Molly Absolon - Outward Bound Backcountry Cooking

Molly Absolon has worked as a climbing, backpacking, mountaineering, and winter instructor. Her background includes rigorous outdoors training and years of experience sharing her wilderness know-how with a wide range of audiences. She is a freelance writer on projects ranging from communications materials for environmental groups to marketing copy for tourism promotion and just about anything in between. In her spare time, she loves to ski, bike, and hike, and occasionally she still gets out to go climbing. She lives with her daughter, Avery, and husband Allen OBannonanother FalconGuides authorin Lander, Wyoming.

Outward Bound USA celebrates over 55 years of outdoor education programs that inspire people of all ages to effect positive change in their communities and to create a more compassionate and resilient world for generations to come.

Outward Bound is globally recognized as the leading outdoor experiential education organization, annually serving close to 50,000 youth and adults from communities across the USA.

At Outward Bound, we believe that values are best learned when experienced concretely rather than taught abstractly; that when the makeup of a crew crosses racial, economic, or religious lines, differences are celebrated, appreciated, and valued.

Together, we seek, embrace, and value the lifelong adventure of learning.

There are eleven regional Outward Bound Schools that operate across the United States. Each School has autonomy to deliver Outward Bound courses in their regions and to build strong ties within their local communities and with their regional School partners.

Each School develops programs that serve specific student populations or needs and programs that respond to issues directly affecting their local communities. For many years, the Hurricane Outward Bound School has offered semester-long expeditions where learning at sea, from the Maine coast to the Florida Keys, becomes a formative part of a students gap year plan. The Colorado Outward Bound School also offers semester-long courses where students begin their coursework in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and conclude their coursework in Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. The Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School, for example, developed The Police Youth Challenge, to address the deeply rooted, fraught relationships between police officers and young people across the city, and endeavors to connect them across issues and identities. The program has created positive, systemic change empowering young people and officers to see their leadership potential, to shape their sense of responsibility to their communities, and to act with compassion toward themselves and their neighbors.

While each school operates autonomously, they all benefit from OBUSAs national network, which ensures a high level of consistency in program quality, safety, and outcomes.

Central to its mission are the values of inclusion and diversity, evidenced by its scholarship program designed to attract and benefit populations that are typically underserved. Approximately 45 percent of participants receive financial support, and they span ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity.

In the United States, to advance the mission of changing lives through challenge and discovery and to achieve our goals of developing compassionate, purposeful people, Outward Bound now offers its unique blend of adventure-based programs for a broad range of student populations including:

• Highly Motivated Teens and Young Adults
• Adults
• Veterans
• Professionals
• Outdoor Educators
• Struggling Teens and Young Adults
• Partnerships with Schools and Other Youth-Serving Organizations

Although programs vary broadly in student populations served, location, and objective, they all contain elements that are central to the development of effective and compassionate citizens: adventure and challenge, learning through experience, integrity and excellence, inclusion and diversity, social and environmental responsibility, leadership and character development, and compassion and service.

Outward Bound Instructors are highly trained, qualified educators and outdoor skills specialists. Participant safety is a high priorityfoundational to every program. Every course is led by Instructors who hold, at minimum, wilderness first responderlevel certifications and who have completed hundreds of hours of educational, safety, student, and activity-management training.

Instructors are proficient inand passionate aboutthe specific wilderness skills of the activity they teach, whether rock climbing, sailing, mountaineering, sea kayaking, canoeing, or whitewater rafting. To help students along their personal growth paths, Instructors are trained in managing groups and individuals. A vital component of very course is the Instructors ability to not only shepherd students through individual course challenges but also to help them work as effective leaders and contributing members of their team.

The impact of each expedition extends well beyond the course itself. This impact is different for each student but can be seen in a variety of ways, including improved school performance, closer relationships with family and friends, or a new commitment to service.

When Outward Bound students return home, they bring with them a new sense of responsibility, an enhanced appreciation of the environment, and a strong service ethic that they share with friends, family, and their community.

Working and playing in the outdoors stimulates everyones appetite.

Everyone brings their own taste to the table, so to speak, so when youre feeding a crowdeven if its just your own familyits important to offer a variety of tastes and textures so each person will find something pleasing. That principle is the same when you head into the backcountry whether youre planning meals for two or twelve. Further, these days, its not uncommon for people to have restrictive diets: Many individuals are gluten or lactose intolerant, vegetarian or vegan, diabetic, or allergic to specific foods. So the first step in creating a menu for your trip is to poll your team to find out what people can or want to eat.

When you go camping with friends, it helps to generate a questionnaire on food preferences for everyone to fill out. You dont need detailed responses, but sometimes its hard to really know what people are willing to eat unless you ask them specific questions. Theyll shrug and say, Oh, I dont care, but then you discover later that they cannot stand oatmeal, and raisins make them feel sick. Meals can also be of varying degrees of importance to people. Some folks have no problem eating ramen noodles every night and morning for an entire week. On the plus side that kind of menu is simple, fast, easy to prepare, and lightweight, but if you are out for a week, it could get old pretty fast. Other people like to make elaborate mealsthings like pizzas or cakeswhen they go camping. The plus side here is the added variety and texture that baked goods bring to your menu. The downside: Baking takes time, which on a goal-oriented expedition may be in short supply. So ask your trip mates some open-ended questions like these: