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...