Most College Savings Plans, including the 529 College Savings Plan, may be used to attend an Outward Bound expedition, thanks to a partnership with Western Colorado University. Anyone can register – you do not have to be a current Western Colorado University student. Registration is easy! Click here to learn more. 

Pathfinder Expeditions

Sometimes you don’t know where you want to go in life until you spend a few weeks in the middle of nowhere. Pathfinder expeditions give you time and space to understand what’s important to you and the skills to get there. Over the next 30 days, you’ll rise to meet natural challenges, becoming accustomed to setting goals, making decisions, and recovering from set-backs, all of which help clarify bigger choices that await you in life beyond your course.

• Build skills, form connections: Learn and practice wilderness, teamwork, adaptability and leadership skills. Participants will have the opportunity to chart a path and pursue it with their own motivation as extra fuel.
• Value strengths and strengthen values: Resiliency to recover from set-backs is a treasured and useful skill that will play a part in any Pathfinder expedition. Participants will explore answers to their most pressing questions about what they value, where their strengths lie and what direction their lives will take next.
• Demonstrate mastery: As students gain confidence in new skills, they will take on more leadership and decision-making responsibilities and gain a deeper understanding of who they are as individuals. The entire crew will work together and individually to achieve goals, solve problems and succeed.
• What you’ll learn: After spending 30 days in the wilderness, you’ll have mastered multiple outdoor skills and you’ll know what it takes to traverse mountain passes, climb the steepest cliffs and successfully navigate the challenges of the natural world around you. You’ll discover more about your true self and what you want to achieve, how you overcome setbacks and, most importantly, how to move forward to reach important milestones.

Return home after broadening your horizons, learning how to adapt to new environments and trying untested possibilities, with an action plan for the future. With newfound leadership potential, self-awareness, and problem-solving skills, you’ll be ready for your next big step.

Wilderness First Aid

Students will spend two days in a classroom at our high mountain basecamp, learning about wilderness medicine. Students will have the opportunity to gain a Wilderness First Aid (WFA) certification during this course, which is considered a standard for many entry-level jobs in the Outdoor Industry.

Solo

Solo provides an important break from the rigors of both the expedition and the distractions from everyday life. This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With sufficient food and equipment, students spend 1-3 days alone at a campsite to journal, rest, reflect on the past and look ahead to future goals. Solo sites will be close enough to the sites of the Instructors in case of an emergency, but far enough removed to assure solitude. Students will not travel during this time and Instructors will check in occasionally, but otherwise will be alone. Many students are initially nervous about Solo, but later recall Solo as one of the highlights of their entire course.

Peak Attempt

This expedition will include at least one peak attempt. Peak attempts are major enterprises and typically require early morning starts and take all day to complete. Weather, or other factors including group dynamics and physical ability, may preclude even an attempt to ascend a peak.

Final Expedition

Outward Bound believes that an appropriate amount of independence is a powerful educational tool. In order to deliver that benefit, our Instructors purposefully and gradually transfer leadership responsibilities to the students. This progression culminates with a Final Expedition. Near the end of course, if the group has demonstrated the necessary leadership, problem solving and wilderness living skills, they may be given the opportunity to travel without Instructors immediately present. This Final Expedition will range from three to five days depending on staff assessment of student abilities and terrain type. Many students love the independence of this phase of course, as the group learns to work together, problem solve, and accomplish a goal independently, while utilizing all the skills they have acquired. Instructors periodically check in with the group to ensure student wellbeing and coordinate travel plans. When students emerge from this final phase of course they will understand a truth: there is more in them than they knew. 

Personal Challenge Event

There are no set-in-stone course-end challenge events, as each challenge will be tailored to the current conditions and students. The challenge event may take the form of a run or team challenge. This event is the students' opportunity to finish course successfully and with style, by embodying all the lessons learned during the course. 

Guided Reflection and Transference

At Outward Bound we believe there is no learning without reflection. Throughout course, students will be prompted to reflect on what they're experiencing on course, and what it means in the greater context of life. Sometimes this is a journaling exercise, sometimes a group sharing experience, and sometimes a moment of solitude to think. Students spend focused time towards course end exploring how new knowledge, skills and attributes can apply to life after course.

Course Area

Rocky Mountains, Colorado

The Rocky Mountains, one of the most famous mountain ranges in the world, stretch 3,000 miles from Alaska to New Mexico. The Colorado Rocky Mountains has the greatest concentration of high peaks in the lower 48 states, with hundreds of ‘Thirteeners’ (13,000 plus foot tall mountains) and 54 ‘Fourteeners.’ The state is famous for its abundant wilderness adventure possibilities, from skiing to rock climbing to mountaineering. Colorado courses may take place in The Gore, The Holy Cross, The Sawatch, The Elks, The Sangre de Cristos, the Rawah, or the San Juan mountains.  Each of these Colorado ranges present unique challenges, but they are all beautiful, wild and rugged. These regions are the ancestral lands of the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux), Eastern Shoshone, Jicarilla Apache, and Pueblos nations. 

Canyon Country, Utah 

The most spectacular aspects of the Utah landscape are the hidden treasures found within its vast canyon networks, formed by millennia of wind and water. The canyons are composed of a spell-binding labyrinth of alcoves, fins, pinnacles, buttes, towering walls, ledges and arches just waiting to be explored on course.  Canyoneering courses also venture into narrower, deeper chasms sometimes as narrow as two feet wide with walls rising several hundred feet on each side. These sandstone slot canyons are a geological playground for scrambling, teamwork, and rappelling. These regions are the ancestral lands of the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Pueblos, Southern Paiute, Diné, and Hopi nations.