Survival Journal - Introduction

This article is an introduction to the history of a month of my life from July 24, 1973, to August 24, 1973. Officially, the experience was titled “Youth Acculturation Course” hosted by Brigham Young University. Unofficially, I always call it the desert survival course. The experience had such a strong impact on my life that I want to include it in its entirety in my life history. The following set of articles are almost verbatim copies of the journal I kept while attending the course. Other articles in this book are based on specific events from the course and have been embellished by my memory after more than 40 years have elapsed. (See Melody’s Malady and Chocolate Waterfalls).

The events that led to my signing up for this course are unique. My brother Tom and I attended a fireside that was designed as a recruiting tool to attract students to take the course during their summer break. We were both quite captured by the grand sense of adventure the presentation portrayed and signed up to take the course together. It turned out that Tom dropped the course for reasons unknown to me, but I chose to take it without his companionship. I was planning to go on my mission at the end of the summer and hoped it would be a good character-building experience that would serve me well in the mission field. Before I left home to go take this course, I had received my mission call and knew I would be going to Brazil a few months after returning.

Below I include two maps to pinpoint the location in Southeastern Utah where the course was held. The first shows the general area relative to familiar large cities in the state of Utah.

The map below shows a more detailed zoom-in of the route we took from start to finish.

We started at Keg Knoll and ended in the town of Boulder. The total length of the trek was a little over 250 miles.

Calendar View

July 24 to August 24, 1973

Instruction
Impact
Group Exp.
Survival
Forced march
Student Exp.
Solo
Rappel, testimony Mtg.
Run-in, bus ride home
Party

The next 5 articles describe each week separately. I hope they don’t put you to sleep.