September 16, 2004
Footprints in the Snow
I have always been fascinated with snow. As a child I longed for the occasional snow day from school and my fondest memories of childhood involved sledding down a steep hill near our house on anything that we could find. Snow brings a peace and quiet that no other time of year can produce. It blankets everything and even a junk yard looks beautiful with a thick blanket of snow.
The winter months are some of my favorite times to be in the mountains. Kayaking in winter means swollen creeks and having the river all to yourself. The higher elevations get heavier amounts of snow and fewer visitors so the trails are often deserted during the colder months. As part of my new outlook on life I began spending as much time in the mountains as I could, especially in the winter time.
I began volunteering with our church youth ministry at Fellowship Church in Knoxville and soon I found myself surrounded by a bunch of senior high young men who shared the same love for adventure and the outdoors. We would hike the Chimneys in the middle of the night or hike up to a beautiful overlook to watch the sun rise. We would look for snow and plan our trips to make sure we were camping high in the mountains any time we saw snow on the forecast. We drove to Wyoming to paint houses on the Shoshone Arapahoe Reservation. We drove to the Rocky Mountain National Park to go snowshoe in the middle of the winter. It seemed there were no bounds to what we would get into and we developed a deep friendship and trust. It seemed that I would take them to the places that most of their parents would not or could not. The parents trusted me and with that trust came a lot of responsibility.
In January 1998 I led a group of guys into the mountains when the forecast called for snow and high winds. We hiked through a snow storm and spent the night in an AT shelter. We stayed up all night talking and telling stories. The wind blew so hard that at times we thought it may take the roof off the old shelter. With the wind came snow and hail and by the next morning it was very deep outside. Despite all the harsh conditions we all had a blast and news of our adventures spread fast through the group. Now we had to decide what we could do next.
It was early February when I saw the forecast for the weekend. A cold front was moving into the mountains and with it was a heavy amount of snow. The temperatures were expected to be in the single digits in the valley and below zero high in the mountains. The group decided that this would be a good opportunity for us to head to the mountains and hike in ahead of the front and try and hike out after the storm hit us. It sounded like a great idea in the warmth of my house as the eight of us made our plans and packed our bags.
The forecast was just as expected. We started out with the temperatures being fairly warm for February but it was not long until the temperatures dropped and it became extremely cold. By now we were high in the mountains and way too far in to turn back. As the sun set the temperature was already in the single digits and we were very cold. We put on every layer of clothing we could find and each of us zipped up our mummy bags and did not move until the next morning. None of us slept but we very quiet. We listened to the wind blow outside our shelter and just focused on trying to stay warm.