Rocky Mountain 7-day Backpacking
FOR 2SLGBTQ+ YOUNG ADULTS

AREA & ACTIVITIES

You will get to know your team members and expand on your knowledge of backcountry basics. Experienced instructors will teach skills such as how to pack an expedition backpack, stove use, shelter building, personal hygiene, minimal impact camping, and travelling over various terrain both on and off-trail. By the end of the course, you will know how to route find using topographical maps and compass navigation with minimal input from instructors. 

Throughout the challenges of living and travelling in the backcountry, you will come face to face with yourself. Instructors will support you in navigating personal challenges, so you can grow your confidence and share your gifts with others. Doing this work in an affinity space allows for a deeper level of openness and creates an opportunity for communal celebrations, of both individual and collective accomplishments.

The group will expand on their leadership skills by exploring decision-making techniques, conflict resolution, giving and receiving feedback and participating in daily debriefs. Along the way, there will be many opportunities to stop and smell the wildflowers, admire the night sky, and turn the focus inwards for self-reflection.

YOUR INNER JOURNEY 

Outward Bound Canada’s courses are designed to provide an opportunity to “Get Out, Look In”.  Each experience begins with a physical journey – stepping out of the comforts of day-to-day routines and into an environment that may be very new, adventurous and exciting, but also foreign and uncertain. Facing these changes helps to bring out new perspectives. 

Instructors take advantage of the unique environment to create space for students to take time for themselves, to reflect on their journey and its relevance to their life back home, as well as facilitated group discussions that allow for processing of the experience with peers going through the same process. Through this, students are able to apply their learnings from the course to other areas of their life after the course is over.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Our expert instructors lead participants through novel, real-life experiences that require groups to collaboratively problem-solve through challenges, failure, and success. This course is designed to have a lasting and measurable impact in three key areas:
1. Improved sense of resiliency
– OBC is building a generation of physically and mentally healthy citizens
– Participants choose to improve their physical and mental health
2. Greater leadership skills and social connectedness
– OBC is teaching the skills needed to succeed at school, work and in life
– Participants become more confident, collaborative and respectful team members
3. Stronger connection with nature
– OBC is promoting greater levels of environmentalism
– Participants develop stronger life-long connections to the natural world

SOLO

Every Outward Bound Canada course incorporates a solo experience. This includes up to 48 hours in a secluded spot, where each student is responsible for setting up their shelter and taking time for self-reflection. Instructors are close enough to offer support if needed. This is not a challenge of survival in the wilderness, but rather a supported environment to take time for oneself, away from the distractions of everyday life. While this may at first seem like a daunting challenge for some, it is often an incredibly impactful aspect of the course, as it provides a unique opportunity that very few people ever get to experience – being alone in nature. This is a valuable element of the course in preparing to transfer learnings to life at home, and being present with the multitude of thoughts and emotions that arise on an Outward Bound course.

FUNDING & SUPPORT

The Youth Access Fund offers full or partial financial support to prospective students who do not have the financial means to personally finance their Outward Bound Canada experience. Please visit the Financial Assistance page for more information and to apply. 

We also have partnered with HigherEdPoints so you can now pay for your course fee (or a portion of your course fee) with loyalty points from a variety of programs, using your own points or a family member/friends points. Once you make the deposit payment to hold your spot on a course, you can go to their website to create an account and convert your points into course fee payments. To learn more, please contact admissions@outwardbound.ca.

Header Photo by Emily Sitter. Photos on right side of the page from top to bottom: unknown, Emily Sitter, Coralee Reynar, Aidan Downie-Cheetham.