What do all of your favorite adventures have in common? I asked myself this question to help guide the adventures that I want to experience in my limited life. After many months of contemplating this question I came to the conclusion that it didn’t have anything to do with the biggest tree I climbed, the longest trail I hiked, or the prettiest lake that I swam in.
When I think about my most favorite adventures, and there are a lot, the trips that I remember the most are the ones that I shared the most fun with my good friends (or even new acquaintances). This is hard to explain but allow me to try. The picture above was taken on the morning after a night where temperatures dropped down to MINUS 50°F!!! That is excluding windchill. I reached my hand out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night and I felt pins and needles almost instantly. Getting up that morning was literally painful. If I had experienced this trip alone it would have just been a night in hell, excluding all of the fire and lava and stuff. But the fact that I had my good friend there next to me, listening to me complain about the unthinkable temperatures, made the whole experience wonderful.
How often do you hike with friends? A lot? Not very much? For me, I do way more solo trips than partnered trips and I assume this is the same for most other experienced hikers. A solo trip is a beautiful thing because it allows us to “become one” with nature but don’t forget how important sharing this experience is (even if it is with a 4 legged friend)! If you do a lot of solo trips I urge you to bring a friend on your next one and realize how great it is to share the joy of being outdoors.
“Happiness only real when shared” is a quote from the movie, “Into The Wild”. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it RIGHT NOW! I just finished it last week and when I saw this quote I knew I had to pass it along. Experiencing fun adventures is the most rewarding when done with friends!
TREEfool 