Soon after my Italian adventure finished, I drove to Nashville TN to try and convince a school run by nuns that I would be a good enough English teacher. Thankfully, week before I left for summer camp, they told me it worked. So with a bit of relief, I packed my trunk and backpacking backpack and left for another summer of unknowns.
At camp, my official job was a wilderness counselor. That meant I lead backpacking trips. I'm realizing that most of my big life decisions happen quickly, I tend to not dwell on logistics. This is often a blessing because if I had thought through the emotional and physical repercussions of leading groups of ten to thirteen teenagers and middle school girls into the woods for multiple days, I would not have done it. But like most hard things in life, I'm glad I did.
Camp was wonderful and beautiful and the people there filled me with more hope for humanity than I have had in a long time. Friendships came easily and through them I was able to verbally process almost an entire year's worth of thoughts, pains, and realizations. I will be eternally grateful for every ear that was open to me this summer.
Camp also forced me into humility. Its funny, every time I am forced on my knees I give God an, "Ok thanks! This is cool and I'm grateful, but I'm done for a little bit!" He has yet to listen.
This summer I learned that I love the wilderness, but not to the romanticized extent that I thought I did.
My hardest trip this summer was a four day trip through the foothills of South Carolina. My co counselor and I took thirteen girls between the ages of 12 and 17, and only a few started the trail with backpacking experience. I was excited to share my love for the trail with them, until I realized that most of it is awful. The reward for backpacking often comes with accomplishment at the end, but that was four days away.
By day three of walking ten miles a day while dehydrated because there was never enough time or water to replenish the constant sweat, it was getting harder to convince the girls that it was worth it. When we were in the middle of our projected mileage on day three, we stopped once again to refill our water bottles. Then the filters stopped working. When we left camp we had two wonderful water filters, but by this point, our one remaining filter was producing a tiny pencil sized stream of water that would in no way fill up the thirty nalgenes that littered the rocky area by the stream.
I was squatting by this muddy pool of water, and the filter was not pumping. I pumped harder, but that just made it rebel all the more. I looked at my co counselor, and I let loose a steady stream of unholy emotions about filters, hiking, sweat, grumbling girls, and why the heck I thought this would be fun. Because it wasn't. And the girls were dehydrated, and they weren't going to get water. We would never make it to the campsite because they could die of dehydration before we got there.
We made the decision to keep walking and hope that we came across a fast moving water source where we could use the chlorine drops we had as back up. With no guarantees, we started walking and sure enough there was a fast stream up ahead. So we prayed that nobody would get illnesses, and kept walking.
We eventually got to the campsite. We were all still dehydrated, but we hiked thirteen miles and we were there. The campsite that seemed so promising in our mind was actually a sloped rocky cove that was buzzing with flies and bees that seemed to think we were the coolest specimens in the forest. Because of their constant attention, nobody slept that night. Our choices were reduced to sweating like mad in our sleeping bags, or being bug bait outside of them. I felt like a piece of food that gets dropped in an aquarium. Little by little I was being eaten by little creatures that were just being curious.
After a night of not sleeping, we hiked the remaining six miles with more vigor than I had seen on the previous 24. Its funny how easily hope reminds you that energy doesn't have to be your own.
The hardest part of the trip was realizing that I am no better than a pouty twelve year old who is simply, "Not having fun." Though I relatively hid it from the girls, I was pouting and whining just as much as they were. Hiking thirty miles with a forty pound pack while in a state of constant dehydration was not fun, that is just the reality.
The cool part about the entire summer was realizing that if I am living life as I should, hard work will not go away. In fact, it is just going to get harder, and the stakes are going to get higher. I will only be held more responsible for myself and others, and I better get used to showing up and hiding my pouty inner twelve year old self.
It was a summer of learning to love high school girls, and listening to but not over think their grumblings. It was a summer of over heating during dance parties (actually over heating, it was bad), and losing my family heirloom fishing pole because we put four grown young adults in a rickety aluminum canoe. It was a summer of hidden rest and recovery, thought it didn't at all come in the form I anticipated.
I will be forever thankful for the laughter, tears, and humble reality of realizing that I will not be a wilderness guide again any time soon.
