Thursday, September 27, 2012 - Blog on a Log

Where it All Began

I sat at my desk in mid-February trying to figure out what I should do.  I had graduated high school and spent a year working and saving money. Now my intended summer plans had fallen through, and I wanted an adventure.

So I opened my laptop and began to search. With nothing to specific in mind other than that being outside, I browsed websites looking for something to peak my interest. The options were endless: kayaking, sailing, canoeing, rafting, hiking, climbing, ranging from four days to three to four months or a year. Eventually I stumbled on to a website and read “Leaving the high-tech, modern world behind, you explore the desert washes and mountain trails with little more than a knife, a water bottle, a blanket, and a poncho…The mental, physical, and emotional challenges may leave you 10 to 30 pounds lighter at the end of the course, but the wilderness competency and the greater sense of self that you gain are priceless.” I was hooked! As I read more I began to realize this was it - I had found my adventure.

I grabbed my laptop and rushed downstairs to show my parents. Their response was mixed…My father exclaimed "that looks cool!" while my mother broached that I did not have 10-30 lbs to lose. Over the next week or so I did a bit more research on the course and signed up--my adventure was beginning.

BOSS or Boulder Outdoor Survival School has been in operation since 1968 teaching people how to live off the land and survive in southern Utah. I decided to go with their longest course which was 28 days. The gear list was tiny: one set of clothes for the day, some clothes for the cooler nights and sleeping, a wool blanket, a US military rain poncho, two nalgene bottles, a compass, a small first aid kit, two bandanas, 20 feet of parachute cord, 10 feet of webbing, and a good knife was all I would carry for 28 days. I flew into Provo, Utah where we were driven to meet our instructors and go through some orientation. After learning how to make a backpack out of our wool blanket and rope we hopped into the van and were driven off to a spot in the middle of nowhere. The van drove off and we started to walk.

The next 28 days were some of the hardest, most interesting, and most enjoyable days of my life up to that point. No one had watches, so we soon forgot about the time. We woke up with the sunlight and went to bed around sunset (with a few exceptions!). We would use our ponchos to make shelters and roll up underneath them with our wools blankets for night, sometimes gathering pine needles to make the ground more comfortable. On clear nights we slept under the stars, like kids in the world's largest planetarium. Most nights I watched meteors would streak across the sky, hearing only the occasional “wow” from someone on the other side of a shrub from me. In the mornings we would get up and eat breakfast, and start walking. Some times the destination was five miles away, sometimes 15. When we arrived for the night we would set up our shelters and cook supper. Our meals of vegetables, oats, nuts and raisins put our daily intake around 1500 calories a day--Not a lot, but enough to keep us going. If we wanted anything else to eat we were taught how to set traps and which plants could be eaten. Throughout the course we were also shown how to make fire with a bow drill, how to make cordage (rope) out of plants, how to locate water, how to navigate with a compass and map, and other skills that could come in handy in survival situations.

The first day or so when we stopped for breaks people would look for a nice log or rock to sit on. Within a few days we lay down where ever a good spot was found, regardless of the dirt. Other than daily discussions about what food we wished we had, I never really wished for anything else on the trip. I was content with my simple life in the wilderness. I didn't have to worry about time or appointments, I didn't have to think about what I was doing the next week, or what I was going to make for dinner the next day--it was the same thing we'd had the day before and would have the day after!

It was on this course that it began to sink in that I loved being outside, especially when I was with people. The trip ended and I came home but I wasn't the same anymore. I had gotten a taste of something that I wanted more of; I wanted to go outside to have an adventure, to lay under the stars on whatever ground I could find. Four years later there are some things I have forgotten about my time down in Utah, but there are a number of things I remember quite well--one of them being the moment when I realized that I had found a place free from distraction, a place where anything could happen.

It seems to me that as we get older we start to grow complacent. We allow ourselves to be distracted and we slowly stop going on our adventures. Hopefully all of us can take stock of our lives and resist taking the easy way out. I have plans for some more adventures in the next coming months and year--Do you?

Josh works at the Winnipeg East Wilderness Supply location at 42 Speers Road