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From the Outward Bound Catalogue, 2001
OUTWARD BOUND ALUMNI
Outward Bound courses inspire and challenge …but
you don’t need to take our word for it. More alumni stories
can be found at www.outwardbound.org/alumnistories.html
I always thought Outward Bound was for teenagers, but ten years
ago, with my son headed off to camp, and facing my first newly
single summer, I enrolled in a Women’s 30+ High Sierra Mountaineering
course. I sounded rigorous and that’s what I wanted, something
so physically challenging, that at the end of each day I would
be too tired to think about challenges facing me in my new life.
What I did not expect was a unique, lasting friendship.
In 1992 Connie, Claudia and I, were strangers camping under the
California stars. During our course in the high sierra, stumbling
with heavy packs like overloaded mules, we learned of the struggles
and emotions that bound us as women. They were with me that dawn,
when tears streamed down my face as I took in the beauty of still
waters of a mountain lake. It was at that moment I knew I could
make a wonderful new life for myself. At the end of our eight
days of wilderness, we shed our cursed packs, knowing they were
only physical burdens. Together we found our strength.
Since then, the three of us gather every summer for an Outward
Bound Reunion. For Connie, Claudia and me it is a holiday as important
as Christmas or Thanksgiving. Over our ten years of reunions we’ve
come to know each other’s families, joys and sorrows.
It is the most enduring, uncomplicated friendship I have known.
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