I awoke to find that either:
a) Bugs had not crawled in my nostrils while I slept
b) Bugs may have crawled in my nostrils while I slept but left before I woke up
c) Bugs crawled so far up my nostrils while I slept that they are past the place where you can feel them

I was actually surprised at how little I noticed sleeping on the ground (ok…ok…. We did get tiny personal ground sheet you put down between you and the ground). I was under the false impression that I would wake up to a Fear Factorish scene of worms, spiders, bugs, millipedes, earwigs, and wombats crawling all over my body. Obviously I’m a moron. The only interesting thing that happened while I slept (that I know about at least) is that my dreams were frighteningly lucid. I was not the only one either. Most course mates reported high levels of lucidness.

I was the first one up. After I noticed there were no bugs in my nose I noticed the unbelievable stench. Three men, no deodorant, one small tent = the grossest BO smell I’ve ever smelled. I staggered out of the tent into the freezing cold. It was nipply out so I went back into the sweat shop to grab a heavier MEC fleece. That’s right; I have multiple weights of fleece! I followed my headlamp off into the morning darkness in search of the outhouse. Then I realized that I was in the woods and that I was a male…..

As people awoke we exchanged awkward “good mornings”. I pretended to be genuinely interested in other people but to be completely honest I was completely occupied by the first day of my beard.

Within a few minutes of everyone waking up we made our way to the eating area for breakfast. Two of the other three groups were actually hiking out as we ate. I guess when you’re only there for seven days you have to get your ass in gear and actually get out of camp. Us twenty-one dayers could afford to take a little time for some oatmeal.

This brings us to our first life changing event of the trip:
Putting yogurt on your cereal/harvest crunch/oatmeal is WAY better than milk. For so many years I have been lied to. Honestly, you think it weird, it’s not. TRY IT!

After breakfast we piled into a 15 passenger van and headed into Strathcona Provincial Park. The tensions began to rise over music selection. The instructors (Matt and Jazz) passed the CD book back to us and told us to pick. Needless to say the eight mid twenty year olds didn’t like the same music as the forty year olds. A lot of bitten lips.

After the two hour van ride through unbelievable scenery we arrived at sunshine crag. We made the short hike up to the top of a crag and enjoyed the view of the high tension power lines. After a quick lunch we began rock climbing training. I learned how to apply the crotch defining & blood flow restricting harness. We learned the basic knots, belay techniques, and rock climbing technique. Then we proceeded to do another one of the “things I won’t do”. The classic trust emphasizing fall back into someone’s arms. Lame. Luckily it didn’t last long.

We each got one good long climb in before we had to pack up the ropes and head back to camp. The van ride back was much better musically but had elevated stench quantities.

We arrived back at camp and ate our last meal prepared by someone else (they had a cook at the base camp). We were the only group left by this point….the camp is completely empty aside from our group.

After supper we sat around a picnic table in the dark and expressed our biggest fears and achievement. We also discussed what traits we’d like our twenty one day community to have. While it began quite cheesily it was actually quite interesting to see people open up in such a blatantly organized emotional moment.

From there we followed our headlamps back to the campsite and I crawled onto the ground in my stinky tent with two men whom I did not know their last names. Day 2 was over.

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