Peek A Boo Trail / Salt Canyon

Put it this way...I didn't write this until day three. It was a bitch! It was our first real day because all of day one was spent at the campsite without carrying our packs.

Today was full fledged. We carried our lives on our backs.

We climbed, we scrambled, we hiked. We climbed, we scrambled, we hiked. We climbed, we scrambled, we hiked. We went down into canyons, up over rockfaces, down, up, down, up. And when we were done, we did it some more. It wasn't rock climbing with ropes or anything like that but it was some serious traversing on steep faces.

We made our way deep into the Canyonlands. There were no other people, no place to bathe/shower and no outhouses or other types of bathrooms. We were truly in the midst of nature.

As if all that wasn't enough, water was very scarce. We needed to fill up dromedary bladders from a water source so that we'd have enough water for the next day or two. To get drinkable water, we mixed three drops of iodine into our water bottles and waited twenty minutes before drinking. The bladders hold 10-12 quarts and each quart adds two pounds of weight. That's just what we needed... another twenty pounds on our backs!

Missy let us rest after a while so she could find us a campsite. She was gone quite a while. Finally, she found a spot with a small cave so we wouldn't have to put up a tarp. Apparently a tarp goes up every night in case of rain. Huh? I thought this was the desert.

The only problem was that this particular "condo" was very spread out. The kitchen was far from the main bedrooms and was up a level. Translation: The kitchen was a giant rock that you had to climb up onto and was 40 feet from the sleeping bags.

I wasn't even hungry but I ate anyway. We were all wiped. We had a candlelight meeting to discuss why each of us came to Outward Bound.

We slept under the stars again. I could get used to this. It's awesome!

Me / Our Patrol / Our Fearless Leader / On the Way Day 1 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 Day 6 / Day 7 / Day 8 / Day 9 / Day 10 Things To Remember / Outward Bound / The Anasazi

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