“Time to get up,” our pack leader Charlie said as he went around the camp knocking on our tents. I looked at my watch and shot up.

“It's 6:00!” I exclaimed. I know waking up at six seems to be early, but we were already supposed to be on the trail. One of the first ones up, I hurried out of my tent and was astounded at what was waiting. It was deathly quiet it seemed like I was the alone in the world. The mountains surrounded us on all sides, and the only thing moving was a giant eagle soaring in the sky, so I just stood I gazed in wonder at the site before me.

I quickly got my gear ready and walked over to the beginning of the trail. “Oh,” I said as I tried to pick up my pack “okay one more time,” I said to myself. With a grunt I pulled the bag over my head and secured the straps “This is not going to end well,” I mumbled.

We began to dive deeper and deeper into the woods, and it felt like every step I took was a battle. In the days leading up to the hike I had talked optimistically saying things like “This will be so much fun,” or “I can’t wait.”  Now those thoughts had been dashed from my mind and were replaced with grumbling. I didn’t look at the beauty around me, I just stared at the boots of the person in front of me and kept walking. Eventually my body started to function on autopilot, and I developed a slow rhythm in my walk...left...right...left...right.

After what seemed like an eternity we stopped for lunch, I had never in my life been so happy to hear the word “lunchtime,” so I fell to the ground and started eating . I had a jelly sandwich on a bagel and an orange but to me it seemed like lobster and caviar. On top of that I had the beautiful view of the big pool falls to entertain me. Eventually we had to get going again, but when I tried walking I fell to the ground. I didn’t know why but my legs would barely work so I spent a half an hour with legs that made me work twice as hard to move. When my legs finally started working again it was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders, it made everything so much easier, it was like the whole world had opened up.

For example while I was walking I looked to the ground and saw a flower with a dark purple center, with yellow and pink spots surrounding it. Then on the edge of the petal was a blue spiral that circled down to the stem. Then I saw the pattern again but with minor changes. I kept seeing that pattern over and over again but with minor changes to the design each time, this wasn’t an isolated occasion, it happened several times. And it wasn’t just that, there was so much beauty everywhere around me me, and if I had kept my head down I would have missed amazing things, like a pack of elk thundering through a valley a few feet away from me, a moose and her baby getting a drink from a river, and a rainbow of cascading rocks tumbling from a falls.

A layer of silence had befallen upon our group, and I didn't notice it at first but it began to bother me, so I did something about it. I asked the kid in front of me “Hey, what’s it like in Camen?” and the floodgates were opened. He started talking about his home in the islands, and then everyone, including me, began exchanging stories.I was able to get feedback on Brexit from a british citizen , I learned that the term “shrimp on the barbie,” actually refers to steak, and I even learned some new stories about my friend I had know for years. It really helped my perspective on the world, I had never really interacted someone with a life entirely different from my own, and heard their story. And never would have happened it I didn't ask that one question.

When the sun started to set, I thought that my troop was gonna give up. We were cold, tired, hungry and I thought we were gonna break. I think a small part of every one in the group wanted someone to break just so they could sit down for a bit. But no one wanted to stop when we were so close, so we kept going. The wind was howling and the night was almost upon us, but we kept going. And as I took that final step to reach the top of the mountain my heart stopped, I don’t know if it was from exhaustion of from the most amazing sunset I had ever seen, the sky a dark orange, and the sun slowly creeping below the clouds, but it stopped, and I’d never felt better.

When I laid down in my tent that night and went through the extraordinary events that I had just experienced, I realized that for most of the trip I was so focused on the destination that I didn't enjoy the journey, and my only regret was not picking my head up sooner.