Backcountry Living

It’s not very often that I find myself speechless. I can usually put my thoughts, feelings, or ideas into words, but when something touches my soul, I am at a loss. With that said, I’m going to try my best to give you a glimpse into a recent backpacking trip that changed my life.

As most of you know, I work at Point Loma Nazarene University, and every summer, the school offers a week-long backpacking trip for incoming freshman students. This is a greatopportunity for students to make friends before the school year starts. Two of my friends were leading the trip and asked if I would be interested in coming along as a third leader. I think it took me a total of two minutes to pause, check my calendar, and say an enthusiastic, “heck yes!”

I had no idea what I was in for.

On a Sunday afternoon, twelve students from all over the country gathered together in the Point Loma rec room to meet us leaders and one another, and finally see who they would be traveling with on this journey. We divided up the gear, carefully packed our backpacks (sadly leaving out the deodorant), and learned proper bathroom “techniques” for the backcountry. Apparently, snow is a great substitute for toilet paper…I won’t go into detail.

And then the trip began.

We spent our first day rock climbing in the Alabama Hills, which looked more like Mars than central California. From there, we drove north to Big Pine and began our five-day backpacking adventure. We hiked to beautiful lakes, traveled through gorgeous meadows and fields, climbed up to explore a breathtaking glacier, swatted away annoying mosquitoes, and…my favorite part…went glissading down a mountain slope. What’s glissading, you ask? It basically means that you sit your butt down on a steep snow-coveredslope, push off, and slide down the mountain yelling, laughing and screaming the whole way (or at least I did!).

As much as I loved the scenery, the immense mountains and lakes, and the adventure, my favorite part of this trip was watching what happened in our group. I saw students and leaders challenge and push themselves to take risks, explore uncharted territory and try something that may have been uncomfortable. I experienced what happened when people accepted one another unconditionally, which can be especially difficult after a week without showers or deodorant! We saw each other at our best and our worst, we shared our strengths and our struggles…and we still loved and accepted one another. I had the privilege of listening to students pour out their hearts and tell me their life stories. The group became so much closer as people were honest, authentic and vulnerable. In the midst of God’s natural beauty, there were a whole lot of other beautiful things at work.

More to come…

Much love,
alair

Thanks to Scott, Megan, Tylor and Charlene for the pictures!