happy birthday cricka!!

To Cricka:

Happy birthday Cricka, I'm sorry I am not home to spend your 25th with you!! Even though you haven't always been a great brother, you've always been my best friend and I can't wait to see you again and hear all about your adventure on the Frith Farm!! I wish you the best on your quarter century! I love you.

Trail on Douglas

To everyone else:

So the last few days have been hectic as well as wonderful. I was suppose to camp out in the woods Saturday night with my Outdoor Leadership class, but unfortunately our plans changed and after hiking up Douglas and spending some time in a cabin talking about what brought us to ODS and about our hopes for the capstone we ended up hiking out.

Picking Blueberries

And thank goodness we did. After arriving back on campus and showering in my apartment I received a phone call from Emma (one of my exchange friends from England) and she told me that she and four others were lost on the West Glacier Trail coming back from the ice caves. I got this phone call at 8pm and the sun sets at 6:17pm. I was so worried I immediately ran upstairs to ask one of my other friends what to do. His advice was to call search and rescue. Long story short. After waiting 3 hours at the trailhead waiting for search and rescue and impatiently wanting to hike into the dark looking for them, search and rescue finally showed up, and my friends were found and were out of the woods by 3:15am. None of them have any real hiking experience, most of them were dressed fairly warm, their cell phones were dying, they had little food and water, but thankfully CoCo had her camera with her and by taking flash photography the rescuers were able to locate them.

I'll be honest, I broke down in tears when I saw them come out of the woods. The entire night I couldn't stop imagining what could happen to them if the rescuers couldn't find them, or if the temperature got any colder than the freezing 35 degrees it is here at night. I kept thinking about what I might do in the situation. They were told to stay put where they were, if they continued walking using the little light they had with their phones than the phones would die that more quickly and they probably would have become more lost. I probably would have kept walking though, I would've walked downhill towards the lake or I would have walked backwards until I found the last marker and try picking up the trail where I strayed. Either way, I hope to never be in that situation and I hope my friends will never be in that situation again.

Tonight was much more relaxing. CoCo, Emma, Schyler and Megan all came over and we had dinner and all sat in my bed and watched Hocus Pocus. CoCo made a yogurt cake that tasted a lot like corn bread, she was unsure of how it was suppose to taste. After the movie was over Emma and I got up and made apple crisp, and it was delicious! While waiting for the apple crisp to bake we all laid on my bed telling embarrassing stories and laughing until we cried. It was the most type one fun I've had in a while, that didn't involved hiking a mountain.

Unfortunately, I have to wake up early tomorrow to start the school week over again. Back to the daily grind. I'm a little disappointed that no one commented on why they're day was going to be great, I hope my parents will be able to explain to some of you how to comment if you don't already know. I'm still interested in hearing your reasons of why your day will be great. Until then..good night!

Bear and I on the van ride to Douglas

Gutschi, Flo and Michaela on Douglas

Outside the Dan Moller Cabin

Apple Crisp :) Yum!