My story starts the summer of 2015 when my family went backpacking in Olympic National Park.  My trip follows a serene forest path and crosses a few streams. Alpine forests close in around me and I cross a bridge hanging far above raging waters.  This specific backpacking trip is a very special memory for two reasons. One, it was just plain awesome, and two, I conquered one of my greatest fears: heights, the fear of falling…

My story starts when me and my family unpacked the car and started hiking.  The first day we hiked up to Olympus Guard Station and spent the night. The second day we hiked farther up, huffing and puffing as we went, and reached Elk Lake we spent two nights there.  It was a beautiful serene lake with lots of lily pads and a few trees which had fallen in and were slowly rotting away in the lake. At dusk the temperature rapidly dropped, and the lake reflected the late evening sky.  When I went back from exploring the lake I could hear the soft roar of the gas stove which we brought with us to heat up water and rehydrate our food. That was just the beginning…

You may be wondering, what did you do on the third day of your trip Elizabeth?  Well let me tell you something, the third day of my trip was something I will never forget in my entire life.  For the third day of our backpacking trip me and my family planned to hike up to Mount Olympus and see the glacier.  The hike in itself was not easy but there were some areas of worry like the avalanche chute we were planning on going down.  The avalanche chute was as follows: a steep slightly curved, like a half-tube, part of the mountain that had been carved away by an avalanche some time ago.  The avalanche had left the mountainside covered with loose grey rubble of varying shapes and sizes, and there was a ladder made of rope with wood rungs that you had to climb down to reach the trail below.  My family went one at a time down the avalanche shute one rung of the ladder at a time, and we eventually all made it down as we could hear the rubble we knocked loose slowly creating a tiny avalanche of its own.  After me and my family had all climbed down the avalanche chute we thought “we’re done with the hard part,” boy were we wrong. We hiked some more and eventually reached the hardest challenge of them all: a very narrow stretch of trail that had loose crumbly stones on it and a very very steep drop off.  It was a terrifying thing to overcome because as I stated earlier I have a most definite fear of heights. But I couldn’t turn back now, I had to keep going so I started to cross that terrifying stretch of trail. I remember clinging to the far side of the trail shaking saying to myself “don’t look down, don’t look down Elizabeth, don’t look down.”.  I was scared out of my mind the whole way but eventually, shaking and with tears of fear streaming from my eyes, I got across. I have never and maybe will never feel more proud of myself and accomplished as I did after I did that, the hardest part was over, and all that we had left to do was hike up and see the stunning glacier.

Some people may be wondering why, in all the world, do you like backpacking Elizabeth? The answer is simple: freedom.  When you backpack there is no standard for how you dress it just has to be functional. You are not confined by the boundary of walls and you can explore wherever you want, do what you want.  There are no constraints on what is acceptable you can act how you want and sleep or eat or play however you want and wherever you want.

So, what lesson did I learn?  It’s pretty simple actually. I just want to say that if you go out of your comfort zone and take risks you will be surprised at what happens.  Speaking from personal experience I think that going out of your comfort zone once in awhile can be very frightening but also very rewarding.