Pandemic Week 126: Outward Bound by Anna

 This week's blog features a guest writer:  Anna.  She returned on August 13 from her week-long trek on the Appalachian trail with lots of stories to tell.  What better person to write about the trip than her?  Here is her first-hand account:

Why hello everyone! It's been a little while since I've written on here, but I will try my best to relay all the events to you. Hold on to your hats because it was a pretty hectic week.

Day 1/8

Completion Certificate

This was the first day of the trip. We started off around 9:15 AM and drove to the Outward-Bound Headquarters located in Baltimore. Once we got there, I had to take another one of the many Covid tests I had already taken that week. After getting a beautiful negative test, I joined the rest of the awkwardly milling about teenagers while trying not to burst into a flaming ball of anxiety. I got to meet the instructors as well as a couple of the other kids that would be a part of my group. After a little while, the director of Outward bound called everyone (including the parents) into a big circle on the lawn to talk about what we would be doing that day. After the director finished his speech, we said our final goodbyes to our parents and joined our groups to start packing all of our gear, get lunch, and other fun educational stuff like that. My group started off with one of those really awkward icebreakers that no one really likes doing but they're actually kind of helpful and no one is willing to admit it. After forming sufficient enough bonds to satisfy the instructors, we went over to the backpacks to start packing. At outward bound, they provide all of the gear that you will need on the trip so all you really have to bring is clothes, shoes, and a headlamp. I was starting to become a bit concerned though once we got to the backpacks as I finally had realized how much weight I was going to be carrying. (Each pack weighed about 40-50 pounds) The first part of packing is dumping everything you brought out so the instructors can make sure you're not missing anything and/or bringing anything you don't need. There's a specific order that they have you pack in to make sure that you can get everything you need. Inside the plastic liner of the bag, you put your sleeping bag, bag of clothes, and anything else you didn't want to get wet. After sealing off the liner to make that part of the bag waterproof, we packed our raingear, our group gear, and our food bag. Group gear is the stuff that everyone in the group needs, like tarps. sunscreen/bug spray bag, pots and pans, etc. In terms of food, we got enough food for 3 days and everyone split up the food evenly into smaller sacks that we each packed. In the very top pocket of the bag, called the "brain", (don't ask me why that's just what they told us it was called) we packed anything that we needed quick access to, such as food bowls, headlamps, hats, bandanas, etc. After packing everything, we ate a quick lunch and prepared to start hiking. We quickly realized though that it had gotten a bit later that we would've liked it to, so we ended up skipping our planned 2-mile hike for that day and instead drove and hour to the campsite we would be staying at that night. (Stay with me, it's almost over, this was a long day) Once we got to the campsite, we learned how to set up the tarps that we would be sleeping under, layed out our bedrolls, and played uno until dinner was ready. After dinner we did our evening meeting and went to bed. I found a couple slugs on my bedroll before I went to sleep though, so that was comforting. It was only until I finally layed down that I realized: I'm about to spend the next 7 days in the woods, and I have no way out of this.

Day 2/8

After waking up from a not very restful night of sleep, we repacked our bags and all of our stuff and had breakfast. (That day it was bagels, don't worry the food was actually pretty good.) During breakfast, we found out what our jobs were for the day. There were various jobs that everyone had to work throughout the week and there were two people assigned to each job during the day. These jobs were: Leaders of the Day (basically making sure we get to places on time), Inspiradores (morale boosting and taking pictures), Avatars (in charge of starting fires and refilling and purifying water when we get to a stream), Medics (basically a mom, they remind people to wear sunscreen and drink water), Helping hands (washing dishes), and Cooks (they cook, I don't know why I'm explaining what cooks are). After somewhat struggling to put on our packs, we set off. That day we hiked 5 miles. It started with a straight up mountain of a hill that probably took us close to 30 minutes to climb. (We had to stop for a snack at the top, it was very delicious.) The majority of the trail that day was pretty rocky but pretty flat after the mountain. We stopped for lunch 3 miles in at a view that was mostly blocked by trees and happily ate our cucumber and hummus wraps. After cleaning up and refilling water we all had a bad case of JAMS, (it stands for Just Ate Must Sleep) and we very tiredly finished the last 2 miles of our hike and made it to the campsite. Also, just a quick public service announcement for the Kohler family, because I know they're curious. This campsite as well as the majority of the others had outhouses. We set up camp and had burritos for dinner. After that we played a game of headbands and went to bed.

Day 3/8

I woke up feeling much more well rested than the previous morning. Also, you may notice as I keep writing that the days seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Well, that is simply because every single morning and evening looked exactly the same and I don't want to insult your intelligence by explaining the same thing over and over to you. This was our first day of climbing and we only had to hike a total of 3 miles that day. About a mile into the hike, we stopped at an incredible overlook where you could see absolutely everything around you, so obviously we stopped to eat some animal crackers on top of the mountain. After our snack break, we made it to the climbing site. We had our lunch there and met our rock specialists who would, quite literally, be showing us the ropes. We didn't know until that day, but we were going to be holding the rope for each other. Thankfully no one got hurt. Towards the end of our climbing session though, it started pouring down rain, so we ran back up to where our bags were, put on our heavy rubber rain gear, and kept hiking. The rain was actually pretty fun because everyone was playing trail games and singing songs. The rain stopped by the time we got to the campsite and our rock specialists surprised us by bringing all our food for the next 3 days to us! We finished off the day with some of the best mac and cheese I think I've ever eaten in my life, (it may have just been how tired I was) and went to bed. About ten seconds after I layed down, I feel a weight land on my arm. I slowly looked over, and a large frog was sitting on my arm. I immediately shrieked and shook the frog off my arm. The other girls were trying to get the frog out of the tarp, but I got so freaked out that I decided to go outside the tarp to take a breather. No less than a minute after I had been outside, another frog jumps up and grabs onto my ankle. At this point, I was just so tired and done with the day that I shook the frog off and just went to bed. 

Day 4/8

This was our longest day of hiking yet. We hiked 3.5 miles, climbed up and down 3 more mountains and stopped for lunch at George Washington state park. I don't think I have ever been so excited to see a public restroom. I tried to wash my hair in the sink of the bathroom. I don't think it did anything, but it made me feel better. After we ate our lunch and refilled water, we set off to finish the last 4 miles of our day. It started raining again about a mile in, but it didn't last for long. Just a quick sidenote for anyone who was wondering, we were purifying our water with iodine. If you're wondering what it tasted like, it tasted like regular water to me, but apparently it tasted like chlorine water, so I guess that's why I couldn't taste it. When we made it to camp, the instructors surprised us with a bag of marshmallows and chorizo. (Not together, the marshmallows were for later.) Around 7:00 that night it started raining again. And then it started thundering. And then we saw lightning. When you're backpacking, there's something called lightning drill. It's where you have to put on all your raingear, spread out from everyone else, and sit on the ground until the lightning stops. You go into lightning drill when the lighting is within 2 miles of you. Basically, we had to sit in the middle of a thunderstorm for an hour and a half. We didn't get our dinner until 9:00. We were all very tired.

Day 5/8

The Outward-Bound Crew & Guides

After the literal thunderstorm of a day yesterday, we were all very excited to find out that we had a very calm day that day. We packed everything up, hiked a mile to where the van was parked, and drove an hour north to Pennsylvania. It only took us ten minutes to pass under the bridge we had crossed two days earlier. It was a very sad moment. When we got to the campsite, we started setting up for what they call "solo". The concept of solo is that the instructors take you to a secluded area a little way away from the main campsite, they give you your own personal tarp, and they leave you alone in the woods overnight. (it's not a survival thing it's supposed to be a "personal reflection" thing. They brought us food) I spent most of my time just setting up everything, journaling and wandering aimlessly back and forth and singing until someone brought me food and I could go to sleep. I didn't realize how close together they placed everyone though, because I realized that I could see one of the other kids through the trees. I soon realized that the other kid could see me too, because he decided that he would spend his time working out, so he kept looking over and positioning himself through the trees so that I could see him working out. I don't know if he thought he was being impressive or attractive or something, but I found the whole thing hilarious. I later had to help him set up his tarp. He forgot all of the knots we had learned. I also found this very amusing. One of the instructors brought me pasta for dinner. It was very good. After dinner I went to bed. I woke up around 11:00 because it had started thundering and lightning again. I groggily sat up and proceeded to go into lightning drill. The plus side about lightning drill during solo is that we were already spaced out so we could stay dry under our tarps. A few minutes later one of the instructors stopped by to let me know we were in lightning drill, to which I replied, "I know." I don't remember what else happened because I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during the drill, but it only lasted about 45 minutes this time, and then I went to sleep.

Day 6/8

After regrouping from solo and getting breakfast, we had a choice for the day: hike 2 miles to our climbing spot for the day and hike another 6 miles to a new campsite, or hike 2 miles there and back to our climbing spot and stay at our current campsite. Thankfully, we picked the shorter option. We made it to our climbing spot for the day, had lunch, and did our climbing. We found out though, that another group had already called dibs on the campsite we were staying at, so we ended up driving 10 minutes down the road to a new campsite. We set everything up, had dinner, and finally used up our marshmallows. We saw a frog and a snail, but the frog jumped into the fire. (don't worry it was ok) 

Day 7/8

When we woke up it was really cold, colder than it had been all week, so I sacrificed my pillow so that I could actually wear my fleece and traded my shorts for some pants. We had a nice slow morning and built a fire. We finally tried some of the milk powder so that we could use it with our cereal that morning. Final verdict: it wasn't milk. It took a little bit longer than usual to get everything packed up because everyone was so excited to be heading back to base. After everything was packed, we got into the van and drove an hour and a half back to base. We stopped at Sheetz on the way back so the instructors could get breakfast. I guess they didn't want Raisin Bran with watery milk for breakfast. Anyways, one of the instructors, Andrew, surprised us and bought us a bunch of mini doughnuts. They were very good. When we got back to base, we took everything out of our packs and organized everything into piles so that we could begin disinfecting all of the gear. In order to disinfect everything, we had to first dunk it in a large tub full of water and vinegar, and then dunk it in a bucket of fresh water, then we hung everything on clotheslines to dry. After disinfecting, we had lunch and finished cleaning everything up for the time being. That day was our last day of climbing. We all headed over to the high ropes course that they have at base, and they told us that it would be a team-oriented challenge. There was one part of the course that I really wanted to try, but it was closed off because they forgot to get the equipment tested for it. While we were on the ropes course, we started hearing some distant music, but we thought nothing of it for the time being. Once we started heading back, the music started getting louder, and eventually we realized that a bunch of college kids had started throwing a party on the property, and they hired a really bad DJ for it. Just so you can get a sense of what kind of music was playing, the DJ kept alternating between bad rap music, Spanish guitar music, and random sounds like airhorns, gongs, and ice cream truck music. Sadly, there wasn't really much we could do about it since it is a public park, so we just decided to hope that they would stop before we went to sleep, as we would be sleeping outside at base. After all of that, we had dinner, played a few games, and went to sleep to the sound of no music. We were woken up at around 2:00 in the morning by the instructors and were told to grab all our sleeping stuff and move upstairs. I think we were all so sleepy that we didn't even realize what was happening. So, we all fell asleep again on the floor of the conference room upstairs.

Anna & Vera

Day 8/8

When we woke up, we were all very confused because we woke up in a different spot than we went to sleep in. We later found out that the instructors had heard gunshots in the woods early that morning, and that was why they moved us inside. The gunshots weren't close, but they just moved us inside to make sure. We started off the morning with our challenge for the week: running a 5K. (I didn't run the whole thing, I only ran a mile) When we got back, we were greeted with a lovely breakfast spread of bagels fruit, and orange juice. The instructors had us fill out a survey about the week while we ate. After breakfast we got our phones and our suitcases back and we went to take a shower. (I think if I hadn't showered at base my parents might have literally worn a gas mask the entire ride back home) We all hung out for a couple hours and did our closing ceremony. At 11:00 all the parents had showed up and we were finally able to go home.

Overall, this experience was crazy. I was very fortunate that all of the kids in my group were amazing and so nice. I don't think the trip would've been very fun if they hadn't been there, that is why I can confidently say: I would not like to do this again. The experience was really fun and stressful and intense, and I made a lot of good memories. I think that if I were to do this again, it wouldn't live up to this trip's standards in any way, shape, or form. I'm still
happy that I did it though.