Life Changing Trip

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My Life Changing Trip to the Smokies I have always been an avid outdoorsman and enjoy nature. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. When I was ten, I went on a life changing trip with my father and older brother to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We originally planned to stay for a 5 day trip, spending three of those days hiking and camping. Those plans were quickly changed by the unpredictable weather and the dangerous conditions. The trip that showed promise as being the best vacation of a lifetime was quickly turned into one with frostbite and hypothermia. Throughout the trip I learned several skills that would be necessary for the next time I went on an adventure like this one. Although this trip was dangerous and deadly,…show more content…
There was about three inches of snow on the ground now, triple the amount we expected for the entire trip. Being only ten years old, I was exhausted. I went into the tent and laid in my father’s sleeping bag. I was small enough where I could curl up inside of the bag and roll the top closed. I ate some granola bars and tried to stay warm. I spent the remainder of the time wavering from sleep to awake. My brother and dad had other problems. They were trying to start a fire, so we could cook our dinner. There was a major problem, all of the wood was wet. They tried to use some of the underbrush to burn, but it was already wet from the snow. They tried burning some of the materials we brought, this included paper, cotton balls, and small chemical coated wood. None of it caught. In a last ditch effort, they tried to burn one of my brother’s shirts, but was unsuccessful. Having given into the snow and cold, they joined me inside the tent. There we ate the cold food we brought as snacks. We fell asleep rather easy, considering the long day we just had. Throughout the night, I was woke up by the feeling of cold nylon resting on my nose. This was the roof of the tent collapsing from the weight of the snow. My father repeatedly pushed the tent up, only to have it fall again a few hours later. In the morning we woke up to wet blankets and sleeping bags. The walls of our tent had a dark shadow the lined the bottom two feet.…show more content…
We recognized almost nothing from the day before. What was once a thick green forest was now covered with a thick blanket of snow. We trudged through the snow, trying to stay on the path we could no longer see. Luckily we were traveling on the Appalachian Trail, which is marked with arrows. At some points along the trail that had fewer trees, we had to walk through snow that was knee deep. Since I was younger and smaller, there were some points when it was up to my waist. After about two hours of hiking, my legs were exhausted. This is where my brother took my pack. He now had a backpack on his back, and another wrapped around the front of his torso. He stated during the trip that he had more respect for pregnant women, having to deal with a small taste of what the excess weight feels like. We were running low on water, since most of it was either frozen or had been drank by one of us. We passed over one of the streams. The streams were cut through the thick snow and were now wider due to the melting snow. My father made a choice. He filled up one of the empty bottles with water from the moving stream. He came to the conclusion that since it was shallow and fast moving, that made it cleaner and safer to drink. We didn’t have a better choice, so we went with

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