Our team of 14 was exhausted but our positive perspective persisted,

motivated by the invigorating view of Canadian mountaintops.
Entertained not by a screen, but by the company of each other;
forming unbreakable bonds and new relationships.

Toes numb after hours of pounding the inside of my mud-caked backpacking boots.
One fatigued step after another, the weight of a pack dragging me down.
Ten unshowered bodies forge onward, trudging up steep snow....
fighting to conquer the summit.

Fighting to seek a purpose,
to find something bigger than what we are.
to push ourselves to the absolute limit,
to go Beyond.

Beyond the melancholic meandering through mundane life,
breaking outside of the grey, we find the reds and greens and blues of life.
Disturbing the stale, stuffy, stagnant air (whose recirculation represents routine life)...
We are present and wholly fulfilled--this is the purpose of life and the foundation of happiness,

endowed through nature.