I remember, years ago, watching as the group of kids on my trip progressed through that all-too-familiar set of stages: we formed, we stormed, we transformed, and we (say it with me) performed. This year, as a Course Director, I abandoned aspirations of partaking in that elegant evolution, and instead, danced a variation on it. Here are the stages I repeatedly went through: I investigated, I fretted, I fixed, and I dealt. This protocol was not in the Longacre Expeditions handbook, but it seemed natural, and since Rog and the rest of the CDs were OK with it, I scooped it up and ran with it.

Often, my days started with an early wake-up call from Rog. “Hey, Jonny,” he said at 5:30 one morning, “The kid who broke his leg skiing yesterday — was it his left leg or right?” I remember how the facts came slowly and unclearly to me at that hour. My brain was still frozen, just thawing out. “Um, I think his left. No, his right. Yeah, that’s it, definitely his right. I mean, I’m 90% sure it was his right…” Other times, parents, unaware that a number of “time zones” existed between New York and Oregon, woke me up with their urgent inquiries. “What’s your mailing address?” was a typical such question. God, that phone was glued to my ear. One mother called to ask if I might be able to help her deliver a birthday cake from her daughter’s favorite bakery (in New York City) to a campsite beside the Deschutes river. We got a cake to her there, but it wasn’t from the East coast. Like I said, we dealt.

By midmorning, things were happening around basecamp. Someone was cleaning the kitchen, someone else was filling up a van with resupply materials, and someone else was out shopping for yet more food. When I recall those mornings as a course director, I remember willed efforts to keep the phone-log updated, and I remember the familiar honk of the UPS truck interrupting those efforts, and I remember the subsequent delivery of a stready stream of mail that kept arriving for kids who had long since said their goodbyes. I also remember heartfelt, impassioned conversations with my fellow course directors about everything under the sun, trip-related and otherwise. This remains one of my favorite aspects of the summer.

The first couple of weeks vibrated with a frenetic energy. Everything was new (he ran out of gas and then hitch-hiked!?), and unexpected (the roof rack broke how?), and because it seemed to be happening from the wrong angle it was exciting (woah, I get to judge the no-talent show?!). I knew what I’d do in most situations as a trip leader, but what should I do as a course director? There were a lot of logistics you knew you’d have to attend to (getting the office up and running, organizing all that gear), and there were also the ones that – suprise! – also needed your urgent attention (the overflowing porta-potties, the non-existent and unavailable July 4th campsite). As we got into our groove, though, that initial hubbub faded, and it was follwed by a long, melancholic silence – in which we constantly reminded ourselves that our wonderful (and wonderfully-trained) trip leaders really were out there doing great things, even if we only heard about it in occasional snippets and soundbytes. During this long stretch, we shuffled around basecamp trying to escape the intense desert heat. It sapped us, and drove us into a langourous stupor. So while we talked the talk of taking invigorating trips to secret swimming holes, we thanked our lucky stars if we were able to unstick our sweaty selves from the floor and settle in for the luxury of plastic lawn chairs sunk ankle deep in a kiddie pool on the deck. This was course director life at its finest.

If we were really lucky, we would take precious trips into the field, and actually see the wild-eyed trip leaders we missed so much, and take part in the action, feel the energy, absorb all of those kids’ smiles and personalities. We relished those trips because we suffered from TLW (Trip-Leader-Withdrawal). This was the worst part about being a course director: we missed the meat and potatoes of the trips. We only dealt with the highlights – the rockstars and the troublemakers and the needy parents and the logisitcal nightmares – but we rarely saw the gray midtones, the just-cruisin’-through-it-all days that somehow define a trip. We craved – and begged – for the opportunities to get out and see this element of trips.

We did, however, put together a knock-em-out staff training week, and a ridiculous no-talent night that ended with the arrival of local law enforcement (and in the process, seriously invoked the Fret stage). Actually, we survived a few other run-ins with the law, and played some good practical jokes on other basecamps. We went fully decked-out to one of the best rodeos in the West, climbed some of those snowcapped peaks in our backyard, and really developed those Vew Do Board skills. I enjoyed a brief midsummer meeting with Rog, in which I learned a little bit more about life, and I also enjoyed a thousand conversations with two-dozen great trip leaders, from which I gleaned (read: stole) a whole lot of special tricks. Thank you.

The summer wound down differently from the course director perspective. The departure was harder, because everything we did made it evident that summer was over and done. There was no escaping it. By the time Josh finished packing up that last box of important papers, and everything – EVERY last little thing – had been shoved into a storage unit, almost everyone had gone their own ways. Basecamp was a dusty wasteland. We could scarecely imagine next year, yet, at the same time, we could hardly imagine life beyond Longacre Expeditions.

What remains, though, are the memories of what seem to be a dozen Longacre summers all crammed into one. A whole wallopin’ of great friendships. A hefty serving of knowledge and experience. Much awe. A renewed faith in all that is good about life and right about challenges and wonderful about the outdoors and incredible about education and inspiring about proper leadership. And a spattering of regrets – but not many.