Canyonlands to Joshua Tree Leadership Semester
Develop outdoor skills. Enhance your leadership and communication abilities. All while adventuring across California and Utah.
Rock climb in Joshua Tree and whitewater raft through Canyonlands, all while developing a wide range of outdoor skills. In this action-packed semester, you’ll learn to be a leader in the outdoors and beyond. Start your journey by backpacking in Utah’s canyons. Then, trade your hiking boots for paddles. You’ll canoe and raft through world-class rapids while exploring the rich human history of the region. Finish your semester rock climbing and backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park, enjoying fantastically jumbled rock creations, unique wildlife, and magical dark skies. This backcountry adventure will help you discover your strengths and fine-tune your leadership skills. You’ll return home with the confidence and skills to take on life’s opportunities and challenges.
UPCOMING COURSES
Course # CUGL-2581
Age 18 and up
Days 65
Cost $15,120
Dates 9/18/2025 - 11/21/2025
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This means a course has several open spots and is actively processing applications.
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JOIN WAITLIST
Once a course has reached capacity, three waitlist positions become available. To join a course’s waitlist, click “Join Waitlist” to begin the application process. A $500 deposit is required. This $500 deposit includes a $150 non-refundable application fee and a $350 tuition payment. The $350 tuition payment is refundable only if you cancel your waitlist application or if an open position does not become available. If a position does become available, the applicant will be applied to the open position and the Application and Cancellation Policies of the Regional Outward Bound School will be followed, including forfeiture of the $500 deposit if you cancel 90 days or less prior to the course start date.
Waitlist applicants are encouraged to complete all required admissions documents while awaiting an open position. Positions may become available up to two weeks prior to the course start date. Applicants may only apply to one course. We recommend applying to a course with open positions instead of a course that is accepting waitlist applications. If you have questions, please call 866-467-7651 to speak with one of our Admissions Advisors.
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Most College Savings Plans, including the 529 College Savings Plan, may be used to attend an Outward Bound expedition, thanks to a partnership with Western Colorado University. Anyone can register – you do not have to be a current Western Colorado University student. Registration is easy! Click here to learn more.
Develop outdoor skills, enhance leadership and communication, and gain environmental knowledge in stunning settings. The goal of our Gap Year expeditions is to help you develop the confidence, knowledge, and integrity essential for effective leadership. Whether you are learning how to safely tie in on belay, deciding as a group how to navigate through new terrain, or setting up a minimum-impact campsite for the evening, you’ll be honing and practicing skills for life.
- Build Connections: Find connections with your crewmates based on support and respect (and fun, too!), and in the thick of challenges, discover there is more in you than you know.
- Value Strengths and Strengthen Values: Discover your strengths, embrace independence, and practice compassion as you support your crew.
- Learn Outdoor Skills: Hone your technical abilities as you become a master at ropes courses or swiftwater rescue techniques and Wilderness First Aid. Numerous certificates are available depending on the course, and up to 18 college credit hours can be earned along the way.
- Upgrade Your Outlook: Return home with an enriched and expanded view of yourself, the world, and what’s possible.
Outward Bound is accredited with the American Gap Association and is the longest running program in this elite group dedicated to providing safe, meaningful and high-caliber educational experiences to students.
On both rafting and canoeing sections of this expedition, students will take in the beauty of the canyon while practicing paddle strokes and learning to read the water. Crewmates will become a team and take turns as boat captains. Flat water sections provide an opportunity to swim and enjoy the view. Rapids and strong winds can lead to challenge and adventure as crews paddle hard to reach camping destinations. By the end of course, students will learn navigation, river-reading, paddle techniques, boat rigging, whitewater safety, and more.
This crew will enjoy desert backpacking adventures in both Joshua Tree National Park and Utah’s Canyon Country. Backpackers carry everything they need - food, shelter, clothing and gear – allowing them to spend more time in the backcountry and venture into less visited places. This course begins with lessons in packing and hiking. Along the way, students learn Leave No Trace techniques, map and compass navigation, and outdoor cooking. Students will travel across the desert and stop along the way to appreciate wildlife. Each day, they sleep under the stars, smell wild sage blowing in the wind, and watch the sun travel across vibrant rock formations. Though the landscape is demanding, few places in the world compare to the beauty and uniqueness of the deserts of the southwestern United States.
In Joshua Tree National Park, students will set up a backcountry base camp and climb some of the unique rock formations and high quality granite that make the park one of the most popular destinations in the world for rock climbers. The rock climbing section of course provides an introduction to climbing while building trust among crew members as they belay one another and set goals as a group. Students will acquire and build skills associated with technical rock climbing, including introductory rock climbing basics, knots, movement over rock, top-rope belaying, equipment use and care of harnesses. This section will include a variety of styles including crack-climbing and face climbing.
Canyon Country, Utah
The most spectacular aspects of the Utah landscape are the hidden treasures found within its vast canyon networks, formed by millennia of wind and water. The canyons are composed of a spell-binding labyrinth of towering walls, arches, and slot canyons just waiting to be explored. On course, these vibrant formations are a geological playground for scrambling and teamwork. Canyoneering courses venture into narrower, deeper chasms sometimes as narrow as two feet wide with walls rising several hundred feet on each side. The desert ecosystem is characterized by aromatic plants like sagebrush and juniper and birds soaring high above canyon walls. The days can be hot in the summertime, but it always cools down in the evenings. These regions are within the ancestral lands of the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Southern Paiute, and Pueblo nations.
The Colorado River
Students will get to raft down one of the largest and most significant rivers in the Southwest. Better yet, they’ll paddle through Cataract Canyon, a world-renowned whitewater rafting destination that cuts through the heart of Canyonlands National Park. Archaeological sites and petroglyphs can be spotted along the way. The river boasts 31 iconic rapids that are comparable to those of the Grand Canyon in power, difficulty and beauty. Students may have the chance to encounter some of the most famous of these rapids including the Mile Long Rapids and “The Big Drops.” Slower sections of the river offer time for relaxing, bonding, and sometimes even swimming. Sandy shores offer perfect spots for camping. These regions are within the ancestral lands of the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) and Pueblo nations.
Joshua Tree National Park
Welcome to the high desert moonscape, where rugged mountains and desert plateaus have been sculpted by wind and rain. Three distinct ecosystems come together to form this land of extremes: the dark, cold, star-filled nights against warm sand and boulder-filled days. Participants will travel through granite monoliths and through narrow canyons.
The Mojave Desert’s fall weather is perfect for a week on the trail or base camping below the next climb. Weather in the park is generally dry this time of year. Rainfall is sparse, though unpredictable, and sometimes persistent thunderstorms do occur. Temperatures can vary, with lows overnight around 40 degrees and highs during the day around 70 degrees. It is possible to have colder night temperatures down to 30 degrees, as well as 100 degrees early or late in the season.
These regions are the ancestral lands of the Yuhaviatam/Maarenga’yam (Serrano), Cahuilla, Newe (Western Shoshone), Chemehuevi, Southern Paiute and Cocopah (Xawiƚƚ kwñchawaay) nations. We acknowledge them as the past, present, and future caretakers of this land, and also pay respect to their elders, both past and present. We recognize and continually support and advocate for the sovereignty of the Native nations of this territory and beyond. By offering this land acknowledgment we affirm tribal sovereignty, commit to working to support these tribes, and commit to holding Outward Bound California accountable to this work.
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To secure your spot on a course you must submit an enrollment form and $500 deposit that is applied toward the total cost of the course and includes a $150 non-refundable enrollment processing fee.