To read part five of day nine, click here.

Sooner or later they decided that they were going to send a team of “scouts” down one of the trails. There was supposed to be a creek – if there wasn’t, they would know that they were on the wrong trail.

A bunch of the boys decided to go. Bruce went with them so they would have a watch – Jen said that if they weren’t back in fifteen minutes, we would have to come after them, and she wouldn’t be happy.

While they were gone, we decided to see who could do the best headstands. Jen, Tullia and I were all upside down when the guys got back.

Bruce laughing at me while I was doing my headstand

When he was done laughing at us, Bruce told us “That’s not the right trail. There’s no creek.”

Katie nodded. “So you know which way to go?”

Luke pointed down the trail to the left. “Yep, we go that way.”

Everyone pulled their packs on – no one was ready to leave, but we knew that we needed to.

“Hey, guys! I just thought of something. We’ll pretend that we’re in Lord Of The Rings. I’ll be Legolas.” Luke picked up two rocks as he spoke, tapping them together to mimic a horse. “Bruce can be Gandalf, since he has the Gandalf stick, and you guys can pick who you want to be.”

“I’m Gandalf? Fine. Everyone stay away from my staff.”

“I’ll be Aragorn.”

“If you’re Aragorn, does that make me Gimli?”

“Nah, you can be Sam or Frodo. Or we could make Brett be one of the Hobbits…”

I was not being a Hobbit. If anything, I was going to be one of the girls.

“You’re crazy, the whole lot of you. But if I’m in this, I’m not being one of the Hobbits. I’ll be Eowyn. Jordan can be Arwen, if you want the hair to look kinda the same, and Tullia can be Galadriel.”

I don’t remember who ended up being who in the end. I just remember cracking up as I watched the boys going down the trail, pretending they were riding horses.

“Wow. They’re actually crazy enough to do that with, I don’t know, sixty to seventy pound packs on their back??”

We all laughed even more when Rebecca said that, too tired to care that it wasn’t that funny. We started hiking down the trail after the guys, knowing that they would slow down eventually.

The trail evened out, actually going a bit downhill. I was impressed with the time we were making, and I wasn’t having to stop all the time! The first stop of that leg wasn’t even me – someone had to go to the bathroom. I can’t tell you how happy I was then – someone else had called a break! LOL

Click here to read the next part of Day Nine.

*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.*