Compiled by Holly Dayton ’13, Lens Section Editor
Every year, the Scroll runs a series of college essays written by the graduating seniors. This year’s seniors are a very talented class who are leaving CCDS to go to colleges all over (and even out of) the country. This is the college entrance essay of Alanah Hall, who will be attending Wesleyan University.
Alanah’s Essay:
Even though it was July, I didn’t think twice about leaving my swimsuits and tank-tops buried in the back of my closet and stuffing my suit-case with wool socks, rain gear and a fleece or two. In fact, I couldn’t help but smile as after a considerable bit of digging, I managed to excavate my hiking boots from a heap of flip-flops, muddy cross country spikes and old sneakers piled in a laundry basket. Then, I lugged my suitcase downstairs while navigating the mayhem of my family’s packing frenzy. Piles of sunscreen, Nalgenes, bug repellent, stacks of laundry, hiking packs and first aid kits lay scattered all across the front hall. As my mom shouted reminders to my 14-year-old brother, Luke, and my dad cursed because he’d accidently knocked into a lamp with one of the hiking poles he was carrying, my stomach knotted into a familiar mixture of exasperation, stress, nostalgia and excitement that can only mean one thing to a 16 year old: family vacation.
A few days later we were in one of my favorite places in the world, the Canadian Rockies, and Luke had somehow convinced me to go camping with him and Rolfe, my ecologist brother-in-law. I had never been camping before. As much as I love the mountains I had always felt that I would appreciate my day of hiking a lot more by coming home to a hot shower, real food, and a soft bed. I probably wouldn’t have gone, but Rolfe, a professor at the University of Alberta, had a lot of experience keeping grad students alive in the mountains, so I thought he’d be a trustworthy guide. But his best friend, Mark, looked at my brother and me as if we were crazy. Mark advised us to pack our own survival kits (complete with food and first aid) and warned us that Rolfe would take us off trail while tossing around the word “shortcut.” Still, my brother and I zipped up our backpacks, exchanged grins and wary glances, and got in the car with Rolfe, while Mark stood in the doorway shaking his head.
We took an isolated gravel road to our trailhead, pulled into the turnoff and noticed no other cars. Because I knew that bears avoid busy trails, I wasn’t particularly comforted. In my three years of summers hiking in Canada, I still hadn’t run into a bear, and I wasn’t complaining. We had been carrying our 40-pound packs up the trail for about half a kilometer when Rolfe said, “You know, I think we should just duck off the trail here for a bit and cut through over to that ledge…” This, Mark had said, was the moment to turn around and high tail it back to the car. Luke and I both laughed, but for some reason we fell into pace behind Rolfe anyway. Fifteen minutes later, as we were struggling uphill and weaving between pine trees it started hailing. Hail the size of small golf balls. We were so busy taking refuge that we didn’t notice the ominous storm clouds rolling in over the mountain. Then came the rain. Without a trail, it was hard to find places to put our feet as dirt had turned to mud. And once we left the forest, and reached an open field, I noticed Rolfe subtly repositioning the bear spray on his belt and checking his pocket for the bear banger.
By the time we reached our camping spot, the clouds were low and I knew it was going to be a cold night. As dark fell, we sat around the crackling fire roasting sausages on sticks, toasting rolls and warming partially frozen peas in small pot. But just as we opened up our bag of marshmallows, the rain resumed. This time with lightning. We tried to wait it out, but only lasted about five minutes before the rain picked up and we surrendered, packing all the food in the bear bags and stoking the fire. As I made a mad dash for our packs, trying to stow them in the tent before they became soaked, we saw a huge streak of lightning followed immediately by mountain-shaking thunder. Rolfe abandoned the rope system we’d devised to get the bag up the tree and just tossed it
into the pine where it remained precariously perched in the upper branches. “Forget the bear bag,” Rolfe shouted over the whipping sound of rain pelting the trees. “No bear in his right mind would be out tonight!” As I crawled into the tent and pulled my now soaking boots off, I couldn’t help but think that maybe the bears had the right idea.
The next morning when we finally made it back to civilization, I realized that the experience of camping in a thunderstorm hadn’t changed anything about the world I had left behind for 18 hours. And when I saw my reflection in the car window, I didn’t really seem any different either. I was just a muddier, sweatier, more tired version of the girl who had left this parking lot the day before. I wish I could say that I was no longer worried about meeting a bear on a hike, but I still don’t know how many hikes or bears it will take before I’ll stop being concerned about running into one. After one night, I’m hardly a camping expert. I wouldn’t know the first thing about connecting all the parts of the gas camping stove we had used to make hot chocolate earlier in the morning. I’m not even confident that I could pitch a tent without some help. But now I know I want to try camping again, because I know what it feels like to lay snug and warm in a sleeping bag, listening to the patter of rain on nylon and watching through the top of a tent as lightning illuminates the night sky. And I know what it sounds like when three people laugh at their luck until their stomachs ache after realizing that they’re surrounded by metal tent poles and exposed on top of a mountain during a lightning storm. Now I know what the air smells like when you wake up in a cloud on top of a mountain after a stormy night, and I know that hot chocolate has never, ever tasted better than it does when it’s heated on a mountain during a cold morning, after camping through the night in a thunderstorm.
Photo courtesy of wesleyan.me
