Roughing It!!

My 15-yo daughter had the fabulous opportunity of going on a 4-day high-adventure hike over spring break with a large group of youth (all female) from our church. 

The packing list was enormous and of course I wanted her to have everything she was going to need on a long, grueling, 22-mile hike.  But I also wanted her to be able to move under the weight of that ginormous pack!!

           

           

Apparently the little survival water straw thing we sent her with was useless. She had to borrow a filter to get drinking and cooking water.

They slept in hammocks!  I'm glad I made her take the good sleeping back even though it was bulkier.  At home, I stayed up worrying about whether or not she was warm enough. The last night it dropped into the low 30s!! :( 

     

One of the camp sites

She had to pack all the food she would eat for four days: ramen, tortillas and peanut butter, trail mix, protein bars, fruit leather, raisins and of course...chocolate.  I found out later she never ate the dehydrated lasagna dinners I sent along!  KIDS!

The hike culminated in a ziplining adventure.  After a long march, they celebrated with a few  hours in the tree tops.  FUN.

   Of course, when she got home I could barely stand the smell during our brief embrace and immediately sent her off to the shower.  After cleaning up and settling in, she told me that his hike was another highlight of her life thus far.  She made some great friends, discovered she can really push her own limits, and had a memorable spiritual experience as well.  I'm so glad seh went!  Many of her other homeschool friends had taken a trip to DC that same week for a behind-the-scenes look at how documents are preserved at the national archives.  WOW, that would have been really cool too.  But I'm glad she made the difficult choice to go on this hike. These kinds of experiences change lives; when you learn what you're really made of, what others are made of, and how that all plays out.  I'm so grateful for the youth leaders who took their spring break to mentor these beautiful young ladies and help them on their journey to adulthood.