To read part twelve of day eleven, click here.

About a half an hour later, we ran into a problem.

“Jen and Katie? I can’t find where the trail goes. It just stops!”

The crew stood to the side so Katie could come up from the back and show us which way to go. The trail literally disappeared – we were surrounded by rhododendron.

“Look, it goes through here. See it?”

Since I was in the back, I couldn’t see it. But whoever was up in the front could apparently see it, so we started off again.

Less than a minute later, I was marching straight into the rhododendron. I couldn’t see a trail at all, and I just prayed that whoever was leading the line knew where they were going.

Katie called out “Enjoy your first bush push, guys!”. I just laugh thinking about this now. I should have known better. I thought it would be pretty easy, and it wouldn’t take long.

I learned how to cope with a Bush Push pretty quickly. If I kept my nose about an inch away from Bruce’s backpack, I didn’t get hit with anything. All the rhododendron hit him and then bounced back in time to hit my pack. I didn’t have to do anything to shield my face.

There were a couple of problems with it though. If Bruce stopped, my face would bump into his pack. And if I got just a little bit behind him, all the branches that he pushed out of the way would hit me in the face. But still, it worked pretty well.

Our “Bush Push”

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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.*