This past summer, I traveled to Wyoming’s Wind River Range for a backpacking trip with 10 other kids from across the country through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). It was the most mentally and physically draining thing I have ever done.
The fun and rewarding experiences I had made me a better person, and they taught me lessons I will never forget.
My motive was to get out of Ohio and disconnect from the suburban lifestyle. Over the course of 30 days, my group and I spanned 110 miles and slept in four-person tents. For breakfast and dinner, we would use dry ingredients to prepare hot meals like fried rice, chicken alfredo and quinoa bowls.
It felt weird living in the mountains at the start, but after some time, I fell in love with being in a new environment.
There were a lot of highlights of my trip, such as stargazing, fly fishing and baking cakes at 12,000 feet of elevation, but my favorite moment of all was when we summited the tallest mountain in the region, Temple Peak. Initially, our climb was delayed six hours due to bad weather, but once the clouds moved out, we reached the most extraordinary view I have ever seen.
Although the Temple Peak view was breathtaking, not every moment of the trip was picture perfect. After a week into the trek, I found myself on the ground snorting milk and shoving sticks of butter into my nose because of an accident one of my group members made. A boy dropped his canister of bear spray, and he punctured it with his snowshoe. Immediately after, a big orange cloud of gas filled my eyes and airways. This caused the hike to end for the day because we were stationed to aid my
group.
While on the backpacking trip, we were frequently threatened by animals trying to steal our stuff. We had to carry around an electric fence to protect our property and hang our backpacks on high branches to keep our things out of reach.
Another issue I went through was exhaustion; every day was a mental and physical battle. I had to carry a pack between 40 to 45 pounds daily, which caused me to be constantly sore. I was forced to push myself mentally to overcome my doubtful thoughts.
It wasn’t all hardships, though. I formed many strong friendships with my hiking group, and being in an un-
plugged environment for a month made us one big fam-
ily. We do monthly Facetime calls to stay in touch, and I recently visited two of these friends.
Looking back, I would absolutely do a trip like this again because it provided me with the opportunity to detox from my typically busy lifestyle and caused me to grow as a person. As a 17-year-old, it was weird being away from technology. However, I loved every minute of it, as I was able to disconnect entirely from the media and find that there is so much more to life beyond the screen.
I met a lot of inspiring people from different backgrounds who gave me a ton of wisdom from their different perspectives on life. I will take what I learned on my trip and continue to apply it to my everyday life.
