To read part one of day eight, click here.

It felt good to be hiking through the woods again. Yeah, my calves didn’t like it. But it was great to be with my crew, in the cool (ok, cold) morning air.

We got back to the van and started getting breakfast ready. I helped where I could, but whoever had cook duty that day was doing fine without me.

I sat down and talked with some of the guys. We talked about our favorite parts of the river, (mine was being done with it) and we wondered what we would be doing that day. All we had been told was “service”, and we had no idea what that meant.

While we were talking, a pickup truck pulled in next to the van. A guy stuck his head out of the truck, looking at Jen.

“Hey, are you guys ready to come up yet?”

“We got a late start. Is it ok with you if we eat breakfast before coming up there?”

The guy laughed, nodding his head. “That’s fine. Come on up when you’re done – Hanni and I will be waiting for you.”

The truck pulled through the gate and Jen spun around to face us. “You heard Jamie – they will be waiting for us. I don’t want them to have to wait any longer than necessary, so let’s hurry up.”

I grabbed my bowl and went to sit in the circle near the cooks. The oatmeal was done, and we needed to eat quickly!

After eating breakfast we put everything away as quickly as we could. Then we were told to take our “stuff sacks” that held our clothes, empty the clothes out into our backpacks, and fill the stuff sacks with a couple of things. We needed our eating utensils, both water bottles, and a sweater if we wanted one.

There was a pile of other stuff that also needed to be carried. Someone grabbed the poop bag, someone else grabbed lunch, and a couple of the guys grabbed baby seals. We started off, and I started wishing for my backpack after the first couple of feet. The straps on the stuff sack were so uncomfortable! They dug into my shoulders, and the weight wasn’t distributed evenly.

But there was no way to make it any better, so I said nothing about it as we headed up the trail.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eight.

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