It may have been a little past nine, although it was hard to say. We wore no watches, carried no flashlights, no sleeping bags, no matches or butane stoves for cooking. That first night, we had only the clothes on our backs, fanny packs, and blue tin cups, for whatever water we could find. I asked again, hesitantly. No ground cloth, either.
Body heat makes a big difference.
So we huddled under a juniper tree, eight strangers, in a fitful row. This is completely insane. That was exactly the point, of course. At the beginning of their BOSS experience, campers are asked to sign a sheaf of liability-waiver forms, and if they choose to bail out at any point, the company's only obligation is to leave them at the nearest road. The only fatality ever on a BOSS excursion took place when a camper was bitten by a flea from a dead squirrel and caught bubonic plague.