The sun had barely started to crest over the top of the mountains I could see in the distance. I do not know how to explain how the anticipation built inside of me as the distance shortened between me and the trails ahead of me. We arrived at the head of the trail and I slowly unloaded my bag from the back of the truck. With every step I took the hope that I could handle this challenge opened itself to me. After a few minutes of walking through the brush to get to the actual beginning we arrived at the foot of the mountain. My heart thudded like a herd of wild rhino’s running through the jungle.

The first hill looked larger than anything I had ever seen before. Almost a wall ahead of me the real danger revealed itself. What if I slip, will I be able to save myself. Moving slowly up the mountain I had no problem. Then pain struck our crew. Our leader dislocated his knee and went down for the count. All that was flying through my head was images of him flowing downhill as the leaves carried him like a magic rug. After what felt like eternity we started up again.

“This trip has started out a lot worse than I had first imagined,” Mr. Huntsinger said.

“I know, who would have thought that we would have this much difficulty with just this little hill standing before us,” I replied.

With less of a walk before us and more ground disappearing below us we knew that we had officially conquered our fears.

“This could have been a lot worse,” I said.

Almost instantaneously the heavens opened above us carrying down water as if a giant bucket had been dumped over our heads. Only this rain never seized falling, it just continued on as if our hopes of making it to the top had nothing to do with it and its only joy would be seeing us not succeed in our journey. Not only did this make me feel as if there was a force working against me, it gave me the extra push I needed to finish the climb.
Nearly five hours later and six miles we climbed we finally arrived at the sanctuary of our camp. We instantly put up our tents, cooked dinner and fled into our sleeping bags going to sleep cold, tired, and most of all proud of what we accomplished on the way up, and excited for the rest of the way down.