“We stood atop the highest point in Wyoming…”  It does have a nice ring, but we could have been hiking almost anywhere and our purpose would have been fulfilled.  The journey was about talking on the trail and playing cards in the tents at night - sharing a burner to cook coffee in the morning and huddling around a pot of hot water as the sun set.    

 

I won’t lie, those 3 days it took us carrying 50-60lb packs through clouds of mosquitos definitely broke me down a little bit, but that was exactly what I needed.  Hardship is an unbelievably powerful group-forging mechanism.  So is solitude.  

 

Elevation.  Dehydrated food.  Wind and rain.  Cold… I’m not saying that we wouldn’t have banded together if it had been easy, but as it was, I leaned on those guys and they leaned on me.  Our sweat and pain was the “Grand Equalizer” and although we came from different backgrounds filled with a wide range of experience, what we felt in that moment put us on the same plane; age, job, race, birthplace, all those structures and categories that we use to divide ourselves faded away along with the rest of the nonessential, and life crystallized into a team of folks, headed for the highest spit of land in sight

Together