Joshua Tree National Park is striking and beautiful. Cacti and succulents twist toward a bright blue sky, with massive golden rock piles in the backdrop.

The park is a sunshine paradise, with sun nearly all year and an occasional dusting of snow in the winter. With so little light pollution and clear nights, it’s the best place to see the Milky Way.

Bella loved her Joshua Tree Backpacking & Rock Climbing expedition with Outward Bound California so much that she said she wanted to hide behind the rocks rather than leave at the end.

“It was the best gift I’ve ever received,” Bella said. On her 16th birthday, she unwrapped an itinerary for the New Year’s course. She had always wanted to spend this birthday in California, and now that dream was coming true.

With that glowing review, it’s hard to imagine how differently it started. She was nervous on the plane and outright disappointed when she arrived and saw only one other girl in her 10-person crew.

That changed quickly, though, as the crew began calling themselves a family on day three. Their friendship was shaped by early mornings spent making breakfast and breaking down camp and the shared struggle of carrying heavy backpacks in the desert—what Bella laughed and called “trauma bonding.” Those connections were further strengthened with a spontaneous haircut, windy nights by the fire, and sleeping under one tarp on New Year’s Eve, just to be near one another.

Bella said time didn’t exist on her expedition; they were living in the moment. “But it was also more than that. These were the moments we wanted to be in.”

Bella realized she could do so much more than she ever thought she could. She had believed her own story that she was directionally challenged for a long time. She joked she was so bad with directions that she would get lost in her own neighborhood. The day she and Finn successfully led their crew to and from their destination, guided only by a compass through a vast, signless desert, was a moment of true pride for her.

“I doubted myself a lot before this. But I learned that I could push myself harder. Like rock climbing—even when I thought I might fall, I went for it anyway, and then I didn’t fall. And I was like, whoa, I didn’t know I could do that. The course was a lot – but I benefited so much from it. Now I want to do more things that make me uncomfortable.”

She paused, thinking back to it all. “I really fell in love with it. With the experience. With the people. I feel so lucky. I’m so glad this exists.”