The Hike Full of Life's Lessons

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go hiking with the Harris Lake Ward's young men.  After months of planning and multiple preparation hikes we were ready to go.  We all met at 4 in the morning to drive up to Mount Rogers, VA.  To say that it was early was an understatement, but all of the boys and leaders were on time and we were able to hit the trail by 10:00. 

All of us had high spirits as we went into the hike.  As we hiked we talked about games, girls, hobbies, technology, cars, etc.   It was a great morning.  We ate lunch and kept going.  It then started to get hard.  There were a number of steep climbs followed by long descents.  Little by little the entire group started to get tired.  We were surrounded by trees and the trail just seemed to keep going and going.  During the afternoon we started getting minor injuries, but nothing that we were concerned about.

As we slowly came into camp that night we were a tired and sore group of hikers.  Thankfully we had worthy priesthood holders who were able to administer blessing to the boys and leaders.  We finished dinner and went to bed.  It was significantly colder that night than we had planned and a number of the boys were cold, but everyone slept pretty well.

 

Day 2 started a little slower than I would have liked, but all of the boys were in good spirits again and so we started out.  Our hike that day started with a 1.5 mile climb and it was a very slow hike.  We had a couple of the hikers who were struggling, but we finally were out of the forest by noon.  We had a couple of the boys who very excited about that and went running to see the views.  We decided to keep on hiking instead of having lunch because no one was hungry yet.  We kept hiking and were able to hike through acres of blueberry and blackberry bushes.  All of us seemed to get a little pick-me-up from the plethora of berries.

 

We finally ate lunch at 2:30.  We had a good lunch and we were back on the trail.  Almost immediately, one of the boys started to struggle.  He just didn't have the energy to keep going.  I asked all of the other boys if we could have a moment of silence and pray for him.  We decided that I would take the faster boys and then send some back to help with the other boy's backpacks.  We made it to the point where we had planned on sending one leader and one boy home due to injury. Our only problem was that there was no water for 2 miles in either direction and we couldn't leave the two of them there with no water.  We were pretty low on water and all the boys spirits were starting to flag, but we decided to push on to the next water source. We decided this so that the following day we would only need to make up .8 miles, but we chose to take a "shorter" trail, but we soon learned it was the hard trail.  The one blessing of the day seemed to be the wild ponies that were grazing next to the trail.  We started going up these steep hills that had boulders for stairs.  At one point we were bouldering trying to get over the Rhododendron Gap only to find out that the "longer" trail was 200 feet away and much easier and safer hiking.  During this time I had fallen and felt my hip come out.  I was able to get it back in, but it hurt extremely badly, but we were losing day light.  I estimate that we only had an hour left so we had to keep hiking.  Finally we made it to camp.  I sent one of the boys back to help the slower group navigate the horse trails. One of the other boys with me I noticed going into to phase 2 hypothermia.  I helped him get shirts and pants out of his and my bag.  We got his sleep pad and sleeping bag out and had him wrap up in it while I hobbled frantically around looking for wood -- which there was none of.  As I got a fire going, the last of the boys came into camp.

 

That night was extremely cold.  At 10:30 it was already at 46 degrees.  The dew point was also extremely high so everything was getting wet.  Where the water source was there were no trees.  I made everyone pair up in tents, but I only had my hammock.  Thankfully one of the other leaders had a bivvy tent and I had brought and extra rain fly so I was able to make a make-shift shelter.  We tried to get all of the boys to eat their dinner, but some of them were just to tired and I was in too much pain and couldn't keep my flavorless pasta down.  We finally went to bed.  I slept horribly.  My make-shift tent still let me get wet because of condensation, one of the boys had labored breathing all night and at 3:00 in the morning I  knew it would only get colder and I needed the night to end.  That is when I started to pray from the depths of my soul.

I asked the Lord if he would make the morning come more quickly.  I knew that He had the power to do this if He willed it.  Right after I finished my prayer, I received a text from Heather telling me that she had being praying and had received the answer that angels were watching over the boys.  I received the distinct impression that God would keep them safe and that I needed to worry about me.  I then remembered my rain jacket.  I spread it out over part of my sleeping bag and was able to produce a small warm spot and was able to get about an hour of sleep.

The next morning I was the first one up.  I wandered off a bit to do my business and started to think about all of the hardships the boys had gone through.  It was then that my eyes were opened to how much God's hand had been directing us all that previous day.  The 1st thing that I realized was every single one of the people who had received a blessing the first night had received what the Lord had promised them in full.  One of the boys had a bad knee and was blessed that the pain would go away and it did.  2 of the boys had problems with the ankles and had been blessed that they would be healed and were.  One of the other leaders had been blessed that with his back pain he would be able to continue and he did.  I was blessed that my hips would stop bothering me and I had no problems, until the previous evening (I will explain this later).

I then thought about the young men who were continually going back to help the other boys.  One of the young men told me when we reached camp that last night, "I don't feel like I have been hiking at all today.  I still have a lot of energy." When he came back into camp from helping for the last time, he told me that as soon as he came into camp he felt all the energy leave and he was exhausted.  The other young men who helped also had similar experiences as well.  One of the leaders had prayed that one boy would have his pack lightened and during the day he kept taking thing from the boys pack and he never felt his pack get heavier. Me being the leader with the boy who had hypothermia, I had the same experience since I grew up in Idaho and knew exactly what it was and what needed to be done.   Also the angels who kept guard over our camp and kept everyone warm.  Everyone except me had been warm that very cold night and had been able to sleep well, which I later learned was in answer to my mother's fervent prayers.  In an area where there was no cell-phone coverage, I was able to call my wife very briefly and ask for prayers during the night.  And I can continue with the list of miracles that followed this extraordinary group of young men.

The next morning my hip was in bad shape and the weather forecast said that there would be thunderstorms for the next 3 days.  We decided to call the hike off and go back the 2 miles and then hike out to the road.  I was heart broken.  I know what miracles happen on a 50 mile hike. This was my 5th one after all.  But as we came off the mountain I started to ponder again.  I realized that when we had decided to keep hiking the previous evening, the Lord had being telling me to stop.  I had received the impression that we should end it, but I hadn't wanted to.  As soon as I started hiking again the previous evening, God took away my blessing of no pain in my hip.  The last 2 miles had been excruciating and when I still refused listen, God allowed me to fall while bouldering and twisted my hip so that I couldn't keep hiking. That way the boys, leaders, and myself would be safe and off the mountain in time for the storms.  But as I hiked the last 2 miles I realized as well that every single person who had gone had received a 50 mile experience in 25 miles of hiking.

Also as a side note to ending the hike early -- I started getting appendicitis the day after we arrived home and my surgeon said that if we would have been hiking still, I would have been in a lot more trouble than I already was.

We arrived at our pick up destination early, so we stopped and watched the wild ponies graze.  One of the boys decided to take some close ups of the ponies and they were very gentle ponies that acted just like dogs.  One of the fawns came up and started nuzzling him.  After that all of the boys and leaders spent the next hour just enjoying the opportunity to share time with these ponies and revel in God's creations.

 

These past few weeks have taught me a lot.  God is always aware of us and what we need.  We may be blind to the reasons behind everything, but God knows what we need.  I want every one of the boys to realize that God will never leave them alone.  If need be, He will send an army of angels to protect them.  I know that God has been watching over me.  Many of these miracles I have spoken of could be looked as being coincidence, but they were not.  They were miracles and I hope each boy uses these experiences to build their testimonies and realize that God does have a specific plan for each of them.