College Essay # 116

116. Hiking to Understand

Last year, our school decided to change the Activity Week schedule a bit. For those of you who don’t know what Activity Week is, it is when each grade goes to different parts of the country to explore new things, to help people, and to enjoy the nature that surrounds us. As sophomores, we were to go to Delhi and spend a week helping the people of Habitat for Humanity.  When I heard that many sophomores would go and join in this activity, I was extremely excited. I never built a house before, and I was excited to build it for someone who wouldn’t take advantage of it. But whilst returning to school after the summer break, I was only to be disappointed and find out that the sophomores would be divided into 4 groups to go to different locations for hiking. I didn’t understand why. When returning from the trip, I remembered the experiences and how much fun it was to camp in the snow and crawl to the top of the hill on our hands and knees.

But who knew that we’d be hiking for a day this year? It was not something that I was looking forward to, and neither were any of my classmates. This year, for my junior year, we went to a slightly remote location somewhere in north India, to learn about different outdoor activities. Yes, I know … super fun. - _ - But, when the topic of hiking came up, all of us were disappointed beyond belief. We didn’t want to do that after hiking for a week, okay five days, last year. But obviously, being children under adult supervision, we had no choice. So we trekked, long and hard, sweating and panting all the way to the top of the hill only to watch one of the dogs that follow us get attacked by some sort of sheep-looking-dog. The walk up was not fun and not something that any of us enjoyed. People were singing, and that didn’t help either. The chaperones, probably felt guilty, and decided that we should do something fun. So they told us that we needed campfire wood to get the fire going tonight. They told us to pick up logs, pine cones, twigs … basically any wood we could find. I was super excited about this … I don’t think many other people were. But there was a prize and I wanted it.

So while walking down, my friend and I, collected pinecones after pinecones. We were competing with another group of two who were walking alongside us. It was a lot of fun finding one and then trying to get another one before the other group did. We started collecting every last piece that we would see, that it wasn’t fitting in either of our bags anymore. But we were determined to win. The other group’s bag filled with pinecones that were left open. My friend was in front of me instructing me to pick up every pinecone that he saw. But the other team was in front of him. So, he started picking pinecone after pinecone out of her bag. He passes it back to me, and I held it all the way back down that 2 hour path. I felt guilty have way and told my companion to return the pinecones. But, being mischievous that he was, he returned only half of what we had taken. All four of us walked down together and had a blast. Our guide gave us cookies and held our water when we couldn’t carry any more pinecones with the water bottle in our hand.

The hike up wasn’t much fun, but the hike down was something I’ll always remember. The girl from the other group will be graduating in the next six months. She was always one that we could have fun with, and I’m going to miss her and the fun we used to have. This hike made me realize that we’re all still innocent in the inside and we still have the childish ways that we had when we were five. It reminded me that we don’t need to let that go just because we’re growing up. It made me realize how important friends are, and how much a stranger can help you accomplish your goals. That two-hour walk down was … maybe one of the most amazing days of my life. As cheesy as it sounds.

We came second in the end and won a five star bar.