This trip quickly became less about mindfulness and leadership and more about . . .
Survival!
In all seriousness, the trip was much harder than any of us expected, including our guides. With anywhere between one and three feet of snow still on the ground in the mountains, hiking was not easy.
Day 1:
Having divvied up the gear and gotten our backpacks set at the Elk Pen parking lot of Harriman State Park, we headed up the famous Appalachian Trail. Despite the special spikes we were wearing on top of our hiking boots, the combination of deep snow and steep climbs made it the toughest hike most of us had ever done. What was supposed to be an easy 2-hour 4-mile hike ended up being a grueling 4-hour monster, with us pushing ourselves way beyond what we thought we were capable of just to make it to the campsite before sunset. But we made it — barely — and once there quickly set to work setting up tents. The stone-and-wood lean-to was occupied, so we would be sleeping out on the snow for the first night. After an exhausted dinner of mac & cheese, we all retired to our tents, where we promptly froze (even though most of us slept with every layer of clothes we had brought on inside our sleeping bags).
Day 2 and 3:
The next morning, still a little in shock from the previous day and night, we agreed as a group that the trip needed to be modified. We’d stay three nights at the first shelter (which had been vacated as of early that morning, hopefully giving us a warmer place to sleep) then do a shorter hike to a 2nd shelter for two nights, then do a shorter hike back out to the parking lot. The 6-10 mile hikes we originally planned would have been fine in spring weather, but they just wouldn’t be possible in the snow.
Life at camp quickly settled into a routine — water and fire and water and fire and water and fire. We spent hours the next two days pumping water from a nearby stream through filters and gathering firewood to keep ourselves warm and our boots and socks dry (not really possible, but the fires did help).
The next two nights were still bitter cold, but we all slept together on a raised platform inside the shelter. Limiting the heat conduction between our bodies and the snowy ground made all the difference.
Day 4:
Our hike to the next shelter was fun and easy compared to the first day’s hike. Although there were some ups and downs, most of the route took us along a ridge line, so we didn’t have as many steep climbs. Plus our packs were lighter, since we’d eaten a lot of our food, and the trail itself was a little more packed down, leading to fewer steps where your boot would break through the crust on top of the snow.
When we got to our new home, we quickly saw it wasn’t quite as good of a shelter as what we’d left, but we had to make the best of it. Time to gather more firewood and filter more drinking water!
Day 5:
Today was our last campsite day. It’s amazing how quickly the time went by just taking care of the essentials. The main activity was when we split into two groups, one of which went on a firewood expedition and the other of which went on a day hike to see some of the beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.
Day 6:
The students weren’t fooling around. I thought I had woken up early, but by the time I got my gear sorted and packed, they had cleaned up the campsite and were standing around, ready to go! Announcing that we’d be skipping hot breakfast, they insisted we hit the trail as early as possible. Civilization was calling. Our 3-mile, mostly downhill hike out went quickly, and before long we were literally running across a snowy field, having spotted the van that we had left five days earlier.
Overall, this group was incredible. It would have been perfectly understandable if they’d fallen apart a bit, considering the circumstances. But instead they came together. Both of our guides said, unprompted, that this was the very best group of students that they’d ever led, bar none. We stayed positive, threw ourselves into the work, and supported each other tirelessly. In the end, we became a big, smelly family, bonded together by our experience and all the in-jokes and silliness that resulted.
Signing off,
Dan
(“Hero of the Cheesewater” — don’t ask)