I was so snuggly in my sleeping bag that when the screaming beep of my watch intruded, I rolled over for a few more minutes of downy warmth. Ahhhh, thank goodness I didn't have to visit the spot last night. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and as I looked out of my tent I saw the day dawning with a pinkish glow, clouds wispy in the sky announcing the new day, orange and red as if an artist had painted the sky. I could hear other tents un-zipping and the faint chatter of the other boys awakening. The campsite was very still, as still as a doll on a shelf. As I stepped out of my tent, I could feel the slight caress of the wind against my face. I looked at my scout mates that surrounded me. In the almost church-like stillness of the campsite, we knew that we were about to experience something extraordinary. We were embarking on the adventure of climbing Baldy Mountain. .
As luck would have it, breakfast was a feast of the creamy, saucy, and succulent beef stroganoff, rounded out by other group favorites. Bite after bite of the scrumptious stroganoff filled me with joy. When it was impossible to take another bite, we began to commence the readying process for the hike that was near. My thoughts turned to my feet with blisters on them. It felt as if my boots were giving my feet Chinese water torture, but instead of water drip, drip dripping, it was my hiking boots rubbing incessantly against my feet chafe, chafe, chafing with every step. In order to fix this problem, I applied mole skin to ease the Chinese water torture on my feet and baby powder to mask the horrid smell of my feet that filled the air when I took off my boots. All of us with good intentions and full stomachs, we packed the rest of our trail food into our bags and started to let our excitement unravel.
As we left our campsite and passed through one of the final resupply areas; Baldy Town, we finally began to feel the power of the hills smack us in the face.