A long time ago (I will not give years to this!!) when I was between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, our church youth group took a mission trip to Boston, Massachusetts and as part of that trip, we camped and climbed Mt. Katahdin close to Bangor, Maine. I was very excited about doing this. And my excitement for adventure was born. With that being said, we were all rookies in the mountain climbing domain, including the chaperones. We needed to hike about a mile from the parking lot to reach the campground.
Now, this was a ragtag bunch of kiddos, with no backpacks like there are now. Oh no, we had cardboard boxes for our food, some had sleeping bags, and some just had blankets. There were tents, but nothing that anyone would choose to sleep in today. More like little puptents and pretty sorry puptents at that!! (Boyscout issue,1968) We were a good bunch of kids if I must say so myself. My brother and two of my cousins were along on this trip as well as various youth group friends. We had about 12 in our number. Cars in those days had bench seats, so we were squeezed into two cars.
We started out early in the morning on the day we were to accomplish the climb and made pretty good headway to begin with. However, about 1/4 of the way up, a couple of the kids found out they had a problem with heights. This is something a person does not really know until you are thrown into a situation where you come to a place, and you simply can’t go on. It can be very paralyzing. After some discussion, the decision was made that half the group would take the kids that were having a problem back to base camp. My brother was one of those who volunteered to go back with them. A group of about 6 of us continued on.
Mt. Katahdin is a very rocky mountain. (I know, duh, they are all rocky!!) But the trail took some rock scrambling. Not just walking a trail … and by the way, the top of Mt. Katadin is the northernmost point of the Appalachian Trail. We got about 3/4 of the way over and the sun began to go down. I don’t know if you have been on top of a Mt., but the wind can be something that is serious to deal with.
The sun was setting and we knew we could not get down off the mountain before we were out of light. I am afraid that we did not have the proper equipment for us to continue to descend the mountain. We had no food, we were teenagers, that was eaten long ago! No water, no flashlights, and no jackets. We had absolutely nothing that we should have had for such a hike. (Remember that word rookie?!) We made the decision to climb down the side of the mountain just a little way from the trail so that we could get out of the wind. Hypothermia was the major concern.
To make a long story short, obviously, we survived.
While we were sitting there waiting through the long night and watching for dawn, we were on the side of the mountain that looked down on the campground where the rest of our group was sitting, waiting and wondering what had happened to us. We could see the campfires that were glowing throughout the campground. We could see where we needed to be, we just couldn’t get there. We could see the light.
Just knowing that the light was there, that there were people there who cared about what had happened to us, waiting for us to come out of this wilderness experience, gave us an anchor to hold on to. I cannot say that at any point I was scared. I knew all we had to do was wait until dawn, get back on the trail, hike down the mountain trail and we would eventually get where we needed to go.
However, not all wilderness adventures are that simple. There may not be a marked trail with white arrows that directs our way, that leads us out of our wilderness times. The wilderness can be a beautiful and dangerous place. It can be peaceful and stressful. Communal and solitary. Scary and yet, at the same time exciting.
Don’t be afraid to go about your wilderness adventures just because you are unfamiliar with where you are going. Move forward, get a plan, make a map, look at the trail others have used to get to the same place you are going, but do it your own way. For you are unique and your path will not be exactly like everyone else’s.
Believe me, the experience is well worth the effort. You got this! Just take one step at a time.
Till next time, keeping your eyes open for your next opportunity!