Classic Courses

Are you ready to take a journey that will change your life? You won’t look at day-to-day drama the same way after you’ve conquered a high mountain ridge, made a boat obey your command in windswept waves or slept under the stars watching bats swoop overhead. Joining an Outward Bound expedition changes you. Your crew, your Instructor, your route and your adventures will have a profound and lasting impact on you as you rise to meet exhilarating natural challenges in some of the country’s wildest places.

• Build skills, form connections: Learn and practice wilderness, teamwork and leadership skills. Find connections with your crewmates based on support and respect (and fun too!), and in the thick of challenges, discover there is more in you than you know.
• Value strengths and strengthen values: Uncover your unique character strengths, develop your leadership abilities and learn how to let compassion in to everyday life by pushing your own limits and working alongside your peers.
• Demonstrate mastery: As you gain confidence in new skills, take on more decision-making responsibilities. Work together to achieve team goals, solve problems and succeed both as individuals and as a group.
• What you’ll learn: For High School students, the opportunities to carry more weight (literally and figuratively) and make impactful decisions with accompanying consequences fills the expedition as you go through numerous trials and triumphs. It’s all about independence.

After you come home, many of the character, leadership and service traits you uncovered on your expedition stay with you, helping you navigate your daily life with more resilience and success.

Solo

Students will engage in Solo, a period of solitude, as a way to take a break from the physical nature of the expedition and experience time for quiet self-reflection and introspection. Instructors set the tone for the Solo experience and help students prepare for this unique opportunity to spend time away from their crew and process their experiences on a more personal level. While on Solo, students will have food, drinking water, appropriate clothes, a tarp for shelter, sleeping bag, journal, as well as a whistle with which they may alert their instructors in the unlikely event of an emergency. Instructors also conduct periodic check-ins with each student. For many students, Solo is the highlight of their expedition. It allows students to take a deeper dive into their thoughts and consider how they may apply the lessons from course to their daily lives.

Outcomes

Pennsylvania remains one of the most forested states in the nation.  It includes some of the most intact and bountiful hardwood forest lands in the temperate world as well as being second only to Alaska in navigable waterways in the United States. The Appalachians, which includes the Alleghany, Blue, Blue Ridge, and Pocono Mountains, are some of the oldest mountains in the world. The range is mostly located in the United States, but extends into southeastern Canada as well.  This course takes place in the south central region of Pennsylvania, passing through multiple state forest and park lands including Michaux State forest and Pine Grove State Park. The City of Philadelphia is rich in history, culture, and green space hosting the largest maintained city park in the country (over 10,000 acres). Students and their crew will have a chance to experience some of Philadelphia’s most beautiful places and meet some of its greatest people.

Course Area

The Appalachians, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania remains one of the most forested states in the nation. It includes some of the most intact and bountiful hardwood forest lands in the temperate world as well as being second only to Alaska in navigable waterways in the United States. The Appalachians, which includes the Alleghany, Blue, Blue Ridge, and Pocono Mountains, are some of the oldest mountains in the world. The range is mostly located in the United States, but extends into southeastern Canada as well. This course takes place in the south central region of Pennsylvania passing through multiple state forest and park lands including Michaux State Forest and Pine Grove State Park. The City of Philadelphia is rich in history, culture, and green space hosting the largest maintained city park in the country (over 10,000 acres).  Students and their crew will have a chance to experience some of Philadelphia’s most beautiful places and meet some of its greatest people.

These regions are the ancestral lands of the Lənape Haki-nk (Lenni-Lenape), Munsee Lenape and Susquehannock nations.