointed to the sign. She looked at me and started laughing – a very nervous laugh. She shook her head at me, looking desperate. “No. That is not possible, we’ve walked more than… No.”

We took a break right after the sign disappeared. I told Luke and Bruce about the sign and told them that we only had about three hours to go. They just gave me a blank look, which almost made me laugh. There was nothing comical about another three hours of walking though, so I didn’t actually laugh.

I asked Bruce for his water bottles. He handed them over, and I dumped one of them into the other. I handed the empty one back to him and took a sip from the one that had water in it. I passed it around to all the guys, making sure they each had some and I told Jordan to drink some of hers. Ben finished what was left in his bottle, so I stuck that one back in my pack. We still had Jordan’s water, and about a half a bottle left of Bruce’s. Less than one and a half bottles of water, one and a half miles to go.

I looked over at Ben. He was sitting on the ground, his back against a tree. Bobby was sitting next to him, doing everything he could to help Ben. I looked around at the rest of my crewmates that were with me, and I realized that we were a team. We now had a common bond, a common goal. We had to get Ben down the mountain, and we were going to do it! We were going to do everything in our power to get him down the mountain.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part nine of day four, click here.

I thought for a minute, realized that I was probably not the only one who was running out of water, and pulled Ben’s bottle out of my pack. He had a half a bottle left. That was NOT going to be enough. He was using a lot of energy, and he was drinking a lot.

I sped up so I could walk next to Jordan. In a low voice, I asked her how much water she had. She did not like water, so she did not drink a lot of it. Most of the time, that was a bad thing, but it would have been a good thing here. She pulled out her bottle – she had a 3/4 of a bottle left.

Ok, we had one and three quarters of a bottle, with Bruce, Luke and Bobby’s water bottles left to inventory. I walked a bit faster to walk next to Bruce, and asked him how much water he had.

He pulled his bottles out. He had a total of 3/4 of a bottle.

I went to ask Luke… and realized that his water bottles were probably at least a  half mile down the trail at that point, along with Bobby’s.

Two and a half bottles of water.

That was it. For eight people, with a lot of distance left. We did not know how far it was, but we knew we still had quite a bit to go. When we could see into the valley below, the bottom was really far away….

We kept walking – there was nothing else we could do. At first, they were taking breaks every once in a while. They would switch around when they got tired – first Luke was helping Ben, then Bruce took over for him. The Jordan took over for Bruce. Then Jen took over for Bobby, and it just kept going.

After probably a half an hour of walking, we took a longer break. I pulled out Ben’s water bottle and handed it to him – he drank a lot of it and handed it back. I looked at the water level – down to a third. I must have looked worried, because Luke asked me what was wrong.

I pulled him away from Ben and told him that we only had two and a half bottles of water left. He told me that Jen and Josh had their own water, so we only had six people who needed the water. So we each got less then a half a bottle…. But that was more than I thought we would get!

Josh said it was time to get going again. He gave Ben a couple of tips on how to make it easier for his helpers, and we were off.

We took a couple more small breaks, and a half an hour later we took another long break. Ben drank more of his water, so he was down to a quarter of a bottle. I took one sip of my water – I needed a sip just to wet my mouth. I didn’t want to drink too much, when everyone else needed the water more then I did. They were all carrying more weight than I was, and helping Ben was a hard job.

As we set off again, it was Bruce and Jen helping Ben. Luke and Bobby had taken their packs and were walking by me. About two minutes after we started walking, we passed a mile marker. It said two miles.

Two miles. It was two miles to the bottom. The three of us looked at each other, grim looks on our faces – there was no way Ben was going to make it that far.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part eight of day four, click here.

Just as we had finished putting lunch away, our help arrived. Our “CD” (course director) Josh had come, with another instructor named Shelby.

Jen, Katie, Josh and Shelby went down the trail to talk. The crew all sat around, quietly talking. Some of the others were trying to decide what they were talking about, and the rest of us were with Ben trying to make him feel better. It wasn’t really working, but it gave us something to do.

The instructors came back, and we all gathered near Ben. They asked who had Ben, Luke and Bobby’s rain gear. It looked like it was going to rain, and they needed all of the students to have their ducky suits.

Jordan and I raised our hands. Jen said that was great – Shelby and Katie were going to take Sarah Margaret, Maggie, Tullia, Rebecca and Kayce down to the bottom of the mountain. She said that Jordan, Bruce and I would stay with them. Bruce to switch out with Luke and Bobby, and me and Jordan because we had the rain gear.

The crewmates who were supposed to go down the mountain headed off. It was only the second time we had really been separated, (the other time was the water run) and I felt lost without all of my crew. I did not know how long it was going to take to get back together, and I did not know how long we would be together after we got to the bottom. We all thought Ben was going to have to go to the hospital.

I watched the rest of our crew out of sight while Luke and Bobby were helping Ben up. Just as their heads disappeared around a switchback, Ben started moving forward. Luke and Bobby would take a step forward and Ben would hop forward a step, so he was back in between them. Repeat that, over and over and over and over….

I had Ben’s water bottle in my hand, and I knew I was going to drink out of it if I was not careful. So I pulled mine out of my pack and put Ben’s in the water bottle pocket. I clipped mine onto my chest strap… and realized that I only had about a 1/2 of a bottle left.

You can see Ben’s chest strap in this picture – the guy with the white shirt.

My other water bottle was empty. I hoped that we would get down to the bottom soon – I was going to get really thirsty.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part seven of day four, click here.

Since I was in the back, I don’t know how they got Ben on the ground. I just know that all of a sudden we had stopped and people were taking off their packs. I dropped mine willingly – it was really heavy!

It looked like we were not going to be moving for a while. Since it was almost two by then, we took a vote on who wanted lunch. Almost everyone wanted it, so we pulled the stuff from someone’s food sack.

We were having Pizza Wraps – sauce, pepperoni and cheese on tortillas. It was supposed to be me and Luke making it, but Luke was busy with Ben. So Rebecca helped me – she took care of everything else while I took care of cutting up the cheese.

At first, I was really happy with all the cheese we were having. And then, we were having cheese, cheese and more cheese. Let’s just say, I was getting tired of all of the cheese. Especially when I had to chop it up – the knife was really, really, really dull. Don’t even get me started on when we had to cut the salami…

So while Rebecca was seasoning the tomato paste, (yes, it was paste) and eyeing the pepperoni in disgust, I was working on the cheese. The pepperoni was really worth eyeing – it was the nastiest looking pepperoni I have ever seen. I hope that I never see pepperoni that ugly again. 😀

Despite the looks of the pepperoni, lunch was really good! Rebecca did a good job seasoning the paste, we had plenty of that cheese, (I was still enjoying it at that point), and the pepperoni tasted fine.

It was the first and only time we ate directly on the trail, and it was interesting. People would come up from down the mountain, pass carefully around Ben, and then we would have to scramble to get out of their way. We would move the cheese, sauce, tortillas and pepperoni off to the side, and move them back again so that we could keep serving.

We didn’t bother with passing bowls – it was first come, first serve with this. Becca would put tomato paste on a tortilla, someone put the pepperoni on it, and I would put the cheese on it. I would pass it to the person standing in front of me, and the next person in line would come stand in front of me.

Bobby came up and asked for two. We all just thought he was being Bobby and told him no. 😀 (He was always asking for “extra big helpings”)

Then he reminded us that Ben was lying down, further down the trail. I quickly handed him the second one I was holding in my hand and looked at the other girls as he headed towards Ben. We all had the same expression on our faces – “Oops!”.

Once the lunch rush was over and whoever was on clean up had taken over, I went down to check on Ben. Just as I got there, Bobby was asking who had Ben’s water bottles. Someone pulled one out of their pack, and Bobby proceeded to try to get the water down Ben’s throat, without getting it all over Ben.

I’ll let you try to figure out how that went. 😀

I think it was around then that he asked who had his sunglasses. We all looked at each other with looks of dismay – we had no idea who had the sunglasses. Tullia decided that she would just let him borrow hers!

Ben lying down after lunch

So yeah, Ben was wearing the pink heart shaped sunglasses. We started joking that now he could look at the world through the eyes of love, but he was in too much pain to care.

Jen started looking around for two sticks we could use as a stretcher. I didn’t know what we were going to do if we had to put him on a stretcher – that would be two more backpacks to split up, because Bruce and Kayce would have to help carry him. And even if we could take the weight, our backpacks could not hold that much!

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part six of day four, click here.

I ended up getting two sets of rain gear (I think I had Luke and Bobby’s…) and the repair kit. I think. I don’t really remember who had what – I just remember the chaos that was trying to get it all back. 😀

When we had finished splitting those three packs into everyone else’s, we sat around some more. There was a lot of wondering whether Ben would be able to continue with us, whether he would have to go to the hospital… No one knew anything and it was scary. None of us wanted Ben to go home – we all wanted to stick together. We had started it together, and we were going to finish it together. I know that’s what I was thinking, and I think that’s what everyone else was thinking.

Jen came and told us that we were going to start walking. She told us to get off the trail so Ben could pass us.

We all stood up and stepped off the trail, pulling our packs with us. We wanted to give them as much room as possible.

After a minute or two, Ben came hopping down the trail!

Ben hopping down the mountain

The rest of us were grinning at each other. He was moving! It was taking forever, but he was moving. I felt a bit better about what was happening…

Until I sat down to pull my pack on. I went to stand up… and nothing happened. I tried to stand up again. Nope, still not moving. I asked Sarah Margaret to help me up, and with her pulling my one hand, and using the trekking pole with my other hand, I was able to get up. I took a step and almost fell. Apparently two ducky suits and the repair kit make a huge difference in the weight that you carry. 😀

It’s a good thing the pace was slow, or I would not have been able to do it.

Of course, we did not get far. We made it around two switchbacks when Ben had to take a break.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part five of day four, click here.

When Katie said that, I realized that it was pretty bad. They were Outward Bound instructors – they would never call unless it was an emergency.

I went back down to where my pack was and sat on it. I didn’t know what this would mean for our crew, but I knew it was not good! The other girls were all talking about how sad it was that Ben was the one who got hurt – that it should have been them. “Poor Ben – he actually wants to be here! I should have been the one to get hurt. I wouldn’t be sad if I was sent home, but he actually wants to be here!”

We sat for another half an hour. Jen came to me and asked if I minded giving Ben the ace bandage. I said he could have it – what was I supposed to say? “No thank you, I’ll keep it for myself when my crew mate obviously needs it more than I do.”

I took off my boot and sock and unwrapped the ace bandage. I handed it to Jen who hurried back to Ben. I put my boot back on, tightening it as much as I could. I would need all the support my boot could offer, since I did not have the extra support from the bandage. It was almost comical how much I was able to tighten my laces, because the bandage had been so thick. 🙂

I sat there, trying not to worry about my ankle. I felt bad worrying about my ankle when I knew that Ben’s hurt so much more, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I stood up to make sure the boot was back on comfortably and walked around a bit. I did not know what to do – we couldn’t go on without Ben, and he was not going to be moving yet! I sat down on my pack to wait some more. There was another hiker coming up the trail, so I called out “Hiker!” and tried to scoot my pack back some more. It was an old man with his dog, and all of the dogs that had come so far had been scared to death of us.

I mean, they would not go past us. They would plunge straight up the hill from further down the trail to avoid the switchback that we were all sitting in. Most of the people tried to get the dogs to come past us, but over half of them decided to go up the hill. 🙂 We all felt so sorry for the dogs and did our best, but something about us and our packs made them too scared to come past.

So I pushed my pack off the trail and stood up. The girls around me were doing the same thing – our plan was to give the dog as much of the trail as possible so that he might actually go past us.

The old man came up and he was apparently in a talkative mood.

“Are you having a good hike?”

We told him that yes, we were having a good hike.

“Well God bless y’all! Are you having a good break?”

We explained that one of our crew had gotten hurt so we were waiting here for instructions.

“Well, Lord have mercy! Is he ok? Do you need help? Does one of you have a cell phone?”

We told him that our instructor had called for help, we were just waiting to hear what we were supposed to do.

One of the girls asked what the dogs name was. “It’s Grits. C’mon Grits, c’mon girl!” The dog came right up to us and let us pet her before heading up the trail. The old man followed, with another God Bless for us. We saw him stop further up the trail to talk to Ben and Katie before turning the corner of the switchback.

The girls were all talking about how sweet that dog was, and how awesome it was that she had passed us. I pulled out my journal and wrote.

“Ben just did something to his ankle. I don’t know what is going to happen right now. “

Just as I finished writing that sentence, we were told that we were going to have to get him down the mountain. We had to split up Ben’s pack – he was not going to be able to carry it, so we were going to have to. We were told to split up Bobby’s and Luke’s too – they were going to help Ben down the mountain.

I started opening my pack, freaking out the whole time. Not only was I not going to have the ace bandage, I was going to have to take extra weight too!

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*

To read part four of day four, click here.

Yes, a group of teenagers were walking down the mountain singing Wheels on the Bus. And when we were done with that we moved on to the clean up song, the Mr. Sun song, and the I Love You song from Barney, the clue song from Blue’s Clues, and other songs from kids shows we watched when we were little. Then we started talking about who had loved what show, who thought that movie was stupid, etc.

If we saw hikers coming we would stop singing, but half the time we could not see them until they were directly in front of us. Those of us in the front would stop singing, sheepish grins on our face while the back kept singing. Then we would stop walking to let the hikers pass, and they would stop singing to ask why we were taking a break. I wish I had seen their faces when they saw the people coming up the trail. 😀

When we ran out of kids songs, we moved onto Christmas songs. Marching down the trail singing Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell Rock, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer…. This is the stuff that I want to remember forever. Ok, I want to remember all of it forever. But it’s the silly stuff like this that makes me happy. 🙂

We were moving so quickly! And I did not even realize it, because my ankle had stopped hurting so badly. We had moved back to country and pop music, and while I enjoyed singing along when I knew the words, I was glad for the breaks in between where I could catch my breath. I guess I was walking to the beat of the music though, because looking back I realize that I was moving faster when we were singing the pop songs. 😀

We had entered a series of switchbacks, with some “steps” where the trail curved. It was probably around 12:30, and we were all starting to get hungry. We were keeping an eye out for a place to eat lunch, but we had to get to the bottom of the switchbacks before there was even a chance of a good place.

I was just at the steps where the trail turned again when I heard someone in the back shout “Red Light!” I was glad to stop and immediately sat down. Everyone behind me sat down too – we were all tired. We still had two and a half miles to go, and we were already tired. Did I mention that we should have been almost at the bottom of the mountain by then?

5 minutes stretched to 10 and I was ready to go again. I yelled back to see if anyone was not ready. Someone yelled back that they were NOT ready, do NOT leave. I shrugged and asked who had “snack”. Jordan said that she had the banana split, and everyone cheered. Bowls appeared in a matter of minutes, and soon we were splitting it up as evenly as we could. Someone in the back came forward with Ben’s bowl, and I asked why Ben was not over here. I was told that he had hurt his ankle, so Jen and Katie were checking on it. I sighed – another ankle. I hoped that I would not have to give up the ace bandage – my ankle was going to hurt without the support of the bandage.

Our snack over, we waited some more. We talked and sang, said hello to the hikers that passed and waited even more.

After we had been sitting there for a half an hour, I went up to see what was happening with Ben. He was lying on the ground, clearly in pain, with Katie sitting down by his feet. When I asked where Jen was, she said she had gone further up the mountain to try and get some signal so she could call for help.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*

To read part three of day four, click here.

Oh, the rocks. I am going to remember those rocks for the rest of my life. The rocks from day four. A day that I will never forget, because of both the rocks and the thing that happened later that afternoon. (You have to wait to hear about that… :D)

It took us almost an hour to get to Shanty Springs. Luke was not that far behind me, and he kept asking me if we had passed the bad part, or if this was the bad part. It was never the bad part. He finally gave up guessing, just in time for the bad part to come. 😀

We took a break at Shanty Springs to decide which way we were going. I thought it was obvious, but I was too out of breath to talk and tell them that. 🙂 They spent awhile arguing about which way, when they should not have been arguing because really all they were arguing about was the reason that the same trail was the right trail. Not that I minded – I was just welcome for the break.

You know, I should have taken more breaks in those first couple of days. I realize now that I was just making it harder on myself. But I did not feel comfortable calling a red light for myself, especially if I was up in the front. Now, I was fine with calling a red light for someone else, but I hated calling one for myself. I don’t know why. In the end, it got to where I needed the breaks so badly that I called them anyway. I just wish I had been bold enough to call them in the beginning. It would have made it much easier on myself.

Once the rest of the crew had decided on the correct reason for the correct trail, it was time to move out again. The good feeling of that morning had pretty much disappeared, replaced by a weariness that I could not shake off. I don’t know what it was about hiking, but it made me want to just curl up in a ball and sleep for a week.

After about 20 minutes, the rocks got smaller, and smaller, and finally there was only the occasional rock in the trail. Then the trail started getting flatter, and flatter, until we were going almost completely flat!

A few minutes later, we got to see the face of Grandfather Mountain!

Can you see the face?

We stood around taking pictures for a while before we started hiking again. That was when the girls up front started singing. You should have heard us trying to figure out who knew what songs! The problem was, no one actually knew an entire song. So we would start singing and we would just hope that someone knew an entire verse, because if not we would just start mumbling. 😀

Well, I think the guys got tired of hearing Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, and other popular songs… They retaliated with “The Wheels On The Bus”.

Their plan backfired when we just started singing with them. LOL!

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*