When Charley decided that she wanted to go to Colorado with our church, I was so excited because I knew this would be a great opportunity for her to grow both physically and spiritually. Since Charley had just graduated 8th grade and typically middle schoolers were not allowed to go on this trip in the past, we knew that it would be dad going and not mom!
I was so excited for the opportunity to get to experience Colorado with Charley. Colorado is one of my favorite places and being surrounded by the mountains is simply incredible. I couldn’t wait for the chance to experience this with her.
I was worried about how Charley would do on this trip given that the terrain is extremely difficult and Charley has never been a big camper, but what I didn’t anticipate was being diagnosed with a diverticulitis flare up the Sunday before our trip. I was worried that I would not be able to keep up with the group. Luckily, the meds kicked in and mom didn’t have to take my place on the trip!
When we first got to Noah’s Ark, I was a little worried about Charley. The food there was not good and her attitude was a little shaky. As we packed up to hit the trail, I put half of the community pile from Charley’s bag into mine to try to get her in a better mood. While it took a little time, Charley’s mood did start to change as we started to ascend the mountain and thankfully Claire and Anna helped get her back to normal.
We found out that we were going to be summiting Mt. Harvard which is the 4th highest mountain peak in the continental US and is 14,421 feet. We spent the first day hiking to our campsite and it became very evident that Charley and I would not be the ones slowing down the group.
On the second day, we spent our day going on a day hike from our campsite to a lake. What we thought was a 2-mile hike down to the lake and back was really a 10-mile roundtrip hike. On the way back, Andy and Doug were beat and couldn’t keep up with the group. Charley did great and we made it back to the campsite at least 30 minutes before the other group. The quote of the trip came from Andy that night, “You don’t run a half-marathon the day before you run a marathon!”
Day 3 started very early as we left the campsite to summit Mt. Harvard. I couldn’t be more proud of Charley. She did amazing. The trip taught us some very important lessons, but the most important lesson is that we can do hard things and we are there to help each other along the way. Doug and Andy had a very difficult time making it up the mountain. Once Doug made it to the top, he crashed and napped on a rock and we waited almost an hour for Andy to make it to the top with us. When we finally got to the top, we could see out for over 100 miles. Being on the top of the mountain, it’s just unimaginable to think that there are people that don’t believe that God created this world. Being on top of that mountain made us feel so close to God.
We broke camp and headed back to the airport. Experiencing this with Charley was something that I will never forget and I am forever grateful that I got to do this trip with her. I would love it if in a few years we can do this trip again with both Charley and Carter.
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