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Personal Narrative: The Iron Road

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“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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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