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In August of 2016, I went on a two week long backpacking trek through New Mexico with a group of adults and youth from my Venture Crew. For anyone who doesn’t know, Venturing is a branch of the Boy Scouts of America that is co-ed and offered to anyone ages 14 to 21. Over the course of the trip, we hiked over 70 miles in varying degrees of the backwoods. The whole trip was one of the most trying times of my entire life, but there was one specific instance that I know none of us will ever forget for the rest of our lives. This is the story of the time I legitimately thought I was going to die.
This specific story starts on the sixth day of our twelve-day trek. At this point, we were all pretty exhausted. I know I personally was questioning why I had even come along in the first place. Sure, we had seen some cool things and done some cool things, but I really just wanted to be able to go home, sleep in a nice warm bed, and take a hot shower. On this particular day, our destination was a camp called Shafer’ Pass at the top of a mountain. The whole time we were hiking up, the weather was fairly stormy but pleasant- there was thunder and lightning all around us, and some light rain, but we were in no danger. This was the first time I was really stricken by the natural beauty of where we were. I was happy to see such striking terrains and weather that isn’t really common in California. I loved the people who I was with. I was actually enjoying myself for the first time since we had gotten there.
Unfortunately, that afternoon, I got extremely sick. I had developed a rash that covered a fairly large section of my abdomen, and I was stricken by stomach issues. The next morning when my crew woke up at 3 am to do a sunrise hike to the peak of this mountain, I had to stay behind in camp with my dad because I was too sick to come along. Although it was disappointing that neither of us got to participate in the hike for the day, we actually had a pretty nice and relaxed morning. It was the first day we got to just relax instead of getting up at sunrise and trying to take down camp as quickly as possible to move on to the next place. The rest of our group got back from their hike around 11, and we all just hung around and ate a nice, laidback lunch. At noon we decided it was time to move on to the next spot in order to avoid getting caught outside in the dark. So, we packed up all our gear, took down our tents, and prepared to leave.
As soon as our tents were down, we heard the ominous sound of thunder in the mountains nearby. We decided it was best to move out as soon as possible, as this would be a dangerous place to get stuck in a lightning storm. However, just seconds later it seemed, the clouds rolled in and started pouring rain on all of us. Then, just as quickly as the rain had come, lightning was striking on both sides of the mountain pass we were in. We’d hear a loud crash of thunder and only count 1 to 2 seconds before seeing the subsequent flash of lightning. We could visibly see where the lightning was coming down overhead. Immediately, we all took cover and got down into our lightning positions- we’d been trained to prepare for this exact situation. We stayed there, crouched low to the ground, for over an hour, not able to move for fear of putting ourselves in danger. Luckily, we were in a forested part of the mountain, so the trees above us provided some level of security. While we were crouched there, the rain got harder. Whenever it would seem like there was no possible way that the rain could be louder, that more water could possibly fall out of the sky, mother nature would find a way to prove me wrong, seemingly out of spite. After about an hour of sitting in this position, drenched, with puddles of water in our shoes, jackets, and clothes, it started hailing. Then even the hail got harder. Shards of ice were crashing into us, into the trees, and bouncing off the ground into our laps.
Eventually, one of the members of our group noticed that our youngest member wasn’t doing so well. He was shaking uncontrollably and even looked a little blue. Most of us had some level of first-aid training and new that he was in danger of getting hypothermia. Our leader decided that the threat of us suffering from the cold was far greater than the chance of us getting struck by lighting. He had us all gather together under our giant tarp that we usually would use to cook under. Someone pulled over the kid’ bag and started helping him into dry clothes while the rest of us all huddled as close together as we could to try to generate some heat.
After only about a minute of us all huddling together like this, we hear a giant CRACK, followed by a big crash close by. Thinking a tree nearby had been struck and split by lightning, I peeked out from under our tarp, to find that a colossal tree had fallen right where half the group had been crouched only a minute before. The ground had become so saturated with water that the tree was pulled up by its roots as it could not hold itself up anymore. Then, about a minute later, the rain passed and the sun came out.
This wasn’t even the end of that day- we later had to cross the same river 52 times in the pouring rain with lightning surrounding us. We almost got caught in a gulley in the dark and pouring rain. But that close-call experience really shook us up and made each and every one of us look at where we were and appreciate how much it meant for us to still be there. For us to be alive.