With granite domes, alpine lakes and starry skies as your backdrop, you’ll hike in the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range on this alpine backpacking course.
The length of this course, together with its single focus on backpacking, allows you to travel longer distances and have additional opportunities to implement feedback from your Instructors and crew. You’ll learn technical skills like navigation and leadership alongside effective communication and conflict resolution.
NOTE: For the health and safety of students and staff in the COVID-19 pandemic, students may be required to travel to course start by private transportation. Please work directly with your Course Advisor for your course for the most up-to-date and regionally-focused travel options. All students and staff must provide a current negative COVID-19 viral test result before arrival to course and/or consent to having a COVID-19 test administered at course start. Outward Bound requires students and staff to follow COVID-19 protocols for 14 days prior to course start and while traveling including physical distancing, wearing a mask in public, and frequent and thorough handwashing. For complete “Health and Safety Practices for Outward Bound Expeditions,” click here.
This course starts within the next week. Please call us at 866-467-7651 to assess the possibility of applying for this course!
Adult Courses
Do you ever want to unplug, step away from the daily grind to take on new challenges? Are you ready to conquer harder skills and remind your senses (or discover for the first time) what it’s like to crest a mountain peak, hear the echoes at the edge of a vast canyon or feel the rush of white water spray on your face? Take a break from your routine, radically change your surroundings and test your tenacity. Put some “firsts” in front of you and find moments of unexpected discovery along the way. Experience Outward Bound as an adult and prepare for an injection of adventure, awareness and adaptability that sticks with you long after you unpack your backpack.
Build skills, form connections: Meet like-minded peers and make connections as you work through priorities and adventures together, learn outdoor skills at the hands of expert Instructors, and earn every good night’s sleep.
Value strengths and strengthen values: Re-discover your inner strength, renew your natural leadership abilities and practice adapting to new environments. Tap in to your trust and compassion as you tackle obstacles with a support crew standing beside you.
Demonstrate mastery: As you awaken your wilderness skills and dig deep to rise to the physical and mental challenges, the bulk of the expedition’s leadership and decision-making responsibilities transfer from the Instructor to the crew. Work together to achieve team goals, solve problems and succeed both individually and together.
What you’ll learn: Watch, try and share more difficult outdoor skills that you’ll master on your expedition. Discover and then remind yourself that there’s more in you than you know. Having taken the risks, learned from and adapted to all sorts of new situations and environments, you’re ready for whatever life hands you going forward.
Return home with newly expanded wilderness abilities, an energized outlook, a rekindled allowance of empathy into situations and relationships and an eye toward the future.
Backpacking
This backpacking expedition will take students into the heart of the Sierra Nevada where students will learn Leave No Trace camping and travel skills, outdoor cooking techniques, map and compass use, route finding and how to set up shelters in the backcountry. Students will spend time hiking on and off-trail, both in forested areas and in the alpine environment above tree line, often camping next to alpine lakes where students can swim after a day of hiking.
In addition to technical skills, Instructors will teach and facilitate the interpersonal skills needed for students to function effectively as a team, accomplish goals and tackle new challenges. Challenges on course are designed to compel students to draw upon inner resources and develop trust in one another. An example of a challenge is a peak attempt. With lighter packs, participants will start before sunrise to summit a mountain and be rewarded with 360 degree views and an incredible sense of accomplishment.
As skills and experience increase, Instructors will turn over more responsibility to the crew. Students will eventually make navigation decisions, plan routes and set up camp on their own.
Service
Service to others and to the environment are core values of Outward Bound and they are integrated into each course. Participants follow Leave No Trace ethics as part of their service to the environment. Students develop an ingrained appreciation of service, seeing the impact of their actions, firsthand, by multiple small acts of service with and for their crewmates while leading and supporting each other throughout the journey.
Solo
Outward Bound believes, in order for profound learning to take place, there must be time to reflect on the experience. During course, the Solo is that opportunity. It is a chance to experience solitude in the wilderness without distraction while also taking a break from the physical rigors of course. Students are separated from their group for a period of time which depends on course length and Instructor assessment of group capability. Solo sites are chosen to provide solitude. Students have all necessary equipment, food and water. The maximum time for Solo on this course is 72 hours.
Outcomes
Outward Bound courses vary in length from four (4) to 85 days. On shorter courses, participants will receive an introduction to leadership skills, strength of character and a desire to serve while activities fill most of the time and the pace is quick. With longer courses, the same outcomes and benefits are achieved with the opportunity to reach a more profound level of mastery as there are more chances to develop technical skills, receive and implement feedback and further personal development. However many days the expedition lasts, the strength and impact of the experience lasts a lifetime.
Backpacking, rock climbing and wilderness navigation techniques are great practice for the essential skills and habits that help prepare for new challenges at school, work, home and in the community. Outward Bound expeditions encourage students:
to remain engaged and present, giving every challenge the best effort, even when the goal seems beyond reach.
to form a team and focus on the team effort.
to share responsibilities, communicate and lead. Leadership roles are shared within the group, and responsibilities rotate each day.
to find reserves of tenacity and compassion. Outward Bound courses are designed to expand and stretch your limits so that every expedition is a true accomplishment and a memorable journey.
Course Area
The Sierra Nevada range is California’s backyard and wonderland of wilderness, waterfalls, lakes and peaks. It’s an enormous range – spanning more than 400 miles from north to south and 70 miles east to west. Courses take place in the southern and western parts of the Sierra: Ansel Adams Wilderness, Yosemite National Park and Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park.
Summer in the Sierra is mostly sunny, with occasional rain and cold evenings. Snowfall is unlikely, though June courses may traverse atop lingering winter and spring snow. Summer temperatures tend towards the 70s and 80s during the day, dipping into the 30s to 50s in the evening and overnight. These regions are the ancestral lands of the Northern Paiute, Western Mono/Monache, Me-Wuk (Central Sierra Miwok), Eastern Mono/Monache, and Tübatulabal nations.
SAMPLE ITINERARY
22-Day
14-Day
DAY 1
Course start – review gear, meet and greet group/Instructors
DAY 2-6
Training backpacking expedition: Introduction to backpacking lessons; navigation and campcraft
DAY 7
Front country resupply of food and gear
DAY 8-13
Main backpacking expedition, peak attempt
DAY 14-15
Solo (may range from 12-72 hours)
DAY 16
Backcountry resupply; service project
DAY 17-19
Final backpacking expedition
DAY 20
Service project
DAY 23
Personal Challenge Event, clean and de-issue gear, graduation ceremony
DAY 22
Course end and transportation to the airport
DAY 1
Course start
DAY 2-6
Training backpacking expedition: Introduction to backpacking lessons; navigation and campcraft
DAY 7
Front country resupply of food and gear; service project
DAY 8-10
Main backpacking expedition, Solo
DAY 11-12
Final backpacking expedition
DAY 21
Personal Challenge Event, clean and de-issue gear, Graduation Ceremony
If you are ready to enroll on a course click the enroll button next to the course you wish to select or you can enroll over the phone by speaking with one of our Admissions Advisors (toll-free) at 866-467-7651.
To secure your spot on a course you must submit an enrollment form and $500 deposit that is applied toward the total cost of the course and includes a $150 non-refundable enrollment processing fee.