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.*

To read part two of day four, click here.

Katie laughed and tossed something into Sarah Margaret’s hands.

You would have thought she had just tossed a huge box of chocolate at her. We were all laughing, saying thank you, begging Sarah Margaret to hurry up and divide the treasure. Sarah Margaret took her time, opening the box, counting out the precious things inside, determining how many each person got. We all groaned when Jen said to make sure she and Katie got theirs too.

Finally, the treasure was passed around, and everyone held in their hands two and a half Swedish Fish. You know, those little red gummy fish? The ones that tasted ridiculously sweet after four (yes, only four) days with nothing sweet at all?

I popped the fish in my mouth and started chewing, only to remember that I had my retainers in. I chewed for a sec, trying to get the gummy off my retainers. But I guess I did not chew carefully enough, because my bottom retainer came off my teeth and I heard a crack coming from inside my mouth. I winced – that would not be good. I swallowed the fish and took my retainer out. The very back on one of the sides was cracked, but it was still holding it’s shape! There was nothing I could do about it, so I stuck it back in.

And really, I did not go nuts over the fish like most of the others. I really enjoyed them, but we don’t get much candy at home. So I was used to not having sweets. Apparently everyone else missed sugar a lot… Actually, I think a few of my crewmates did not like Swedish Fish. I don’t remember who it was, but I think that is why we each got a half.

Once we were done with the fish, we stood around for a minute. I did not know what was happening. I knew we should get on the road, but I did not want to make Sarah Margaret (and Jordan? I think that’s who was on LOD that day…) feel bad because I was doing their job.

That’s when I saw Jen talking to Sarah Margaret, and I knew we would be leaving soon.

“Ok crew, lets get our packs on! C’mon guys, we’ve got to get down this mountain! We have to meet our van at 1 o clock – they will be at the bottom of the mountain to take us to where we will get our canoes.”

I stood up reluctantly, pulling my pack on. I did not want to go, but I knew that we had to get started. I did not want to be late, and I knew that the hike would take a while with my ankle.

Someone insisted that I be put in front, so since I was in the back of the group I had to walk up to the front. I always felt awkward doing that. I don’t know why, but that’s what happened every time. I would be in the back, someone would say “Get Brett in the front – she is the slowest, she needs to be in the front” and I would have to walk up from the back, feeling awkward about it the entire way. And then I would get up in the front and I would feel so much pressure, feeling like I had to go faster so the crew would not be disappointed in me. And then I would get burned out, and that was NO fun.

I started hiking, knowing that they would all catch up to me. I was told to “yellow light it”, which just meant slow down. I was fine with slowing down – it meant more energy for later. I guess the crew was all up fairly quickly, because in about 20 seconds I head “Green light!” yelled from somewhere way behind me. I assumed that was the back of the line talking, so I started walking faster.

Since Jen had said while we were on that water run that we would be walking that way in the morning, I already knew which way to go. I turned right out of the campsite and we got to the intersection fairly quickly. I could hear Jordan and Maggie extolling the virtues of the trail we would be taking behind me and smiled grimly to myself. I knew that no matter what anyone else said, this next section would be no fun for me. It had not been very fun the night before, and with a pack it would be even worse. Plus, my ankle had started to hurt again. I was really scared that I was going to twist it going down those rocks again. The one bonus was that we were not going to have to climb back up them!

We were making pretty good speed on the easy parts. I was doing that on purpose – I wanted to get as far as I could as quickly as I could, before we hit the rocks. I did not want to take our time on the easy stuff and have it take forever on the rocks.

So we were going pretty fast. And then we hit the rocks.

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 one of day four, click here.

I looked around at my crewmates, waiting for someone to say something about my suggestion. They looked like they were thinking about it, so I did not say anything. Then someone said they thought it was a good suggestion, and it was put in the crew agreement. 🙂

After everyone had said what they thought should be in the crew agreement, we packed up our stuff and left. We had to get back by that narrow trail we had come by, so that was nerve wracking. At least this time my bad foot was on the inside, towards the mountain.

We had to get back and pack while the people on bear hang got the food down. I was cook, so I did not have much time. But I did not have that much to do – I had done most of it while the girls were waking up. So I went, put my journal away, gathered my pens back, grabbed my eating materials, (bowl, spoon, water, and mat) and headed back to the kitchen.

I was feeling pretty good that morning! While it was weird not hearing my crew and not being able to talk or sing, it had been beautiful where we had sat. I had gotten a relatively good nights sleep, so that was nice. I had not gotten enough sleep, (we never got enough sleep) but compared to the nights I had been having, it had been a fair amount.

I got up to the kitchen and set my mat down where Luke and Rebecca had put theirs the night before. Luke was my partner again today, and I was glad for that. For one, it looked like he knew what he was doing when he was cook yesterday. And he was fun to work with, and he could make me laugh. 🙂 Laughing is always a good thing.

I went over to where Luke was with the fuel and the stoves. We had to fill them up and then bring them to where we were actually cooking. When we had brought them over, Luke asked if he could sit on my mat. I told him that was fine, and asked him what to do next. He showed me how to light the stoves, which I thought was really cool. You dipped the pot grips in the fuel, and then lit the pot grips on fire. Once the pot grips were on fire, you dipped them in each stove so the fuel in each stove caught fire. Everyone thought that was really cool. 😀

We were having oatmeal for breakfast! Oatmeal with brown sugar, a little bit of leftover honey from lunch the day before, and raisins if you wanted them.

Only a couple of people wanted the raisins. I remember how Bruce’s eyes lit up when he heard there were raisins. Apparently he loved raisins! I say loved, because after all the raisins we gave him (from the trail mix) he is going to be sick of them for a long time. Ok, maybe not. I know he did start saying no to them after about day 9… LOL

As soon as the Oatmeal was ready, we started passing the bowls. Luke would give them a scoop of the thicker oatmeal from his pot, and I would give them a scoop of the thinner oatmeal from my pot. The brown sugar and honey were already in there, and I sent the raisins around the circle once we were done passing the oatmeal. Bruce took probably a third of the raisins, but no one cared. The rest of us did not really like raisins, and we did not want to have to carry them so we were happy for him to eat as many as he wanted. 😀

Once my bowl was cleaned out, (the water did not taste too bad that morning…) I went to pack up my stuff. I asked Bruce and Luke if they were carrying my stuff again, or if I was. Bruce said I could carry the tarp, since he did not know where he would put it, but Luke said he would keep the repair kit. I was glad for that – the repair kit was pretty heavy, and any weight that other people could take would just help me go faster.

I was called over to Jen’s platform. It was time to check on my ankle, since the first aid kit was out! I prayed that it would look better, but it was definitely not feeling better…

I headed over to the platform where Jen and Tullia were waiting (Tullia was being the doctor’s assistant). They looked at my ankle, decided it was even more swollen, and wrapped it up again. We took a look at the hot spots (possible blisters) that had been treated on day two, decided that they were still pretty red, and treated them again. Jen left for a minute, and that was when Kayce came over with a huge blister the size of a penny on the back of his heel. He asked me if I knew how to treat blisters and I told him that I had seen Jen treat mine…

I took those horrible shears that they have in the first aid kit and tried to cut the moleskin, but ended up just butchering it. That was when Jen came back and I willingly gave up those awful shears and the butchered moleskin. 😀

I put my boots back on and went to finish packing. Jen called out that if we were ready to go in a certain amount of time, (don’t remember how much it was…) we would get a treat. We were all standing in a circle, packs at our sides, with two minutes to spare.

Katie came over with her hands behind her back. The anticipation was building rapidly, and I could see some people nervously chewing on their lips, staring at Katie with a questioning look in their eyes.

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 twelve of day three, click here.

I woke up that morning and shook Maggie awake. Jen had told us the night before that we were going to get up, wake everyone up without talking, and take a walk. We had to bring our journals and pens.

Once I was sure Maggie was awake, I pulled my hiking boots on and looked at the ground carefully to make sure there were no snakes before jumping off the platform. *shudders just thinking about it*

All around me the girls were waking each other up, shaking, poking, anything to get the other girls awake. I pulled out my fleece, since it was cold, got my journal and a pen and closed up my brain. Maggie came over and “asked” me if I had a pen.

It took me a minute to understand what she was saying with her hands, (it looked like she was doing a cool flourish of some sorts), but then I figured it out. I pulled my two extra pens out of my pack, gave one to Maggie and did a little wave/dance/jump up and down thing to get peoples attention, and “asked” if anyone needed a pen. Someone took it and I closed my brain up again.

We all went up to the main clearing where the guys, Jen, Katie, and Tullia were standing. We did this awkward “wave good morning to everyone” thing, mouthing good morning and asking how people slept. It was really awkward, and I was glad when we started walking. I was really glad I had worn my boots instead of my sports sandals – it was more support for my ankle, and I needed the support! It was really starting to hurt again. I wished I had my trekking pole. But it was back in camp, and I could not go back and get it.

We kept walking. We were on this narrow trail that curved around the mountain now, and it was making me a little nervous. Then the trail widened, and we were at a dead end. But what a dead end! There were these rocks that we could sit on, overlooking a valley. But the only way you could tell it was a valley was because of how far down the tree tops were. Because you could only see an occasional tree top because of the mist. The mist that was literally rolling over the mountains in front of us.

We sat down and Jen told us that we were going to write about where we wanted our crew to be in the end. What we wanted our team relationship to look like.

I thought about it for a minute. So far on my course I had just been thinking about what I could do to get through what was happening at that very moment. So it took quite a lot of thought to get what I wanted us to look like in the end.

“I want us to be a strong crew, a less foul crew. I don’t want to hear any more war stories, and I want to hear more about everyone personally. I want us to be a strong team, able to rely on each other. I want to form bonds that will last a lifetime, no matter what anyone else says. I pray that at the end of this course, we will all know each other well, and we all get along together. ” *This is actually what I wrote in my journal*

I finished writing and looked around. Everyone else was still writing, so I started just writing down my thoughts.

“We are sitting on a cliff literally watching the mist come rolling over the hills. We reached the summit yesterday, and words can’t describe how amazing that was. We are starting to get along better, and some of us now have nicknames. At least, Bobby and I do. For him, it is just a different way of pronouncing his name. Me? I get Dora! Because I am small, wear a purple shirt, and have a backpack as big as me!!”

I looked around and everyone had finished writing. I put my pen down as Jen pulled out the crew journal. She asked everyone to come up with something to put in our crew agreement. Everyone had to think of a different thing, and we all had to agree on it before we would put it in. Jen asked who had good handwriting, and no one spoke for a minute. Then Tullia said she could do it, since no one else would. Everyone looked at each other and grinned – none of us wanted to see our handwriting in the crew journal. And Tullia did do a nice job…

You know, it was nice to hear someone from the crew talk after not hearing anyone other then Jen all morning. I found myself looking forward to hearing everyone’s voices again. I did not mind not being able to talk myself – I wanted to sing. I grinned at the thought, knowing that Jen and Katie would count that as talking.

I thought all of this while I was waiting for someone else to go first. I did not want to be the first one, but I already had mine – something about trust. I did not know how I was going to phrase it, but I knew it had to be about trust.

I was the third person to say theirs. I don’t remember exactly how I phrased it, but it was something like “We need to trust each other”.

There was nothing. No one had anything to say about it like they had for the other suggestions. I started to wonder if it was not going to be put in the crew journal…

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.*