As a veteran of many river trips and other outdoor experiences I can honestly say that my WILD trip this summer was probably the most enlightening and overall fun trips of my life. On previous river trips, I had been apprehensive, bored, a little homesick, and always felt cold and wet. But for some reason this trip was different. When my dad, a huge proponent of rafting in general, first suggested this trip I scoffed at him. Why would I want to spend a weak of my hard earned summer learning about wilderness leadership, when I had just experienced the downward spiral that is junior year in high school. I brushed him off a couple of times when he first mentioned it to me, claiming I couldn’t take the time off work, but the idea of exploring the canyon lands was planted in my head. Finally after months of considering it I finally said to myself, ah what the hell, and asked if there was still room on the trip the week before it left. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my young life.

Since this essay is supposed to be what I learned from my trip, I won’t bore you with details from the river, besides the fact that the canyon lands are really one of the most beautiful places on earth, and the wonder and awe in which I viewed them have seemed to open up a new place in my life. Before the trip I always view the outdoors with respect, but I was never that close to them, and had really stopped spending long chunks of my time camping or going on trips, besides the occasional day hike or float trip. I think I had really lost interest when I had almost contracted hypothermia camping in the winter up near Boulder a couple of years earlier. But the wild trip has become sort of a reawakening for me. After the trip I spent almost every day of the summer hiking around Colorado and it turned into probably the best summer of my life. I also have recently gotten into mountain biking, and plan to snowshoe and ski a bunch this winter. Looking back on my experience I cannot thank the people who made this trip fun and possible enough. I met some pretty awesome people on the river and I hope to continue exploring with them in the future, wherever their paths in life may take them. I also cannot stress enough how thankful I am for this trip rekindling my love affair with nature. Now I just have to hike every single fourteener in Colorado.