Day 6

Ok, well this night went a "little better" by which I mean it probably was high 30's, not low 30's and as I've gotten handy in making somewhat of a sleeping bag out of the blanket, my hips weren't as sore the next morning. But still, to put in the proper context: sleeping on the ground in high 30's temperatures. The ritual of greeting the sun's rays repeats itself.

Heading Steve's warning that from now on we are responsible for our own time leaving camp and getting to our destination everyone starts packing their blanket packs which we practiced the night before. This is essentially taking your blanket, throwing everything in there, rolling it up and tying it up with a long piece of parachute cord and attaching seat belt webbing at the end for shoulder straps. As we would quickly learn this is an art, not a science, and it takes a few days to get a hang of this skill so the "backpack" is not extremely uncomfortable during the hikes but just uncomfortable. :-) Mine is kind of heavy, as it has the group food in it as well.

In what is to become a daily (and agitating) group ritual, 30 extra minutes are spent waiting for Kirsten to pack up her bag. Our breakfast consisted of cold oatmeal (raw) with brown sugar and (not enough for that morning) dried milk. So horse food in milky water. Given the circumstances, its delicious!

I should also mention that the night before we carved spoons out of aspen and I carved what had from then on became known as a "man spoon" as it was a perfectly curved branch which I choose not to debark entirely, but just the spoon end, which I smoothed with sand stone. It unfortunately was destroyed and I never got a chance to take a picture of it. :-(

And we're off. The first two miles are spent hiking uphill (really...does it EVER end?) behind Mike, who is booking it. We finally make it to a beautiful overlook of the entire valley with over 50 miles of visibility in 3 directions and have another topography map lesson where we practice identifying landmarks and our location on the topo map. Then we are told that from now on every day we will have a group of leaders and the a group of sweepers (each having a map) who will switch off at mid-day and they will make the decisions on when to leave, how to get to our locations and when we rest, which the Instructors will be taking a back seat. This is to be for the next 7 days.

Nick, Adam and I volunteer to be leaders for the first half of the day and Mark and Scott (who is becoming more annoying by the day) volunteer to be sweepers. Our first task is to find a safe descend into a canyon about 7 or 8 miles away and this is honestly the first time I started to really have fun on the course. The group has to follow you and you are responsible for getting them down unknown terrain safely and of course you DO NOT want to make a mistake and double back. So this pressure makes the search for a safe route even more exciting. The key was not to miss the narrow passage between two landmarks identified on the map otherwise the descent was going to be very rough. Luckily, after many stops and running up ahead, we find an old abandoned rancher road (really really terrible condition) which we take down to a mouth of a dried out creek which is on the map. We then descend down via the mouth of a creek and even though it is blazing hot we decide to keep going instead of taking a siesta (mistake!). Again, exciting, trail blazing, following the map, leading, pushing yourself: fun!!!

We learn (after Mike had laughed at us for keep following the creek too long...I got pretty annoyed at that actually) that all water sources have the most direct trails blazed by animals (cows, bears, deer, elk etc) which we immediately find and makes our trip much easier. At a certain point Steve tells us to switch off with the sweepers and we feel pretty proud of making it to the canyon on our first try in a very successful manner. The rest of the day is spent in the giant canyon following it via animal trails and I try to practice my topo map skills by identifying minute landmarks on the map. Since we did not take a break that day we are exhausted and when we finally make it to our destination it is still late afternoon and we are all excited for the prospect of a few free hours on our own.



This is not to be though. After we explain to Mike where we are on the map (and learn the full extend of Scott's stupidity...he as the leader, did not even have the right map!!!!) they begin teaching us a lesson on weaving!!! Seriously. Steve and Mike disappear. Again. So an hour is spent by us learning and practicing how to weave plants into rope. Useful? yes. Timely. No. I am extremely annoyed and showing it.

Finally, Steve and Mike come up and call us over about a quarter of a mile to what was to be our campsite for the night. As we are in a canyon there is not much growth (but plenty of red dirt...something that will be ingrained in my skin for months to come) and they have built a tent shelter out of their ponchos and parachute cords and bandannas (remember: everything has multiple uses in a survival situation). Another 45 minutes spent learning how to built a shelter. Its now going to get dark soon. Free afternoon be gone. We now need to quickly build our shelter and start cooking food.

After the inability to find proper area for 4 people (Mark, Nick, Adam and I) we split up into 2 groups and quickly build 2 tents nearby. It was actually a really good shelter for the first time though with no duff around I was skeptical of its value given the potential of losing 80% of my body heat to the ground. Its getting really dark now and once again my deal with my group pays off as I am now able to relax while the rest of them are watching the fire, cutting up vegetables and measuring the lentils and kimo. Yes, I know, its not complicated but its my time to write in my journal and read my book.

It gets dark quickly and Steve gives us a quick "oughta boy" for our leadership during the day, I eat another delicious 16 oz of hot stew (which takes 90 minutes to cook) that seems to do the trick and off to bed. I enjoy the night sky for awhile as the stars are so gorgeous in a clear Utah sky and the profiles of the canyon wall are daunting in the dark that it makes you appreciate where you are and what you are doing. Alas, I am exhausted and I pass out quickly. Good night!

Day 5

Ough. What an uncomfortable night. Despite the blankets it was incredibly cold. I had to go pee the entire night though I could not get up because I would have stepped on 4 or 5 people on my way out. I got up with Adam. As he was cold. Again.

We waited in the clearing for the sun's rays to hit us. Again. Slowly everyone got up and started moping around. Hungry. Though we clearly felt the Impact phase of the course was over, despite Steve not telling us so last night. We now just waited for them to get up (and hopefully give us some food).

Steve showed up, gathered us around and asked us if we were hungry. Duh. "Great news!!!" he says, "There is a really nice edible plant out here which will be the topic of our lecture this morning!" Crap. Really? The look of disappointment on people's faces is telling. But what are we going to to do? We follow him to the creek. And listen to him about some tiny plant which doesnt look like it could feed a pigeon, let alone 14 people (instructors included). Some people are taking notes. I want to throw a rock at them. Steve keeps talking, now about the plant's Latin name, and the edible properties of its roots or as he keeps referring to them, tubers. "What the f--k is a tuber?" is the only thought going through my head, other then throwing rocks at people that keep asking questions about the plant and taking notes. Finally, he says, ok, "lets dig them up and see what they look like." Fine. Whatever. Some helps him. They are yellow. And long. In fact, they are starting to look a lot like.....bananas!!! I look up and Steve is laughing his butt off. Blah. But ok, he has given us bananas. All is forgiven. And in retrospect, it was pretty funny.

The next 10 minutes are spent consuming what from now on shall be referred to as the "most delicious banana ever grown". Abram starts talking about how world banana crop is about to be wiped out. The urge to throw rocks is suddenly resurgent. I just want to enjoy my banana.

Steve brings by some drinks that taste like ice tea but he swears has some sort of nutritional value. I eat the entire banana followed by the drinks and then proceed to scrape off the banana peel with my knife and eat that too. Dont judge me. No food for a 100 hours, remember?

Then we "talk" about the Impact phase and how we felt during it. Dont care. Then he says we will stay here today and for us to practice starting our fire and relax for a few hours. I spend 30 minutes finishing up my fire set (though some people were pretty successful at starting their own fire) and grab my blanket (ough...blanket...the luxury of gods!) and pass out for a few hours. The banana did nothing for me. I am waiting for the "other food" to show up (I mean it must be coming, right?!?!)

I see Steve and Laurie dolling out some bags a few hundred feet away and I watch them intently. We finally get our food: A bag of GORP (peanuts and raisins), a bag of flour, a bag of oatmeal, brown sugar and dried milk. This is breakfast and lunch for the next 8 days. It looks tiny. They werent kidding when they said "about a 1000 calories a day." Man, the temptation to eat this all at once is pretty strong. :-) I do decide to treat myself and pour myself a day and a half (approximately) worth of GORP and throughly enjoy every peanut and raisin as Steve gives us (yet another) a lecture on aspens (which conspicuously look like birches).

We also got "group food" with groups chosen randomly. That is a bag bullion (as my group discovered, Eddie is obsessed with bullion), lentils, kimo (a rice like substance) and some onions, carrots (only last 3 days) and garlic. And a spices kit with salt, pepper and cinnamon. I realize that a) I hate cooking, especially after long hikes and b) I love to exercise so I offer my group a deal of a lifetime: I carry all the food (maybe about 10 lbs worth) and they do all the cooking when we get to the campsite. Deal and deal!!! (and I figure by day 6, 7, 8 my load is going to be light!

Then we get a lesson on topography map reading. Here we go. This is something I actually enjoyed for the next few weeks and was really into. Given that the next week was going to be Group Expedition, with us essentially leading and sweeping the group on our own, I was really into the lesson.

Then its dinner time! Ahh my deal already pays off. While my group is cooking I immediately start to read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and for the first time in days I felt a little relief and at peace from the stress and intensity of the course. I say stress, as I find myself snapping at Jeremy earlier in the day for wanting to bring more people into the other wiki-up where Adam, Nick, Mark and I decided to camp out for the night. I feel bad about the snapping and apologize to Jeremy the next day.

Its dark. We have fire for the first time. Everyone gathers around and with food in us (oh such a good stew) we actually make jokes and feel pretty good. Steve warns us of bears in the area and the next 30 minutes are spent hanging up two giant bags of everyone's food with an elaborate pulley system. And then bed!!!! By bed I of course mean: my wrapped up in my blanket on cold hard ground. No food for thought tonight. Just my blanket. And maybe a little bit of stew. Good night!

Day 4

Uneventful cold night. Though more comfortable sleeping in the leafs. I think even Adam, despite his grumblings wasnt as cold as he usually is.

And we're off. A repeating pattern of a short hike followed by a lecture. Though we found some bear tracks along the animal trail and that was cool figuring out who they belonged to. Mike, Laurie and Steve are a treasure trove of information and despite my annoyances with the lack of information important to me I am gaining major respect for them and their knowledge base. We spent another hour on a canyon floor looking for the final piece for our fire kit, the hand stone. Luckily for me, I had found an awesome cow bone the night before which made a perfect fit for my spindle so I spent the hour polishing it off with some sand stone.

And then we began a day of some serious hiking. We climbed out about 1000 feet out of a canyon and up some more hills. Nick, a personal trainer; Mark, a seriously in-shape 21 year old college kid; Abram, an avid rock climber, and myself, a triathlete were seriously in the front with Mike getting some really good exercise going until we realized we had left a big part of our group behind. Eddie, our resident German giant, who had done this 28 day course 8 years ago, was surprisingly falling behind, despite being out in front for the first 3 days. The lack of food for the 4th day now was clearly getting to him.

We finally made it to a lake where we again took our siesta break and some people took a dip. It was actually incredibly windy where we were and I decided against it and instead took a nap and wrote in my journal. And thats when it hit. The hunger. It was unreal. For 2 hours I fought a mental anguish of being hungry, a feeling I am usually not use to or am able to satisfy. Mike gave me a mint leaf which said it would stem my hunger feeling. It was the first thing I had in my mouth in over 80 hours now.


And then we took off again. And again we started climbing, though on an old jeep road. People were getting tired but Nick and I just marched along in the front and had a pretty good heart to heart about each others personal lives, crazy ex-girlfriends (cause that keeps the hunger away) and crazy sports stories. We had some spectacular views open up in front of us and I made myself to keep taking pictures.

So just to recap. Day 4 of not eating. Hiking for miles and miles uphill, thousands of feet up. And the sun is setting. Though we are nowhere close to seeing a good camping area nor do the instructors seem to have any intent of stopping. And so we keep going. I start singing "this is the hill that never ends." Laurie looks at me an amazement. Fiona looks at me and asks me "How in the world can you walk so fast for so long?!?!"

We wait for 30 minutes for Steve and Adam, who apparently had a muscle seizure and collapsed for a few minutes. People are pretty spent. I realize I actually feel great. I realize I could do this, without food or blankets, for another 1 or 2 days. Its actually a pretty good feeling. Its dark now. The moon comes out and is pretty bright. Steve all the sudden takes a turn into the woods by a creek and we bushwack through the dark dark dark woods for another 30 or so minutes. People are moving slow. I help a few cross over another creek. We keep going. All the sudden we come to a big clearing which is bright as day (a very very foggy day ;-) as the moon is doing some good lighting. We cross the clearing sensing something is up and finally come up a few tee pees/wiki-ups.

We stop. Steve says we're here. He said we could sleep in the wiki-ups if we wanted to and maybe we should check inside one of them, there might be "some packs in there". Sigh of relief. Blankets. Woo hoo! I climb inside the pitch black wiki up and feel around for the packs and pass them back through the opening. Everyone is happy to get theirs and the next 20-30 minutes are spent getting inside the wiki-up with our blankets and ponchos (which we used as another layer on the ground) and setting ourselves up for the night.

For some strange reason we thought fitting all 11 of us into the wiki-up would be a good idea. It was actually a terrible idea as sleeping among 11 people in pitch black makes the idea of a bathroom trip for the night, a non-starter. Bleh. Its clearly cold outside (in fact there is frost on the ground when we wake up, so it must have gotten below 30 that night) and we're at about 9,500 feet. Even Eddie, who up to now has been a loner when it came to sleeping, asks Adam and I if he could sleep with us. Which is significant as Eddie and I are the two biggest people in the group and the idea of one blanket down, two up is a plausible one, but for people of normal size. Poor Adam kind of got the short end of the stick for the rest of the night when it came to the blanket. Also, I will never forget Eddie, in his thick German accent, about 10 minutes after every one has fallen asleep all the sudden piping up with: "Oh my God! Where are the blondes?!?! I wanted blondes but instead I am sleeping next to two hairy men! This is terrible!" ... possibly the funniest moment of the entire trip!!!

But this day was very overwhelming. The hunger battle. The giant uphill hike. And now over 90 hours of no food. Crazy. I am having trouble falling asleep though because of the cold and the hard ground. Good night!

Day 3

This night wasn't as bad as the first night as Adam's body heat kept me semi warm. At least I felt my fingers and toes in the morning. In a pattern that would come to repeat itself, my duff became completely scattered and the first shot was fired in the nightly battle between warmth and comfort. My hips would come to resent me and I still think they are mad at me for sleeping on the ground for 3 weeks. In the middle of the night, Scott (a 44 year old canadian consultant and a person I would slowly begin to seriously dislike over the term of the course), woke us up as he was cold (what a shock!) and asked if he could join our duff pile (which was really made for 2 people but already had 3). Of course we let him in. He started to talk about how cold he was. I threw at twig at him and told him (in a not such a polite way) to save till the morning.

The daily ritual of waiting for the sun's rays began. We got some water out of the water holes as we were in for a hot day and quickly began our hike out of the canyon. On the way we saw some AMAZING CAVES which had Indian etchings in the walls (not to mention someone's carvings from 1915 :-).



It was getting hot and we havent seen a water source for hours. I remembered Laurie's lecture two days ago about looking for water sources and how trees and greenery get brighter around water and started to keep an eye out. A few minutes later I spotted just what we needed and asked Laurie if she though there was water about and voila! bingo! I was right.

As it is smart to take a siesta (afternoon break) during the hottest part of the day we found a large cottonwood tree and passed out. This is where I learned to wear my bandana on my neck to keep the dust out as the wind and the sand (sigh...in my mouth) was egregious! Also keep in mind that we actually get 4 to 6 hours of sleep at night since the sun goes down at 10 pm or so and is up at 4:30, 5 am and we dont really get much sleep at night. As I got up I accidentally hit the branch with my neck and probably experienced the worst pain of the entire course. Go figure...I now how a scar on the back of my neck and its from napping! :-) And the hardest part was not screaming obscenities (no cursing) as just my luck: Mike, Laurie and Steve were all napping around me. Funny, that I still cared at this point.



After the nap we got another lecture on juniper pine from Steve, spent an hour working on our fire tools and got hiking again for another few hours. Another lecture, this time on a plant called dog bain. Break near a spring. Steve and Mike disappear for 30 to 40 minutes (no way to tell...no watches). We are finally called about 100 yards away by them and learn to discover they built a duff bed. A gigantic, comfortable looking duff bed. Its at least 2 feet high, filled to the brim with oak leaves. It looks comfortable and more importantly warm.

Needless to say they taught us how to make the bed and sent us on our own to create one for ourselves for the night. They also taught us the proper campsite selection, the W's (Wind, Weather, Water, Wildlife, Widowmakers, Willies...ants) which was pretty cool. Abram, Adam and I decided to combine our efforts and built our own duff bed. And so the great battle for duff had begun as our entire group of 11 people were trying to collect as much duff using our garbage bags (we were allowed to bring one) and our versa clothes (note the pattern of being able to use everything we own for multiple purposes such as a carry sack or leaf collection plate or a pillow). After about an hour and a half we created a pretty sweet duff bed and we still have a few minutes of day light left so I spent the rest of the night carving my fire board. Another group of people got together and decided to build a gigantic duff bed for 5 people which was pretty big!!!

So day 3 of no food. Hunger is surprisingly not an issue. I think mostly its because we're hiking a lot at some altitude (maybe 5 or 6K feet) and because the experience of the cold at night is pretty overwhelming. I am getting pretty dirty at this point though obviously no relief in sight from this problem and is something i had to deal with. Other then putting my layers of long johns on and off every night and morning I will be wearing the same clothes for many more weeks to come. I am surprisingly pretty well removed from the outside world only 3 days into it and while I still have some emotional thoughts during the long hikes, they are getting shorter and shorter and less and less relevant. At these thoughts I fall asleep. Good night.

Day 2

I could not fall asleep the last few hours as these were the coldest few hours of my life. My extremities were completely frozen and numb despite wearing leather work gloves and two pairs of wool socks. It was getting light, though no sun yet and I saw Adam skulking around in the sage brush bushes so I decided that if I am going to be cold I might as well be cold with someone instead of with my head so I got up and listened to Adam complain how cold he was last night.

Finally, one by one, everyone (except for the sun) was up, talking about the same thing: how cold they were last night. Steve finally came around and asked us we heard that in some cultures they worshiped the sun. I now believe it. I finally saw a sliver of sun light and I can honestly say I've never been happier to see that big giant ball of fire and its rays. I stood in the sun's rays for a good 15 minutes though it took at least 2 hours to regain feeling in my toes and fingers.

We took off for a short hike (maybe 2 or 3 miles) through the desert and came across a (very disgusting looking) cow pool. I should mention that all the areas we were hiking in were either federal lands or national parks which had leased the land to cow ranchers so there was always lots of cow pies and an occasional barbed fire fence around. I had no qualms about drinking water from that pool, however, I was surprised to find that a lot of people did. I figure I was in for a gram, I was in for a pound, so the last thing I cared about was some disgusting looking water which I treated with Aerobic Oxygen anyway.



Surprisingly, Steve and the rest of the instructors told us we were free to take hang out for a few hours which I immediately used to take a WARM nap. After a few hours Laurie gave us a presentation on making fire and we spent the next few hours in the sage brush looking for the "perfect bush" so we can make fire starting tools (spindle, fireboard, bow). I made a pretty good spindle and got started on the fireboard before we took off for more hiking through the desert.

It was hot. Probably over a 100, and we were expecting a long hike. Along the way we would stop and either Laurie or Steve would give us a lecture on this particular part of the desert or another (melted iron balls, cryptobionic soil...dont step on it, hygenic properties of sage brush...read: awesome toilet paper). Though at a certain I did figure out that we were going around in a big giant circle and asked Mike, the third instructor about it.

I should mentioned that my biggest annoyance with the course started from Day 1 and that was the reluctance of the instructors to discuss anything that was going on. While we were warned about it, the typical answer of "I dont know" or "We'll see" from people my age quickly wore out its cuteness. The reasons of "live in the present not the future" were just not working for me.

So I didnt get an answer, but I got further hiking. This time we descended into a canyon and after a lecture on flash floods, its dangers and canyon warning signs we stopped at small side depression. Now this was pretty cool because it had steps carved by Indians thousands of years ago and two intermittent water holes (also disgusting, filled with lots of dead mosquitoes) . Surprisingly, Steve told us we were camping out here for the night and then he took off.

As we found out later, Sam, our youngest member (20) had decided to quit and so Steve had to go take him out to the main road. In the mean time, we got busy looking for shelter and duff (oak leaves). Some people found caves, some people found overhangs (Adam and I) and everyone found duff! Unfortunately for Sam, he was not able to find a ride back to Boulder (population: <200)>
No food for about 30 hours now. Another cold night ahead. Lights out (sun is out :-)

Day 1

I woke up in my hotel room at Provo at 6 am and realized I needed to have some serious breakfast before I left for this masochismfest for the next 4 weeks. After wondering the streets of Provo I discover a Burger King that caters to all of my whims: a sausage egg english muffin. ough.

By 7 am I was waiting outside the Travelodge with what seemed too many people for one 28 day course. It was. One group was a 7-day course group and they all stared at the 28 day course people with that "what is wrong you people look" for the rest of the trip. Though thankfully we took different vans. I met the rest of the people in our group and the recurring themes were "why the hell are we doing this?" and "oh man, 28 days is a LOOOOOONG time!". This line of conversation along with getting to know each other and eating a giant bag of beef jerky sort of kills the four hour ride to Boulder, Utah. The ride is very scenic through red canyons though I make a (in hindsight a correct) prediction that we will be getting sick of this scenery very very quickly.

We arrived at the B.O.S.S. Boulder headquarters which is really a bunch of tee pees and wiki-ups on a big giant ant hill. The ants bite me for the next 7 or 8 hours we spend there. Jeff, the field director, gives us a "welcome" speech. The speech includes rules (which should have been my first clue that something was amiss): no cursing (ok I get that) and no movie quotes (excuse me? come again?). Movie quotes apparently destroy the atmosphere and the experience of survival in nature. I am still unconvinced. Then we have a "last meal" of sorts: tuna sandwiches and tostitos. In retrospect, I should have ate more.

I meet Adam, a former Morgan Stanley trader, who immediately proceeds to eat the rest of the cheese at the lunch table.

The rest of the afternoon is spent sorting and packing our gear (most of which we would not get either until the end of the first week or half way through the course) and then waiting around to get going. We were told to drink lots and lots of water and so I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking and peeing. The pattern repeats itself about 20 times. Nick and I realize we will lose a ton of weight on the trip and decide to take before pictures.



We finally get in the van and while we assumed that since we were already sort of in a big canyon this would not be traveling far. We were wrong. Though the ride was VERY scenic it took about an hour. I got out to go pee and realized Jeff was in a car behind me playing some sort of primitive flute. Which would have been fine had it not been a scary version of some sort of Godfather theme. I am sufficiently creeped out to get back in the van and not speak of the the experience.

So we are finally dropped off. Its dark now, so probably around 9 pm. All we have on us is a 5 by 5 feet cloth (Versacloth...per BOSS) with our clothes (a few layers), a knife, a water bottle, journal and some toiletries. I also had my camera. Its starting to get "chilly".

The next few hours are spent walking through the desert, occasionally stopping to discuss some course rules, star constallations, moon phases and so on. All the sudden Steve, our head instructor and also the baddest badass of all time, stops and says (to the instructors): "Well, I dont know about you guys but I am pretty tired, what about you guys?"

"Yes? Well thats great! We'll see the rest of you tomorrow!" and they disappear off into the darkness. Ok, well expected. We did PAY for this. And so the coldest night of my life begins. Nick, a personal trainer and also the most ripped person I know, and I laid down under a small pine tree which luckily had some pine needles under it (duff) and we also put down our versacloth (which in truth did absolutely nothing). Believe it or not, I actually fell asleep...for an hour or so. And then it started. The winds. The mad mad howling winds. And it got cold. Really really cold. I started shivering. Uncontrollably and violently. You could mix paint between my teeth as they were clattering with tremendous force. I tried to fall asleep but it was impossible, though I think I did manage to close my eyes for a few brief five minute periods. Nick had disappeared and as I found out later it was because I may have snored a bit for that first hour! And so this continued until the first break of daylight...