To read part two of day four, click here.

Katie laughed and tossed something into Sarah Margaret’s hands.

You would have thought she had just tossed a huge box of chocolate at her. We were all laughing, saying thank you, begging Sarah Margaret to hurry up and divide the treasure. Sarah Margaret took her time, opening the box, counting out the precious things inside, determining how many each person got. We all groaned when Jen said to make sure she and Katie got theirs too.

Finally, the treasure was passed around, and everyone held in their hands two and a half Swedish Fish. You know, those little red gummy fish? The ones that tasted ridiculously sweet after four (yes, only four) days with nothing sweet at all?

I popped the fish in my mouth and started chewing, only to remember that I had my retainers in. I chewed for a sec, trying to get the gummy off my retainers. But I guess I did not chew carefully enough, because my bottom retainer came off my teeth and I heard a crack coming from inside my mouth. I winced – that would not be good. I swallowed the fish and took my retainer out. The very back on one of the sides was cracked, but it was still holding it’s shape! There was nothing I could do about it, so I stuck it back in.

And really, I did not go nuts over the fish like most of the others. I really enjoyed them, but we don’t get much candy at home. So I was used to not having sweets. Apparently everyone else missed sugar a lot… Actually, I think a few of my crewmates did not like Swedish Fish. I don’t remember who it was, but I think that is why we each got a half.

Once we were done with the fish, we stood around for a minute. I did not know what was happening. I knew we should get on the road, but I did not want to make Sarah Margaret (and Jordan? I think that’s who was on LOD that day…) feel bad because I was doing their job.

That’s when I saw Jen talking to Sarah Margaret, and I knew we would be leaving soon.

“Ok crew, lets get our packs on! C’mon guys, we’ve got to get down this mountain! We have to meet our van at 1 o clock – they will be at the bottom of the mountain to take us to where we will get our canoes.”

I stood up reluctantly, pulling my pack on. I did not want to go, but I knew that we had to get started. I did not want to be late, and I knew that the hike would take a while with my ankle.

Someone insisted that I be put in front, so since I was in the back of the group I had to walk up to the front. I always felt awkward doing that. I don’t know why, but that’s what happened every time. I would be in the back, someone would say “Get Brett in the front – she is the slowest, she needs to be in the front” and I would have to walk up from the back, feeling awkward about it the entire way. And then I would get up in the front and I would feel so much pressure, feeling like I had to go faster so the crew would not be disappointed in me. And then I would get burned out, and that was NO fun.

I started hiking, knowing that they would all catch up to me. I was told to “yellow light it”, which just meant slow down. I was fine with slowing down – it meant more energy for later. I guess the crew was all up fairly quickly, because in about 20 seconds I head “Green light!” yelled from somewhere way behind me. I assumed that was the back of the line talking, so I started walking faster.

Since Jen had said while we were on that water run that we would be walking that way in the morning, I already knew which way to go. I turned right out of the campsite and we got to the intersection fairly quickly. I could hear Jordan and Maggie extolling the virtues of the trail we would be taking behind me and smiled grimly to myself. I knew that no matter what anyone else said, this next section would be no fun for me. It had not been very fun the night before, and with a pack it would be even worse. Plus, my ankle had started to hurt again. I was really scared that I was going to twist it going down those rocks again. The one bonus was that we were not going to have to climb back up them!

We were making pretty good speed on the easy parts. I was doing that on purpose – I wanted to get as far as I could as quickly as I could, before we hit the rocks. I did not want to take our time on the easy stuff and have it take forever on the rocks.

So we were going pretty fast. And then we hit the rocks.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*