To read part five of day twelve, click here.

Well, Luke was right. After I tried to calm down and focused on my breathing, slowly it got better. I was able to stop the tears, and I started to get enough oxygen again.

“Are you ready, Brett?”

I looked over at Luke as he stood up and held out a hand.

“Ready? Nope. But I’ll never be ready, so we might as well go now.”

I grabbed the hand he offered and with his help got to my feet. I let go as soon as I saw the look of pain on his face. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that he was hurt and I’d let him help me up.

“How’s your back?”

He grimaced as he adjusted his pack.

“It’s not doing too well. But it’s the best it’s going to be right now, so let’s go.”

The trail just kept going up, and up, and up. It seemed like it would never end. No matter how far I could see, there was always more trail.

Behind me, I could hear my crewmates grumbling every time we had to take a break. Part of me knew that they needed the breaks too, that they were just complaining because it was so difficult. But I was still really upset that they were complaining. A lot of it was coming from one or two of my crewmates, and I knew they didn’t really mean it when they were complaining about the breaks. But it still hurt.

As I was climbing up that hill, I saw a little level spot up ahead. I couldn’t believe it! Was it going to stay level for a little bit? It looked like the spot was big enough for us to all sit on level ground for a minute.

I decided that I was going to make it to the level spot without taking another break. Twenty seconds later, I found myself sitting down, unable to breathe again. So much for not taking a break!

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part four of day twelve, click here.

It went on like that for over an hour. It was unbelievably steep, and I was barely able to do it. Some people don’t believe me when I say it was five minutes between breaks. It was literally five minutes between breaks. It was that steep, and I had so much weight in my pack, and I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen, and my legs weren’t coping.

After an hour of that, I was done. I started crying as I was walking up a particularly steep spot, unable to stop myself. I was so tired of being the weakest one. The fact that I was slowing everyone down so much was driving me batty.

Not only was I crying, but I was starting to panic as I couldn’t get enough oxygen.

“Hey, red light, guys.”

Luke, who was behind me, called a break and sat down on the trail.

“Brett, sit down, get your breath back.”

I started babbling. “I can’t do this, Luke. It’s too much. I can’t breathe, and my legs hurt, and I can’t do this. I can’t”

Luke cut me off. “Stop talking. Breathe. Just breathe. Stop trying to talk. I know you’re having trouble – I am too. But we have to get to camp tonight. It’s going to be tough, but you’ll make it. We’ll all make it. Just stop, and breathe.”

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re not getting enough oxygen? It’s really scary. You try to take deep breaths, but it’s not doing anything. And that makes you panic more, which makes it even harder to breathe. Someone else telling you to breathe doesn’t really help the panic. In my case, it almost made it worse. I was glad that he cared and was trying to help, but it wasn’t helping.

“I can’t breathe, Luke! I’m trying and I can’t get enough air in my lungs. I’m trying.”

“Brett. Stop. Just stop talking. It will get easier to breathe after a minute, I promise. But you’ve got to stop talking.”

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part three of day twelve, click here.

I stood up, not quite ready to go again, but unwilling to hear any more whispering. I was going to do all I could, and they were going to have to deal with it.

I was upset that they would talk about me like that. I had to keep reminding myself that they didn’t know me that well, they didn’t know that I was doing my best. And the ones who were doing the whispering were towards the back of the line and they couldn’t hear me breathing. They couldn’t hear me trying to get more oxygen in my lungs, because I wasn’t getting enough.

“Brett, you go up to the front of the line. Ok?”

I hated being at the front. But, sometimes it was the only way to survive. I climbed up to the front of the line, ready for another break as soon as I reached the front. But I couldn’t quit so soon. I kept going for almost five minutes, pulling myself up the mountain with my arms at times. But after five minutes, I couldn’t keep going. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and I was starting to get dizzy.

“Red light.”

I managed to get the words out as I stumbled forward a couple more steps. There was a log there that I could sit on. Luke, who had been walking behind me, came to sit next to me.

“Are you ok, Brett?”

I wanted to start screaming at him. No, I was not ok! After following me up that hill, after listening to me breathe, did he really think there was even a chance that I was ok?

When I tried to answer him, I couldn’t talk. I don’t know how I managed to say “red light” before. I gave him a thumbs up and he nodded his head.

“I know you’re not doing great. But you’ll make it, you’ll see. We’ll all make it, and we’ll be to our campsite before you know it.

I was able to talk now. I was still having trouble breathing, but I could talk.

“Really?”

“Yeah, we will.”

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part two of day twelve, click here.

I gulped as I remembered the numbers on our navigation plan. We were going to go up almost five thousand feet that day, and all in a relatively short distance.

“So, are you ready?”

Luke grinned at me and started hiking. I got into the middle of the pack, knowing that I would be put up in the front soon but not wanting to start out there.

Within minutes we were on one of the steepest slopes we had seen on the whole trip. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before my legs needed to take a break, and I needed to get my breath back.

“Red light!”

I sat down on the side of the trail, breathing hard and rubbing my calves. I felt miserable. Not only was I unable to breathe and my calves were hurting, but I was delaying the crew. I was making it harder on everyone. And it was going to be like this for most of the day.

I could hear whispering from behind me and from the sound of it, it wasn’t going to be a good day. We had barely started and things were already tough. And once I started thinking about it, this wasn’t even the hardest part. There were several other parts of the navigation plan that had looked harder than this.

There was no way I was going to be able to do this. Some of the crew was already talking about me, and we hadn’t even been hiking for five minutes. Literally.

“She’s already having to take a break? We barely started!”

“Give her a break, she’s the smallest. We can’t expect her to do everything we do.”

“But we just started! What if she’s doing this all day?!?”

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part one of day twelve, click here.

As soon as I got to the kitchen I realized why it hadn’t taken them long to make it. We were having granola for breakfast! I grinned as I sat down in the same spot I had the night before – I loved the granola! It was some of the best granola I’d ever had.

There was just one problem. With the way everyone loved the granola, (and my new appetite) there wasn’t enough.

“So… who wants to break out Snack?”

We decided that we would wait on eating Snack. We didn’t want to overdo it and not have enough for later. Everyone headed back to camp as soon as they were done eating, hurrying to pack their things so that we could get going.

Jen came up to me and Luke.

“There’s a note waiting for you next to that tree. Please read it out loud to the crew.”

Luke and I looked at each other and headed over to the tree. There was a piece of paper sitting on the ground with the maps and crew journal, and it was covered in writing.

Today is our last day of hiking as a crew. It is also your first day of Finals. We will be following you at a distance, able to see you, and to be there if you have any problems. We will not be helping you with navigation. Luke and Brett have the plan, and you need to get yourselves to camp tonight. We will help with dinner tonight, and we will come sit near you for lunch. See you then! ~Jen and Katie

Jen and Katie wouldn’t be hiking with us? They said they would be within seeing distance, but I still felt uneasy about it.

I finished packing up my things just as everyone else finished. We were all ready to go, and I turned to Luke and asked him which way we were going. He had told me earlier, but I didn’t remember.

“Remember, we’ve got to go that way?”

He was pointing at the steep hill directly to my right.

“Oh shoot – I’d forgotten that.”

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part twenty of day eleven, click here.

When I woke up that morning it was 5:57. I don’t know how I remember that, but I do. I remember sitting there thinking that I had three more minutes, and that I should try to fall asleep again. And I remember deciding that would be stupid, because I wouldn’t wake up again.

So I sat up and put my boots on, rolling up my sleeping bag and stuffing it in the stuff sack.

“Hey, Tullia.” I shook her awake and she did the same for whoever was sleeping on the other side of her. I heard Bruce’s watch alarm go off across the camp so I peeked under the edge, looking for him so I could let him know I was awake. He looked out from under his tarp and I waved my hand at him before going back to getting ready for the day.

Because I had been on Self Care the day before, that meant that I was a Leader Of The Day (LOD). That meant I was going to have to help Luke navigate. Which was great because, I had done nothing with navigating the whole two weeks. So… I knew nothing about navigating. Normally when everyone was talking about which way to go, I was sitting there trying to get my breath back. Not looking at the map and talking about it like I was supposed to be doing.

I prayed that Luke and the rest of the crew would be able to get us to our campsite safely, since there was no way I was going to be able to do it.

Luke came out of his tarp ready to go.

“Ok, everyone. Cooks, you need to get started on cooking. If you’re on water, can you make sure the droms are full? And everyone else should be packing up the camp.”

There was a lot of grumbling at his announcement and I wondered what that was all about as I joined Luke near the tree in the middle of camp. Katie was going to watch us do the navigation, and I hoped I could get through it without sounding stupid.

It actually wasn’t that bad. I just agreed with Luke when I needed to, used the string to measure some things, and wrote in the notebook. It wasn’t hard, and it got me out of taking down the tarp. We weren’t done for a while, and when we were done, it was time to go eat. I had thought it would take them longer to make breakfast, but oh well.

Click here to read the next part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part nineteen of day eleven, click here.

I nodded my head and passed my bowl.

“You really want thirds? Ok then…”

My bowl came back around and I asked for the garlic and herbs again. Most of the crew was looking at me in surprise as I kept eating. I was on my third bowl – this was almost more food than I normally ate in a whole day!

Bobby looked in the pot again, scraping together what was left.

“Ok, there’s a tiny bit left. Does anyone want anymore? This was really good, and I don’t want it to go to waste.”

I finished my third bowl and considered it for a moment.

“I’ll have some more.”

Bobby looked at me like I had two heads.

“Brett, are you ok? You haven’t eaten this much the whole trip! You’re not going to overeat, are you? Are you sure you’re ok?”

I laughed as I passed my bowl.

“This is what I normally eat like. These past two weeks have been really weird for me.”

I finished that fourth bowl and knew I was done. That had been really good, and now I was ready for bed. We hung around the kitchen for a while with the clean up crew, but eventually we started wandering back to camp.

As soon as I had taken my boots off I crawled into my sleeping bag, exhausted. It had been a good day.

I had been ready to go when Katie came to get me, which was a good thing. And I had eventually come up with enough things for everyone during our “give and take”. Breakfast hadn’t been bad, even though we had to eat it in the rain. Lightning Drill was pretty awful, and so was hiking in the ducky suit. All the creeks we had to cross were pretty bad, but dinner had been amazing!

As always, the good outweighed the bad. I was getting towards the end of my trip and I was upset about that. I didn’t want to leave my friends. We only had two and a half days left with each other, and it wasn’t going to be enough.

Click here to read the first part of Day Twelve.

*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.*

To read part eighteen of day eleven, click here.

When I arrived at the kitchen I sat down on my mat and watched Tullia (and Bobby when he came back) cook dinner. People kept arriving and soon enough everyone was there, watching them cook. We were all hungry, and dinner smelled amazing! I was really excited – the last time we had eaten this meal, I hadn’t eaten any of it. We were having Alfredo, and this time I was hungry!

Whoever was on bear hang started tying the knots and getting the ropes ready. He was doing whatever could be done before dinner – it wouldn’t be light out by the time we were done, and it was a lot easier if we didn’t have to use headlamps.

Actually, everything on the trip was easier if we didn’t have to use headlamps. 😀

As soon as dinner was ready, we got into dinner circle. After Bobby read the quote and we had our moment of silence, everyone sat down quickly and started passing bowls. We were all hungry!

My alfredo got to me, which meant that everyone had theirs. I asked for the garlic powder and poured a generous amount on, passing it to the person next to me before stirring up my bowl. It smelled amazing! I took a bite and almost forgot to chew as I started wolfing down my food.

I hadn’t really eaten anything the whole trip. It had scared me. There were times where I didn’t even finish my serving, handing it off to Luke or Bobby. But not this night! I finished my bowl and was ready for seconds. Unfortunately, I had to wait a couple of minutes.

“So – who’s up for seconds?”

My hand shot into the air.

“Brett? You want seconds? Ok then, pass your bowl.”

A couple of the guys and I passed our bowls, asking for the garlic and herbs as soon as they got back to us. I finished off that bowl, still hungry.

Bobby looked into the pot. “We have enough for people to have thirds. Anyone want thirds?”

Kayce, Bruce and I raised our hands.

“Brett, you’re getting thirds?”

Everyone was looking at me funny and I grinned as I realized that they had only ever known the Brett who didn’t eat anything. They had never met normal me. 😀

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.*

To read part seventeen of day eleven, click here.

The field seemed to go on forever, but I knew we were going to eventually get to the other side. We were walking through a field of tall grass and I wondered if there were ticks. I shuddered as I thought about it but didn’t say anything to my crewmates – some of the girls had been freaking out at the idea of ticks a couple of days earlier.

By the time I was done thinking about ticks, we had reached the edge of the field. I looked around to see where we would setting up camp, and immediately picked out a spot that I thought would work for the girls tarp.

Tullia and Bobby were on dinner, so as soon as they were ready Jen took them over to where we were eating. I had no idea where it was, but I knew that they were going to need water. The crew members on water duty went to start filtering water, while everyone else got the tarps up. It was still light outside, which was good for us – putting up tarps in the dark was not fun.

We had gotten faster at putting the tarp up – it only took us about fifteen minutes this time. We all spread our things out, my stuff on the edge of the tarp. I was one of the only girls who didn’t mind the edge, so I just took it every night. I didn’t like getting wet when it rained, but being on the edge helped with my claustrophobia.

As soon as I was done laying out my things, I grabbed my food stuff and headed towards the kitchen. At least, I was walking towards where it was supposed to be. I had no idea where the kitchen was. But I had been told to walk back through the field and turn left when I reached the trail head.

I was walking along, wondering when I was going to get to the kitchen, when Bobby appeared. Apparently they had forgotten something at the campsite and he was on his way back to get it.

“Yeah, if you just keep walking you’ll get there in a minute. Do you see that big tree? It’s just on the other side of it.”

I thanked him and hurried on, glad to know where my destination was.

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.*

To read part sixteen of day eleven, click here.

Like always, as soon as everyone was done crossing the creek we moved out. An hour later, we were crossing another creek.

I’m not going to write about how I was freaking out. If you’ve been reading this for a while, you know exactly what was happening. If you haven’t, click that link up there that will take you to the post before this. 🙂

Luke helping me across the creek

This creek wasn’t as wide as the others we had crossed, which was really good. But it was pretty deep – in that picture it was over my knees, and it got deeper.

But I made it out just fine, and relatively quickly.

“Katie, are we almost there? I’m hungry!”

She looked at me with “the look” on her face. “How about you ask your crewmates? They’ve got the map, they should know where we are.”

I went over to Sarah Margaret.

“Sarah Margaret, do you know how much longer until we get to camp? Because I’m getting hungry, and if we’re close I won’t ask for a snack break.”

“You’re hungry? You’re not normally hungry. Um, lets go talk to the LOD and see where we’re at.”

It turned out, we were only a mile or so from camp. I decided that I didn’t need to eat for a while, and as soon as everyone was recovered from the creek. We moved out again.

That was probably one of the shortest miles of the trip. We were moving pretty quickly, and soon enough we came to the last creek before camp. It wasn’t even a real creek, since we could jump across it.

“Ok, camp is on the other side of this field. Take the trail to the left.”

We passed the instructions along from the back and the person in the front headed left. We were almost to our campsite!

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.*

To read part fifteen of day eleven, click here.

“All right, Brett, it’s your turn. Ready?”

I took a deep breath and muttered a prayer, stepping into the water.

“When you get to me, Brett, I’ll help you through this slippery spot. Then you’ll be fine until you get to Bruce, and he’ll help you to the edge.”

That was one of the longest speeches Kayce had made in a while! I started to look up at him, but looked down quickly as I slipped and my backpack started shifting on my back. I jerked to the side, moving it back where it belonged. Because our packs couldn’t be buckled while we were crossing rivers, they could shift easily. It made you lose your balance easily. And if you lost your balance, you slipped.

Kayce grabbed my arm when I was close enough and steadied me as I tried to walk on the rocks that were moving under my feet. It was very slow going, but I was making progress. And I wasn’t freaking out at the moment, which was a blessing. I was able to make decisions about what I was doing without worry clouding my judgment.

As soon as Kayce let go of me, I almost slipped. I managed to stay up though, and kept going. I was walking across the river, and I was doing well.

…I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

That line from “The Little Engine That Could” rang through my head, over and over. I was doing my best, and I was going to get across that river.

…I think I can, I think I can, I think

I was cut short as my foot slipped, the water now over my waist. It was at least a foot deeper, which made wading through the river a lot harder. But I was almost to Bruce, and after him, the bank was right there. I was going to be fine, and I was going to make it.

Bruce grabbed my arm when I was close enough and helped me over a slippery spot. A minute or two after that, Maggie was offering me a hand and pulling me up onto the bank. I thanked her and got out of the way before dropping my pack, wringing out my shirt and pants. They’re called “quick-dry”, but in my experience, they never dry as fast as you want them to.

I had made it through the creek! Unfortunately, we had at least one more to cross.

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.*

To read part fourteen of day eleven, click here.

I’m sure y’all know what happened next. I started freaking out. This was one of the wider ones we had crossed, and there were a lot of rocks. It looked really scary.

Jen and Katie took over, telling people what to do.

“Bruce, Kayce, and Luke, would you guys mind helping everyone across?” When they nodded, she assigned them their spots. “Kayce and Bruce, you are going to take off your packs and help people across. Luke, I want you to stand downstream of everyone to help anyone if they slip.”

I sat down on the stump that I was standing by and took as many deep breaths as I could.

“You ok, Brett?”

I looked up to see Ben looking down at me, concern on his face. I shook my head and mumbled “not really” under my breath. He didn’t say anything, he just sat next to me.

“C’mon, guys. Let’s get this over with.”

I rolled my eyes as I stood up and followed Tullia. She meant well, but I didn’t really want to do this. I wanted to run far, far away.

Bruce, Kayce and Luke ready to help us through the creek

I watched as Tullia went ahead of me, slipping once or twice but never losing her balance.

Bruce helping Tullia through a bad spot

I watched Ben go, not slipping at all. And then I knew that it was my turn.

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.*

To read part thirteen of day eleven, click here.

I think we were in our “bush push” for over thirty minutes, but it seemed like it was forever. It was really tiring pushing through the branches, and I wanted to be done with it. I was ready to strip out of my ducky suit too – it had stopped raining, but I couldn’t stop in the middle of the bush push to get out of my suit.

The suit was also making it harder on me. My ducky suit was too big for me, but it was the smallest size they had. The pants came at least four inches past my boot heel, with the overalls pulled up as far as I could get them. It was really making it hard to hike.

When we finally emerged from the rhododendron, I was bone tired, and I had to go to the bathroom really badly. We called a break and over half the crew dropped their packs and headed off in different directions.

Feeling much better, I headed back to my pack and sat down. I was really tired, and I welcomed the opportunity to sit down without having to call the break myself.

As I sat there listening to the sounds around me, I could hear a couple that I recognized. I recognized the sound of my crewmates talking. I recognized the sound of the birds chirping in the trees. And… I recognized the sound of rushing water.

Again? We were going to have to cross another creek? Really? I wiggled my toes around and felt how wet my boots still were. It wasn’t going to be worth it to change my boots. Normally I changed into my river crossing shoes, but since my boots were still so wet I’d just leave them on, save myself some trouble.

When everyone was back and had their packs on, we started off again. A couple of minutes later, we saw what I had heard.

We had to cross that??

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.*

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.*

To read part eleven of day eleven, click here.

As soon as everyone was done crossing the creek, we kept going. But the longer we kept going, the harder the going got.

“I need to take a break, Sarah Margaret. As soon as I reach that log I can sit on, I’m going to take a quick break.”

I needed to take a break desperately. The hill was getting steeper and steeper, and I couldn’t keep going. I was going to be lucky to make it to the log that was maybe 50 feet away.

“Red light, everyone.”

Sarah Margaret called the break, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to. After telling her that I needed to take a break, I started breathing really heavily. When I started breathing heavily like that, I wasn’t able to talk or do anything except keep walking to the spot I had picked. The second I reached that spot, I sat down until I could breath again.

I sat down and stared at the ground, taking as many deep breaths as I could. It usually took three to five minutes for me to get my breathing back to normal, so I could keep going.

“I said, RED LIGHT!”

I looked up as Sarah Margaret yelled really loudly, wondering who hadn’t stopped. Half of the crew was still hiking, and they had gotten pretty far ahead.

Someone had to go after them to get them to stop.

“Sorry, Sarah Margaret, we didn’t hear you.”

She wasn’t really buying it, but she didn’t push it.

“Ok. Brett needed to take a break to get her breath back. She should be ready to go soon.”

I stood up, my breathing almost back to normal.

“We can go now, I’ll be fine for a bit. It looks relatively level for the next section of the trail. Green light!”

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.*