hiking
I know this may sound corny- but a think that the journey illustration for life is a really good one. I went on a huge hike yesterday, way up in the Santa Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson, Arizona. I love hiking, I love getting tired and dirty and sweaty for the sake of viewing some of God's greatest ideas. It's almost always worth it. And who doesn't love trail mix?I think that our hike yesterday really revved me up for more than just that though. It got me excited about life. After taking a hot dirt trail up to the top of a canyon, my Aunt Amy and Uncle Justin and I decided to take hike down the river. We had their two dogs with us- Guschen and Toli. Hiking down a river is not easy work. In the arid desert climate of Arizona if you ever have to get out of the water you're risking thorns and pricks up the wazoo. Not literally.
As we hiked down the canyon, each of us went at our own pace, finding our own way down the river, sometimes correcting ourselves and looking up to see how others went down, sometimes getting ahead jumping from rock to rock.
But the river isn't safe. Toli, the smaller and younger of the dogs accidently got caught in a rush of water and went down a little falls head first on his back. I yelled and Justin jumped into the river at the bottom, waiting for himi to come out. He didn't come up out of the water for more than twenty seconds. I thought he was a goner for sure. Justin stuck his hand way under the waterfall, felt fur and pulled out a soaked and shivering Toli. He climbed up the rocks and laid down shivering in my arms for the net ten minutes. After recovering, we kept moving.
Further down the river, there were bigger and bigger falls. Toli avoided the water like the plague. I was a little more conscious of my footing as the noise of the water grew louder. Suddenly it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to get down the river. The canyon walls rose straight out of the deep water ahead of us. We tried multiple routes up the mountain, the first few getting us stuck, scratched and miserable.
We started back up the river, retracing our steps, not knowing what else to do. But getting to the top would take too much time and we'd be stuck in the dark. We tried one last time to head up the ridge, towards the top, hoping we would find the top. This time we found rockier land that we could travel through without getting hammered by plants and cacti. At the top, we had to find a way to rock climb without gear up a little ledge, the last person throwing the dogs up. I headed up further towards the top of the ridge ahead of the others and suddenly there was dusty trail in sight. I started yelling and exclaiming my joy. Amy, Justin and the dogs rushed up.
We were relieved. As the headed round the first corner in the bend we looked down towards the valley to catch a blood red Arizona sunset, welcoming us back.
I loved the hike. It's not that it was easy, or particularly fun every minute. But it was an adventure. We got lucky. Toli got lucky. We ended the day on two feet- headed home for a huge dinner. That's how every story should end, so I'll leave it there- a huge dinner.
posted by Unknown @ 2:30 PM
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