Blog #4

 Last summer I went backpacking with my friends. One of the reasons among many that I keep referring back to the trip is because in my eyes before the trip I was really quite shy and was very uncomfortable around new people and new situations. Now I feel as if I'm more confident and able to be put into an uncomfortable situation with new people and do just fine. The tipping point I think that finally pushed me over the limit of my capacity to be shy is when had to spend all of my time with 14 other people and learning that you can open up to people. Most of all one of the things I remember was when we were playing one our camp games and this one was a different version of charades, with different levels of difficulty. After so many tramatic events on the trial we just trusted each other and we all grew in our own separate ways. We all really opened up to each other and we became out own family in a way. That experience has opened up so many doors and started me on a journey of self-discovery and putting myself out there.

Blog #3

Sitting at the bottom of a mountain, shivering with my beaten and bruised friends wondering why we ever followed our Instructor team down the slope. It was the third day into our backpacking trip with my two friends Lilly and Leeann and we had come to the point that to continue on course we had to go over a pass. A pass is the lowest part in mountain. We had camped the night before near the base so that we had to whole to get over the pass. Though it was June, there was snow on the mountain in Idaho where we were traveling on foot. We first had snow school where learned how to traverse up and down the snow clad inclines. We then finished up with our lesson with learning how to "self-arrest." Self-arresting is when you fall and are falling and have to stop yourself. The I-team or instructor team told us there was a chance we might have to use it, but unlikely. Yah they were wrong. After the lesson we all took a break before going over the pass. After eating, sunscreening, and shouldering our packs we were finally ready to go. The trek up was long and tiring. It was long with a steady incline but still really tiring. Before we took the final leg up to the top Lilly was put at the front, she was the slowest going up and having the most difficulty, with me behind for support. The final leg up was pretty easy and fun with all twelve girls singing pop songs and making jokes. We finally made it to the top and rested. The thought that was going through all the girls heads was probably, "That was easy... going down is going to be even easier." We were all horribly wrong. As we looked over the other side of the mountain, to our surprise we saw a nearly vertical path downwards in the snow. The path wasn't visible so we made our own track, the beauty of snow. Safe to say I was freaked out of my mind but kept telling Lilly that it was going to go well and that we'd be down in no time. The first ten or so steps were all good until a strong gust of wind thew us all off balance and then all heck broke loose. Lilly slipped and fell and luckily stopped right before a tree. One on the I-team went down to check on her, they were good with snow and we were not. We tried to keep good faith and keep going but then I fell about three steps from where Lilly fell and was able to self-arrest after about twenty feet, Lilly went about fifty to seventy. After that it all went down hill, literally, seven more girls fell. We were all able to self-arrest and no one was hurt, up to this point. We all grouped around the tree and tried to go down in our own paths to get to the next tree over on the left side of the bottom. It took all of us over two hours to go around 500 feet. During that time I self-arrested two more times, one girl fell again and ended up stuck in a tree, and one unfortunately could not self-arrest, gained too much speed rolled the rest of the way down, under the same tree the other girl was stuck under. We all finally made it to the second tree but still had a little ways to go, but by this time about five of us, myself included, we too terrified to go the rest of the way with our packs. Ohh and if you had forgotten this whole time we had 55 pound packs on. The I-team took turns taking us five done, carrying our bags for us. At the bottom of hill we learned that Thomi, the girl who had fallen down the whole way had gotten a long gash in her leg but other wise was fine (she stayed on the rest of the trip). We all sat in a circle and discussed the day and shared our personal feelings and thoughts. We were all very scared and just wanted to curl up in our tents and sleep but it was not to be. We still had to go break camp, halfway across the lake the mountain was next to, cook dinner, set up our tents, and by this point we all really had to use the bathroom/the tree. I will not go into bathroom etiquette in the snow in the woods, its very complicated. No one was severely injured but we were all wary to go on a pass ever again, we would go over two more passes during the trip.