Call to Adventure: The Journey Begins!

We had a great adventure walking along the coast. Originally a co-ed trip, we had a roster with 7 boys and no girls. Tara and Matt helped these big kids learn to pack their bags, tie their knots, and push through the pain of adapting to new circumstances with humor and beauty along the way.

Of our many nature encounters, a notable one is a river otter that loped out of the forest and into the ocean right beside us as we arrived on the beach for the first time. We cooked many of our meals over wood fire, which gave the participants plenty experience gathering wood and tending fire. The days were spent hiking and exploring, and gathering and processing the materials from the land we needed to survive. The evenings were spent in telling stories of our experience and hearing some stories of long ago as well. On the way to the boys' three-hour silent vigil in solitude, as we drew a threshold line in the sand, a juvenile bald eagle landed above us on a leaning fir tree, and soon after we saw the circling of the two parent eagles. We walked past the eagle guardians to the our brave explorers' sit sites, where they spent time in ritual reflection on their journeys. 

After the kids were welcomed back, we gathered as much firewood as we could carry and hoofed the miles back to camp with the precious fuel from the trees we relied on, enough for dinner, and even some hot chocolate before bed to celebrate all we'd accomplished this week.

Submitted by Matt McKinney, Guide for Call to Adventure 2014