Transcript: 

"It was a safe place because we were all very vulnerable. We got to see each other at our worst. I mean, we were just filthy. At the end of the trip, we would be smelly and filthy, and that's when we would give people their t-shirts so they would be clean because the bus driver would say, I'm not driving you people if you smell. So basically everybody take clean clothes, and they gave them to me at the base camp, and then we would give everybody their t-shirt and everybody would put their dirty clothes away because the bus driver's like, look, I'm not driving you for 12 hours with stinky kids on a bus. That sort of thing. We would always have a special meal at the end. We never had any rituals or anything, but I think because everybody, we were all, when you have to shit in the woods with people and it's raining and you're carrying everything on your back, and the person you might not ends up being a really good friend....

And like I said, people would become roommates, people would rent houses together. People had study groups, people mentored people, and the friendship went beyond the woods. That was the thing. It was like, I met this person on the backpacking trip, but now she's in my wedding, or he helped me buy my first car. Or when I was applying to medical school, this person helped me with my woofer stuff. So yeah, I think that's what it is. I mean, like I said, you're at your worst and you're at your most vulnerable. And there's sometimes when you just cry and you're frustrated and you're angry and you're just annoyed that you can't flush the toilet and you're dirty and you see each other at their worst."