“Mom, are we ready to go yet?!” I asked She yelled back, “Are the water bottles filled up yet?” I sighed. “I filled them up ten minutes ago!” My dad stepped into the room after taking the bin of food out to the car. “Is there anything else you want me to do?” he asked my mom. In reply, she said, “where’s Ben?” He looked up from the iPad and mumbled, “right here.” In answer, my mom ordered: “Good. Let’s go. Put the iPad in the suitcase.”
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My family was leaving the hotel to go on a special hike called the Via Ferrata, or the Iron Road. This hike took place in a provincial park in Quebec, Canada. We stayed in a resort town called Mont Tremblant, most commonly visited for skiing. But we were there in summer, on vacation. We left a couple
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I then looked at my watch. We were early. Remarkably early. We carefully stepped out of the car and looked around. Then my family trooped into the visitors center to have a ranger check our waivers and go to the bathroom one last time. After exiting, we realized we still had half an hour to spare, so we went back to our car. I picked up my book again.
Half an hour later, we all walked to the gathering point for the hike, a shed near the visitors center. There was one other group of three on the hike with us, all adults. My brother and I were the only kids.
The experienced guide, who had led this hike many times before, gave a brief talk about the hike, and himself. He then showed us how to put on the harnesses. Of course, my brother and I already knew how, so we helped our parents. The guide’s first language was French, and he mixed some of the words up. For example, he called the hip the ankle, and mixed up red with green.
Once we received helmets, we were ready to go. We started to hike to the base of the cliff. We passed a large map of it all on a billboard, and the guide pointed out exactly what we were going to do. After that, we didn’t stop until we reached the river. There was a bridge across it that provided us with an opportunity to test our harnesses and clips and other
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At one point, I remember, we had to go down a little bit. My dad had gotten through it fine, but my mom had some trouble. We had to sit still as the guide coached her through the tough spot. She had difficulty, but she did it. The rest of us got through it with ease. Then we stopped for a break.
My family always makes trail mix for vacation. It consists of m&ms, chocolate chips, broken up pretzels, peanuts, and raisins. (I don’t eat the raisins.) During this break, we pulled out some of it for a snack. Then we pushed on.
There were two times where we had to walk across thin beams to advance to the next part. I remember, when I was on one of them, and I looked down. The beam was there because there was a crevice in the cliff, and out of that crevice grew a tree. Straight out. Sideways. It was so odd. I’d never seen anything like it before.
I also stopped to admire the view. It was breathtaking! You could see for miles, the mountains, the trees were as many shades of green that could ever exist, and you could see the river winding its way through it
It had looked so far away it was hard to believe I would be on top of it in a few days. Besides in the campsites, we only saw one other group of people during the entire 12 day trek and the only human sounds were our own. Each camp was an island of civilization in a great sea of wilderness, and a wonderful solace to end the day’s hike.
were ready to set off we rode to the river past the rock. All of it was uphill the first hill me and my dad had to go up was
Once we had finally hiked our way up to the first resting point, my anxiety had gone away. In my mind, up to that point, the hike had been fairly easy. We all took our time to look around and drink our water and take pictures; my mom got slightly upset when I wanted to take one close to the edge. Once we were all ready to go again, it was time to start the unpaved or the scary part of the hike as I like to call it. Beforehand, I had researched the hike and
The climb was tougher then I thought. I could feel myself shaking as I climbed. I think it was because I was still feeling nervous. Jasmine was doing fine until she got to the top then she got scared. I felt bad and told her it was going to be ok.
Maybe that's where we went wrong, a failure to prepare. We felt too relaxed about our easy float down the river. Before launching the raft, we at least made sure everyone had on a dry-suit, life vest, and helmet. The guide quickly reviewed the procedures in case of a capsized raft, and off we went on our merry way. The guide talked about the river and the rapids that we encounter as we came across the very first, big rapid, called the “The Cakewalk” because it was so easy. We crested over the top of the rapid and almost immediately flipped over into the rushing water. I was in a panic, but managed to grab the safety rope around the raft. I looked around and saw the rest of my family also grabbed the rope. The “experienced” guide who said there was no danger, hung onto the raft with his eyes wide open in shock. As we tried to flip the raft over to climb aboard to no avail, we soon started to feel the effects of the icy cold water through our flimsy dry suits. Our guide finally managed to tell us to swim the raft toward the near side of the river. After a few minutes of slowly drifting to toward that shore, we realized that the ten-foot wall
We arrived at the place and there were courses, but on those courses there were other people who were really good. It scared me cause I could not do that yet, but I would have nothing to worry about. We were unloaded and set up, Slade got a helmet on and the he had started me. We started off in a curvy circle of dirt and warmed up, then we hit the strait away. After a few laps, more like a lot, we went over and took a break.
There were three people in the group; my sister Tylie, her friend Ashley, and me. We had departed from Blackfoot at five in the morning, so I already felt exhausted before we had even began our adventure.
I imagined how I would act if I wasn't afraid of heights and I tried to act the part. We got into line and we waited for our turn. When the two people in front of us got on, I rushed to the spot where they had been a moment before. Kevin had already explained to me that I needed to let the chair hit the back of my knees, and all I had to do was sit down. I did just as he had instructed, and consequently, everything went fine. My anxiety left me and I actually enjoyed the ride to the top. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be; in fact, it was quite the opposite. As we neared the spot where people were getting off, I watched other kids get off and I mentally prepared myself to do exactly as they had just done. But when we got to the ramp to get off, the front of my left ski got caught on the wooden railing for the ramp. The chair lift kept moving forward, pulling my leg farther and farther behind me until I heard a loud pop! I anticipated the pain, but none came. My ski had popped off! I then realized that I had missed my exit. In a split second decision, I jumped. I hit the ground and just as soon as I did, I was surrounded by the ski patrol in their bright red
My road starts in Iraq, where I started playing soccer. Soccer has and still is, a big part of my life. I started it after my uncle died. He loved soccer and was the best uncle ever. My father did soccer and so is my brother at FFC. 2 years in soccer at a game is where I first broke a bone, my right leg. I threw up and then fainted. I spend about a week in the hospital. My road keeps moving to Jordan, more specifically in Amman. I have stopped playing soccer after I broke my leg. So I got into karate. I began karate about the 2nd month living in Jordan. I picked it up very quickly.I earned my black belt. One tragic day at a competition, the same leg broke again.
I had completely forgot about that and was finished by the time they were to the place I was supposed to meet them. For that mistake I had to ride 20 miles back to the meeting place. There I won a hundred bucks because my father said you could get on the trail a certain way that you couldn't. Once we had found the trail we went the 20 miles again and went to our hotel for the night. There we went out and got these weird veggie burgers. Then we just went back to the
After swimming, we decided we wanted to go hiking. So next, we climbed up the rocks until we came across a cave, then continued to venture up and across the small mountain that supported the waterfall. Kiefer decided to head back down to set up his eno hammock, but the rest of us continued on. As we continued to hike, we came across even more beautiful views of the
The cars continue to zoom by me as I begin to cry. The acrid smell of burning tires and exhaust fumes fill my nose. A horn honks, prodding me to cross, but my own indecision forbids me. My tears only make seeing harder, and now I’m crying both at that fact that I’m immobilized by fear, and at my own futility. I’m a chubby, little eight-year-old girl standing at the edge of the curb, trying cross the street. I am at the final intersection before my school, but all the crosswalk guards are gone. Earlier that morning I woke up late, so I had to ride my bike to school. The cars seem to be going at an impossible speed and veering toward me. I stand there for five minutes, contemplating whether I can cross, before I finally give up and walk back home in shame.
After the accident, we rode down the rest of the hill. We got to a new path and took that path. The path was very tedious. When we finally got done
As I crossed, I had to keep myself focused to balance, and not allow myself to look down, even though my stomach had already twisted itself in a knot. I had to focus on my goal, but my attention lapsed for a second, and I suddenly slipped. The tether line was unusually slack as this happened, so I fell relatively far. Panic set in immediately, and time seemed to slow, turning the moment of time into an eternity, my instincts convinced that I was about to die. Suddenly my body tensed as the rope went taut and caught me. It was here that I lay petrified, dangling over an enormous drop, on the brink of a panic attack. Trembling, I slowly hoisted my self back on to the tightrope. I began to feebly finish the course, and slowly worked my way to the end of the section. Periodically, the course had ending points that would allow you to get off when you were finished. As I reached this, I wanted to quit, and be done. Rather than do that, I convinced myself that I could continue and that I would make
Slipping and sliding, huffing and puffing, we pulled ourselves along with the marginal help of the surprisingly slippery cable as the loose equipment around our necks swung left and right, chafing us and feeling heavier by the minute. We fell down at the top, exhausted from the ordeal but victorious. We got there with everything we had started with and had avoided the longer, though easier, roundabout route. Success, of a sort; 'It's all downhill from here,' was a figure of speech. Actually, it was another thousand feet of elevation change in a little over half a mile on a trail that hardly deserved the