Alan Tindell - 3/18/09
When I was a teenager I had resolved that I would someday go on an Outward Bound expedition. It took 29 years before, at age 43, I finally was able to find the combination of time/money/fewer family responsibilities before I did it. In 2005 I went on a week-long OB rafting trip down Idaho's Salmon River on an adults-course. It was perhaps the most exciting, profound, emotional and life-changing thing I ever did.
It was also nearly the last thing I ever did. On the third day of the trip another rafter and I had a terrible crack-up on the worst rapids on the river, literally stranding us on a rock. With the help of one of the guides and the teamwork of everyone on the expedition, and after a lot of brain-storming and risk-taking, we freed the raft but we had to swim the Class IV rapids to get out. Quite honestly, I came closer to getting killed in that raft-wreck than I ever came before or since in my lifetime.
But don't let that type of experience dissuade you from experiencing Outward Bound. In fact, it was the most powerful moment of the entire course. A group of people who were strangers to each other just two days earlier were caught up in a crisis where the lives of two of the people were at risk. The Outward Bound principles of teamwork, perseverence, creative thinking and courage saved the day and everyone escaped unscathed but not unchanged.
After 29 years of waiting to go Outward Bound I didn't think any trip could live up to the expectations I'd set for it over all those years. I was wrong. My Outward Bound trip was fulfilling on every level. As exciting as the tests on the river were, perhaps the most profound and exciting moments were the intense group discussions we had every night, facilitated by our two outstanding guides. A group of people who had first been strangers were bonding more every day and sharing things about their lives that they probably hadn't shared even with their spouses and family members. When it was finished and we were in the van ready for the trip back to civilization, I was literally in tears.
I can't promise you that you'll have an Outward Bound experience like I did. But you could. And you should do it.
