Adventuring

Aldous Huxley claimed his father found "a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing."

 I imagine he had in mind a solitary, silent ramble through the hills--bird singing, brook gurgling, wind whispering. Plenty of time for reflection and contemplation....

That was not so much the atmosphere of our recent Adventure Club trip to Jump Creek.

Instead, try four adults and twelve kids, aged kindergarten to junior high, scrambling up rocks, hopping across creeks, catching (well, trying to catch) lizards, yelling, sweating, laughing, helping each other, and learning about themselves and their world.

Still, "churchgoing" might not be such an odd description: it was pretty awesome to see Grace kids and Capilla kids building friendships, gaining confidence in themselves, asking questions, and taking initiative.

Some of the younger ones--for whom this hiking thing was a brand new experience--spent the first hour clinging to the adults in terror. What? You want me to cross that creek on those wobbly little rocks? You want me to climb down that hill? Don't you see how steep and slippery it is?

They were entirely new to the basic skills of edging sideways down a hill, using the rocks embedded in the slope to keep from sliding, or dropping to all fours when it gets steep.We spent awhile saying "Put your foot here, now step here, now here."

But they didn't give up, not even the little kindergartener, Kimberly, who whimpered so incessantly that I finally asked her, "Do you want to stop here? Do you want to go back down?"

Still mewling, she shook her head emphatically and pointed up at the big kids, fifteen feet up. She wanted to climb! By the time we got up there, we were both panting and covered in sweat, but she caught her breath and turned to me with a radiant smile. And you would hardly believe it, but by the end of the afternoon, she and her friend Crystal were tramping out ahead of the group down the trail, confident as can be.

This was the first Adventure Club trip of the year, but no doubt there will be many more stories to tell this summer. The group will be going 2-3 times a month all summer long, with the next trip starting at 6:30 from Grace this coming Wednesday.