FAQs

Absolutely! If you are Crew leader, for example, and you want to attend with 4 of your youth, we welcome you! Sixteen of the 48 participant slots at NeXus are reserved for youth.

Your registration covers all program materials, delicious meals, housing, and facilities for the three-day NeXus experience. As a participant, you will also receive a NeXus performance-fabric shirt and a special one-of-a-kind commemorative token to memorialize your involvement in the first-ever NeXus high-adventure course in Occoneechee Council.

For those who don't want to spend time in one of our camp-luxurious cabin facilities— or maybe you just prefer staring at the stars while you fall asleep—we will set aside several campsites for you to set up your own tent, hammock or other self-provided accommodations. These campsites will be designated male or female and appropriate youth protection requirements will be enforced.

NeXus will begin promptly at 7:30am Friday, May 8, 2026, starting with registration and all the necessary paperwork (ideally done before you arrive!). Friday and Saturday will be full of high-adventure NeXus fun and connection, and we hope you fall asleep quickly because we wore you out.

On Sunday, May 9, graduation should be close to or just before noon, and our aim is to have all participants headed home to celebrate Mother's Day by around 12:30pm. The course schedule is not finalized yet, so there may be adjustments, but at the absolute outside, NeXus will end by 2:00pm Sunday.

Indeed we can, and those letters are already written and ready to go!

The leadership aspects of the NeXus course are every bit as important as the activities, and we will do our best to ensure your school district or employer is able to see the value of redirecting your time on Friday to attend NeXus.

At the inaugural NeXus course, you can expect three full days of fun activities, including ATV, caving, COPE and climbing/rappelling, water sports such as kayaking or sail boating, and many range & target activities which highlight the facilities at OSR. While you may have done some or many of these before, we promise that you haven't done all of them the way you will at NeXus.

If you weren’t able to attend a high-adventure resource course before (such as a prior Powder Horn course), this is a prime opportunity to experience high-adventure activities for Scouting youth 14+ and adults.  If you have attended a Powder Horn course before, there will be a new set of high-adventure activities showcased at NeXus that you haven't seen before!

At NeXus, all activities are intended to be challenging, but they are "challenge by choice" — you decide how far you would like to go. If rappelling off the side of a climbing tower isn't for you, that activity area still needs participants to belay for other climbers, so you won't be sitting around unless you want to. Participation in each event area includes the practical learning, safety training and how-to-execute details as much as doing the activity yourself.

Due to the safety limits of the cabling and ropes used, and the necessity to adhere to rescue requirements, the COPE and climbing/rappelling activities have a 250-lb weight limit for climbing, rappelling or the low COPE course. Participants exceeding that limit will still learn and participate in the activity, and we will strive to provide additional exposure to elements that do not have these limitations (such as acting as belay for another climber).

All adult leaders must have previously completed the required training for their position of leadership (see https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/trained_leader_positions.pdf), and youth should have completed their unit’s version of leadership training, such as Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops, Ships or Crews. Previous attendance at National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) is recommended for youth but not required.

In addition to the required Safeguarding Youth Training, many of the high-adventure activities at NeXus will require prerequisite area- or domain-specific online certification or training (e.g. Safe Swim Defense, Hazardous Weather training, etc.). If you haven't previously completed any of these training requirements, you should expect to spend 3-4 hours in total to do so.

A full list of the prerequisite training will be provided when you register for NeXus.