Adventure awaits on this eight-day canoeing course – your chance to explore the Delaware Water Gap from the hull of a two-person canoe.
This course is designed for middle schoolers who identify as female and are looking to improve their leadership skills, challenge themselves and discover the lifelong benefits and perspective that only wilderness travel with Outward Bound can offer. You and your group will be moving to a new campsite every night and travel with all the food and equipment you need as you paddle along your expedition route. Sharpen your leadership skills and learn to inspire others as you take on new and exciting challenges with your crew.
Single Gender Courses
In early adolescence, many female-identifying students experience physical and cognitive development at different rates compared to male-identifying adolescents. Outward Bound has seen this in practice and has created single-gender early adolescent courses comprised of students at similar levels of development. This allows our Instructors to tailor their curriculum in ways that are more aligned with specific stages in their students’ development. This course is designed intentionally to diminish the potential for stereotyping behaviors to occur and offer a space in which girls will feel comfortable to step into a leadership role. On course, girls will have opportunity to talk openly about fears and concerns, and develop deep and empowering bonds with their Instructors and crew members.
NOTE: This course requires that students submit proof of "Up-to-Date" COVID-19 Vaccination status as defined by the CDC. For questions regarding this policy please see this page or call us at 866-467-7651.
UPCOMING COURSES
X
What is this?
For detailed information on course availability statuses and what they mean, 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!
APPLY NOW This means a course has several open spots and is actively processing applications.
APPLY NOW – Almost Full This means there are three or fewer currently available spots left on a course. To secure your spot click Apply Now to begin an application!
JOIN WAITLIST Once a course has reached capacity, three waitlist positions become available. To join a course’s waitlist, click “Join Waitlist” to begin the application process. A $500 deposit is required. This $500 deposit includes a $150 non-refundable application fee and a $350 tuition payment. The $350 tuition payment is refundable only if you cancel your waitlist application or if an open position does not become available. If a position does become available, the applicant will be applied to the open position and the Application and Cancellation Policies of the Regional Outward Bound School will be followed, including forfeiture of the $500 deposit if you cancel 90 days or less prior to the course start date.
Waitlist applicants are encouraged to complete all required admissions documents while awaiting an open position. Positions may become available up to two weeks prior to the course start date. Applicants may only apply to one course. We recommend applying to a course with open positions instead of a course that is accepting waitlist applications. If you have questions, please call 866-467-7651 to speak with one of our Admissions Advisors.
CALL TO APPLY This means a course is very close to its start date. Although it is unlikely to secure a spot this late, you can call the National Admissions office at 866-467-7651 to discuss your options.
COURSE IS FULL When a course has reached maximum capacity, meaning all spots and the three waitlist spots are occupied, a course will read “Course Is Full.” This means applications are no longer being accepted.
CLOSED As a course nears its start date, the availability status may read “Closed.” In this event, a course roster has been finalized and applications are no longer being accepted or processed.
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, heard the echoes at the edge of a vast canyon, 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 into 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 Middle School students, heading away from home means taking on new responsibilities and expectations with crewmates who are strangers when you first meet and trusted teammates by the end of your expedition. It’s all about confidence.
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.
Photo courtesy
of Ben Goodman
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Ben Goodman
Photo courtesy
of Kenja Griffin
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Canoeing
Be prepared to canoe the Delaware Water Gap where each section of the river is different and has its own personality. If you want secluded, wide water with lots of wildlife, the stretch that flows through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area from Matamoras to Kittatinny Point offers it all. In addition to learning valuable paddling techniques in a tandem canoe, you and your fellow crew members will learn basic outdoor skills like Leave-No-Trace Principles, wilderness hygiene, and backcountry cooking techniques in order to successfully live, work, and eat together. This process will not only hone your communication, problem-solving, and leadership skills, but take you on a journey unlike anything you’ve ever imagined.
Photo courtesy
of Rebecca Hesselink
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
Photo courtesy
of Rebecca Hesselink
Photo courtesy
of Rebecca Hesselink
Photo courtesy
of Ryan Harris
High Ropes
Students will finish their expedition at our base camp at The Discovery Center – a serene, urban oasis and nature-based learning facility located in the heart of Philadelphia. Here students will have the opportunity to go outside of their comfort zone atop the Aerial Teams Challenge Course and gain greater confidence in their skills and abilities.
Outcomes
On shorter courses for middle schoolers, participants will challenge themselves as they learn the skills to live and travel with their crew mates on the river. Participants will have the opportunity to become proficient paddlers and practice river navigation and rescue skills as they learn to work as a team to maneuver down Delaware River.
Course Area
The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area encompasses 67,000 acres of mountain ridge, forest and floodplain on both sides of the Delaware River in the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. From the southern end of the park, you can view the S-shaped chasm of the Delaware Water Gap, where the river cuts a twisting path through 1,400-foot Kittatinny Ridge. Within the river watershed, you'll discover steep wooded-and-rock slopes, bountiful rhododendron, dark hallows, tinsel-like ravines and tumbling waterfalls.
These regions are the ancestral lands of the Lənape Haki-nk (Lenni-Lenape) and Munsee Lenape nations.
SAMPLE ITINERARY
DAY 1
Course start and flatwater paddle school
DAY 2-5
Canoeing (Introductory lessons to canoeing, camp craft, rescue skills, river navigation and back country cooking)
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.