Memoir

The Path Never Traveled
“A hike. It should be fun, completely harmless, right?”the thought ran over and through my head as we: Kealen, Roxy, Brielle, and myself, began to look for the hiking trail at Asbury Hills Retreat Center. We had to ask for directions and were informed that it was across the road, and we had to maneuver around huge stagnant puddles of mud-caked water. We weren’t exactly dressed for vigorous hiking: tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirts. We didn't expect vigorous hiking, and as it turned out we had no reason to. As we walked through the wide, puddle-filled gravel road, we found a somewhat small lake encompassed by trees that looked as if they protected a great treasure. The sun was shining, bright and beautiful, on the lake, engulfing the whole area in a golden tint, making it a real treasure. As I stared across the lake, I noticed a rack of kayaks; red, blue, yellow. Just then Roxy made a comment about how the lake resembled one from one of those “scary” movies. “Michael Myers,” she said. As I glanced back at the lake, I noticed it now had an eerie glow. We then began walking again; and as we did, the lake and its eeriness vanished behind us. We began to look for anything that closely resembled a trail through these massive woods. In the process, we discovered the ropes course. Ropes and tires tangled in with the trees, looking like they didin’t fit in, but were trying so hard. We eventually discovered a trail, indicated by a big brown sign that said in white block letters “HIKING TRAIL” along with those words was an arrow pointing, obviously, in the direction we were to go. Everyone was ready to start hiking, everyone but Brielle... She'd forgotten her prosthetic leg, and it had taken her this long to realize it. NO one wanted to go back with her. Call us bad friends, but she knew we were starting, and I don't think she really was all that eager to go. Anyways, our group of four, now only a group of three, began on the dusty dirt trail. There were trees all around. The empty spaces between the trees filled with a blue sky. I felt rebellious as soon as we started out. We were supposed to stay in groups of four on the trail... WHOOPS! (I worried the whole trip because of that one rule we broke!) You can tell I'm probably not your weekend partier. We walked through the dense trees and soon found ourselves laughing and carrying on in tune with natures sounds; busy birds chriping away, whirring breezes. We were crossing a 'wannabe' bridge, (it was a platform that looked like a bridge but it didn't cross over anything) when the screaming started. Roxy was the first, then Kealen, then myself. "BEAR!" was the thought running through all of our minds. Soon the screaming cascaded into laughing as we realized the bear was just a family of five harmless hikers. This "bear" was now asking us mere humans what time it was. We could barely stop laughing long enough to tell them. As they walked along their way, opposite direction of us, the three of us stood there trying to catch our breath with a sense of stupidity and relief. The reason we had gotten so upset about the bear issue had to deal with the boys back at camp. They told us there were ravenous bears in the woods. We kept walking, now extremely jumpy, until we came upon a huge gorge. The view, frighteningly beautiful, stared up at us with hungry eyes. It seemed as if it was about to swallow us up with its ivy covered teeth. The trail wrapped around the outer rim of the basin. "Do you hear water?", Roxy said, mischief already forming in her eyes, "I think it's a waterfall. It sounds like it's coming from over there... and it's close." She stood, pointing her finger down and across the gorge. "Let's go," she said. She started down the steep side of the gorge, pushing down small trees and breaking branches to clear the path as she went. I stood there, desperately hoping there was some other way. One of my absolute worst fears,getting lost, stood there, waiting to swallow me. Going down into this gorge, to me, felt like a pretty sure way of getting lost. "We won't be able to find our way back, there's no trail!" I said, hopelessly.(once Roxy got started there was usually no stopping her). "No we won't, I know what I'm doing. We'll be able to find the gorge and the path we took, no problem," she said, raising her head with confidence. Kealen was silent, just going along on the make-shift trail behind Roxy. Like I said, Roxy is unstoppable once she's started, so I started along behind them, worry filling my entire body and engulfing it from the inside. Once down in the gorge, there were broken trees scattering across ivy covered ground and the rushing water was even more apparent. I could here Roxy crunching twigs and bending small trees out of the way as we approached a thick patch of trees. The waterfall was a rushing noise, now pulsating through all the trees in front of us. It had to be just on the other side. Fighting our way through the dense trees, we came upon the waterfall: a massive smooth boulder with water carresing and cascading over it's body. The sound of the water rushing down was exhilirating. The feel of the damp air resting heavy on my lungs made me feel complete, whole. Roxy walked out onto the moss covered boulder slightly slipping as she did. Kealen and I follwed Roxy's example, being extra careful as we walked onto the beautiful boulder. We all stood in silence, afraid to break it's beauty with our voices. I'd never felt more adventorous, more accomplished than I did at that one second in time. We had gone off the trail and made our own path and saw something other hikers wouldn't get to see... or so we thought. Soon after mounting the boulder, we decided we should turn back. We looked for an easier way out, and stumbled upon some blue plastic trial markers. We discovered that there was a path down to the waterfall and if we had walked twenty more feet we would have discovered it. We walked through briars and broke trees for absolutely no reason, but I had no regrets. I was glad we took the road less traveled, or should I say, the path never traveled.