Wet Shoes By Owen

Wet Shoes

By Owen

“Hey guys,” I said as I walked into my dorm. “How was it?” asked Guillaume. “Tiring,” I replied.

It all started when we got to the trailhead of Mummy Pass. Mummy Pass is a hike that we get to do at Eco Week. Eco week is at Pingree park this year. The first thing you should know is that everything is covered in snow. Ever since I got on the bus to go the Pingree Park, it has been snowing. The factor of snow plus altitude means snow, snow, and more snow. Another thing you should know is that the hike Mummy Pass is already hard. With snow Mummy would be well…… a thousand times harder. Not really, but it felt like that.

The first part of Mummy wasn’t as covered in snow as the rest of it because the trail to the trailhead was tromped down by the CSU staff because they were going to their cabins using that trail.

Once we got to the the actual trailhead, the snow was about a foot deep. Alex H. was in the front followed by Ricky, who I was behind. It wasn’t as hard as I expected until out of the blue Ricky tripped and fell. His water bottle hit my leg and bruised it. “Ow!” well half yelled at the same time. I picked up his water bottle which chilled me to the bone. “Here,” I said, holding out to him. He got up and took it.

A few minutes later, he tripped again. His water bottle hit my leg again. My leg got bruised, again. I helped him get up while he got his water bottle. We had to catch up because we had lost a little ground.

Then, (you guessed it) Ricky Pietrip… ahem…. Ricky Pietras tripped again. His water bottle hit and bruised my leg, AGAIN. By then my leg hurt a lot. In my head I thought that I wouldn’t make it, but if you say it in your brain, your brain will make sure that it will happen. So, I pushed that thought away.

As the hike kept going, the snow gradually got deeper and deeper. People's shoes were starting to let water in. My feet were getting cold, but they weren’t wet, which made them hurt a lot.

When we finally got to the top, almost everybody’s feet were either wet or cold. While we were sitting eating lunch, my feet didn’t stop hurting or warm up. I tried walking around, but that did not work.

“Okay,” said Alex the Adventurer, “Our plan is to keep hiking until about 1:30, then go back down the mountain. Right now it is 1:16, so when you’re all done, we will start.”

A few minutes later, Alex said, “Hey guys, we have a new plan. We’re going to go back in a few minutes because the snow is this high on you,” he said holding up his hand to his thigh. Woah, I thought, that is really deep. “So, go ahead and finish up,” he finished.

The lower we got the warmer and wetter it got. People started complaining that their feet were wet once there were puddles on the ground. My shoes were waterproof, until I stepped into a ankle-deep puddle. Water poured into my shoes, and instantly my feet were cold. Now I saw why people were complaining, but I didn’t complain.

We got down the mountain to the dining hall, and a few minutes later we got to the dorms. As I was about to open my door, I thought, I may have been cold and wet, but it was still cool to hike in a foot of snow.