My Junior Outdoor Education Trip

By Chelsea Youn '10

Toilet paper, clean drinking water, and nice-smelling clothes… it has been about a week since I came back to the civilized world from the wilderness. I still remember a look of ecstasy on my group members' faces when we finally reached the trail end and saw other groups' vans – we realized a nice shower and fresh fruits were not so far away. Before I indulge in a warm comfortable bed that I craved last week, however, I must refresh one of my memories that I will carry with me.

It was the summit day. So far, it had been a tough trip. Trails were hard to follow, the elevation was getting higher, and our backpacks were heavy. After all that hiking, however, it wasn't a lively campsite in the Garden of Eden that was waiting for us; it was steep, treeless mountains that we had to climb for three more days. In fact, we hardly believed that we could reach the summit. But we still decided to give it a try – we woke up at 4'o clock in the morning and started hiking.

And that's when the magic began. We reached our first destination five hours earlier than what we planned. The peak that had looked so dire and unobtainable started to seem tangible. Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe we can all do it. So we started climbing.

It was definitely not an easy hike. For me, my fear of height pressured me more than physical demands did. To be honest, half of the time I prayed to God for help, and during the other half, I thought Mr. Judycki was insane. Countless times, I was tempted to go back. I crawled and slid more than I walked. One of the members got seven holes in his pants. ‘APUSH and JRP are going to be nothing compared to this craziness,' I thought.

But maybe God really heard my prayer – that day, I did reach the summit. I still remember the overwhelming scenery that sprawled before me when I finally lifted my face up from weeping. Interestingly enough, after gaining and losing hundreds of feet of elevation in a few hours, we even managed to hike five more miles.

Looking back, I am awed by how energetic I was that day. It is probably the most memorable day from my trips since my freshman year. Yet what I will carry with me after this trip is not just that one memory. It is the optimism that I can reach any summit. For me, this year is like a huge mountain that I must climb – a mountain of academic workload, expectations, responsibilities, et cetera. It will be a hard one, for sure; however, it is not an impossible one, and I have proven that to myself. So it begins. I put my backpack on my shoulder again to climb another mountain. I'm ready to rock this mountain just as I did a week ago.