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Appalachian Mountains Backpacking & Whitewater Canoeing - Youth Ventures
With careful guidance and direction from instructors, you and your crewmates experience the freedom and accountability of making decisions for yourselves while backpacking through the rugged terrain of the Appalachians and paddling sometimes tricky whitewater. You’ll conduct a backcountry expedition into national forests where wildflowers and ferns grow in the shade of towering pines and hardwoods. You’ll acquire skills for whitewater canoeing including paddle strokes and scouting rapids then apply the communication and teamwork you've been developing to negotiate a tandem canoe through turbulent rapids with names like “Rollercoaster” and “Eye of the Needle.” At the end, you’ll take lasting memories and skills you’ll use way beyond the wilderness. The Southern Appalachians (which includes the Blue Ridge & Great Smoky mountain ranges) are some of the oldest mountains in the world. The lush, dense forests feature an incredible biodiversity of flora and fauna. Our courses here foster an appreciation of nature and environmental stewardship and often include an environmental service project. Creeks, streams and rivers criss-cross the region and cascade into waterfalls and whitewater rapids that offer challenging runs for all skill levels.

The Outward Bound Difference…On this course run by North Carolina Outward Bound School, students develop leadership, independence, decision-making and responsibility. Through challenge and adventure, you discover you are capable of more than you thought possible.

You’ll develop teamwork while working together to find your way through rhododendron thickets, set up camp, cook your own meals over a camp stove and learn Leave No Trace techniques to minimize your impact on the land. You will also participate in a service project to give back to the community or the land. And solo is a time for reflection and rest at an individual campsite.

Youth Ventures courses encourage you to embrace the new challenges and discoveries of living in the wilderness. Experienced instructors teach you wilderness skills and provide guidance while also allowing you and your crew to feel accomplishment, to make your own decisions and to grow as an individual.

Successful completion of your course demands mastery of skills, trust, fitness, confidence, tenacity, leadership, initiative and compassion. No experience is necessary. You’ll leave course with newfound strength that can help you through everyday situations as well as the unknown challenges to come.