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.*