Larry Conlan - 8/12/08
I was working in social services and searching for a new challenge in my life when I heard from a co-worker about the adventure-based school called Outward Bound. I contacted them, received a catalog, signed up for a course and immediately hiked to the nearest sporting goods store so I could “look the part” when I showed up in North Carolina. I also started to pick up the pace in my workout schedule so I could meet the physical challenge that the course required. After becoming fashionable and fit, I paid the tuition and looked forward to the starting date.
I soon learned that the latest style in expensive hiking gear was no match for an oversized, cheap, banana-yellow raincoat your mom sent you off to first grade in, and the Navy Seals would have had a hard time prepping me for what came next!
I never knew the abilities that were hiding inside me! I never knew I could start climbing mountains at 11 PM! I never knew I could do without coffee, alarm clocks, and more than four hours of sleep!
Outward Bound pushes you to the limit of what you think you can do, and then goes a little bit further. I hit my “little bit further” on the fifth day. We crossed a river in the morning, bush-whacked off-trail till dark, and decided to climb a mountain, around 11PM. Now climbing a mountain with flashlights in the wee hours of the night did not sound like the brightest idea to me, and I voiced my opinion during the “circle” conference, where all decisions are made by the group as a whole. Yet, our instructors were encouraging that, as a group, we are “Outward Bound” and we could accept this challenge and see it through. I argued again that it was too dangerous to try to do this in the middle of the night after all we had accomplished that day. But again the instructors stressed that “ We are Outward Bound” and “ We can to do this Tonight !”
To solidify the group decision, we held a vote, democracy ruled and I lost! Being the square peg in the circle, and the lone vote against going any farther, I retreated to my backpack and sat down exhausted and dejected.
Our instructor Mark came over and sat down next to me and asked me how I was feeling. I told him I was beat, spent, and it was “game over” for me. I did not think I could crawl one more meter. He leaned over and turned his back to the other hikers, so as they could not see, and took out what looked like white tablets out of his top pocket. In a quiet voice, he encouraged me to take these and I would feel better. I hesitated. Here was a person I had come to trust. Our common experience over the past week had cemented this trust. I was about to say, “No thanks,” when I noticed that those white tablets were nothing more than yogurt-covered raisins! It was the lift I needed! This is what Outward Bound was all about! I munched on the raisins and in less than ten minutes was leading the pack. We reached the summit around 2 AM and, exhausted, my head hit my un-opened backpack and I drifted to sleep. The last thing I remembered was Mark saying something about being prepared to leave in the event of lightning, as thunder rolled in the valley below.
When they woke us at 5 AM, they gave us a few minutes to take in the view from the summit before we headed back down. A heavy quiet settled over me as the sunrise lit the fog rising in the valley below. Mama Nature was putting on a show! Out here, in the middle of nowhere, I belonged! I did matter, if to heaven only! This was my moment. I climbed a mountain! Maybe not quite as high as Everest and nowhere near the shadow of K-2, but it was My Mountain, the one I had to climb.
Search Stories
