Day One - The "fun" begins.
We meet at the church at 7. We are a pretty small group - just 6 boys and two leaders. Josh, Thomas, Tyler, Spencer, Robert, Zac and myself with Bro. Mitchell to round out the crew. Each of the youth has a parent there - they each thank me for going and assure me that they have instructed their kids to bring my body back rather then leaving me on the trail in case I don't make it.
We arrive at the trailhead and the last chance to use an outhouse before heading to the woods but most of the YM choose to go out doors - its a good choice as the only option to avoid the flies.
I must admit some concern. I haven't been hiking since I was a 13 year old with my teacher's quorum. I'm already carrying 30 extra pounds around every day. Add onto that my 45 lb backpack and that's a lot to carry at my advancing years.
Fortunately the priests take pity on the old guys and rather than literally spiriting up the hill, they are only at a near jog. We have to remind them a few times that their caboose is lagging. The master planner of this route must be somewhat sadistic - rather than working into the hike we head straight up the hill. Why work into it. There are two rock scrambles where I'm nearly crawling on my hands and knees to get up. Glad that if I fall backwards I'll be able to fall into bro. Mitchell and hopefully he'll slow me down enough that I can stop. We reach the look out knob and sit for lunch. We are 1.6 miles in and I'm ready to quit. I text (we have service up here) and offer Bishop Ford large amounts of money drive here and swap me places and I'll go to girls camp all week. He apparently thinks I'm joking. Lucky for him we get out of cell service so he doesn't hear the things I call him.
Fortunately the next 6 miles are more reasonable. We walk through some nice woods, along a gravel road, and ford a few streams. The most unpleasant portions include a section where it's like walking on large marbles and a stop by the bogs of Mordor where hoards of giant mosquitoes who view us large walking smorgasbords. Tyler consumes more water than a camel and we exam him to see if he has developed a hump. The great Zac sandal experiment has thus far been successful (he is wearing Chaco sandals rather than hiking shoes - someone apparently walked the entire Appalachian trail in them so I he figures why not).
We look for a camp and manage to find a nice camp with a fire pit and an alter. We discuss things we might be able to do with said alter. With the law of Moses having been fulfilled we come up with nothing. We set up camp and walk back to a stream and refill our water. Fred Flintstone would fit right in as shirts are removed and a primitive gym breaks out as rocks are used for bench pressing, biceps curls and other lifts. It shuts down when too many "weights" break after being dropped and there are no more large weights.
After mountain house for dinner (yep, taste like camp food). We have FHE led by Robert. We then put the bear bags up and got ready for bed. There is a bright nearly full moon out and with the fire cracking and a log bench to sit on, I can almost forget the bad parts of the day.
Tomorrow we are shooting for 9 miles. Pray for me. I'm worried about being able to move any part of my body tomorrow. Wish me luck. No, pray for me. ![]()
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