Backpacking Is My Life...
Think back to a time you were happiest, a time you were content and a time you felt completely alive. When I think back, I think of only one thing. I think of backpacking. I think of the wonderfully warm sun upon my face. I think of the orange tint of the leaves and I think of being in the heart of nature itself with no worries. The morning we started hiking, I felt exactly that. I felt that backpacking was my escape from a chaotic world. It was my haven.
We were at Mineral King, the morning we started hiking. Mineral King has an elevation of 7,830 feet and a population of 30 people, total. Mineral King is located in the remote Alpine Valley in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The trail we took out of Mineral King would lead us to our destination, the High Sierra Wilderness. I'm not going to lie, this trip wasn't desirable to me at the time because I was scared. We were hiking into the wilderness. That means that we would be surrounded by nature, plants , and all the forest's animals. This meant bears and mountain lions. But I later came to realize , that’s where the thrill came from.
From 7:00 in the morning to about 3:00 in the afternoon , we hiked. We stopped to look at the views we started to see as we climbed higher and higher on top of the mountain. The sights we saw were phenomenal. They literally took my breath away, not that it was that hard, seeing as I already had trouble breathing because I was out of shape. Our base-camp that night was near a creek. I remember listening to the beautiful sound of the woods, wind, and the rushing water. When all three were combined, the sound was simply marvelous. That night after diner, my brothers, sister, and I all decided to leave something behind to remember us by. We piled rocks on each other in towers and left them, in hopes that one day we would return and they would still be there.
As soon as we awoke the next day , we were on our way again. We hiked for a good while and stopped at a wonderful, huge, bright, reflecting lake. It wasn't a lake like any others. This lake was so much more than all the other lakes that I had ever heard of. It was the God of all lakes. The water was icy blue with almost every kind of life possible, living in it. The steep slopes of the mountains across the lake, seemed to act as a beacon of light on the water to all the birds in the sky. Unfortunately it acted as a beacon to all the mosquitoes within a mile too. My family and I decided to go for a swim and it was cold. The water temperature couldn't have been more than fifty degrees at the warmest and there were very sharp rocks within that mountain lake. I remember hurting my feet on those rocks and feeling as if I was going to freeze to death in that icy cold water, but that was also the only time in my life so far that I was completely at peace with
myself. That one moment made me stop and think about how we, the human population, take Mother Nature for granted. We just assume it will always be here, but it won't .
After our swim and sleeping that night, we got up the next morning and came to find out that we were way ahead of schedule. We had hiked to our destination two days earlier than expected. That was a record for my family and me. We decided to head back down the mountain because we were all dieing for real food instead of the freeze dried stuff. I remember hiking all that day with only one break. We made it all the way back down the mountain to Mineral King, before the sun went down. We were determined to get off that mountain and share our experience with all of our friends and other family. We knew they would be ecstatic for us.
I can honestly say that I learned many things on that backpacking trip. I learned to not take Mother Nature for granted because it won't always be there and to take advantage of it while it is still here. I always used to hate backpacking because none of my friends did it, but that’s why I ended up loving it. None of my friends are able to say that they have hiked a mountain in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Not many people can and that’s what makes that opportunity truly phenomenal. I will always hold that memory close to my heart along with backpacking. That trip was the time I was happiest, the time I was content, and the time I felt completely alive. It's what I think of when I think of the orange tint of the leaves and the wonderfully warm sun upon my face. It's what I think of when I think back to being in the heart of nature itself with no worries. It was my escape. It was truly an adventure. It was backpacking and it was empowering.
Libby Clary