Travel 2

Growing up in Vermont, I always enjoyed outdoor activities. Whether it be fly fishing in the Batten Kill river, skiing the local mountains, or hiking in the woods. My father was always the one to encourage these activities as he too grew up an outdoorsman in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia. As a child, he was involved in Boy Scouts like his father before him, so I too followed suit and became a Boy Scout when I moved to New York. The quintessential Boy Scout trip is known as Philmont, named after Philmont Scout Ranch were the trip occurs. The journey is a two week, 120-mile backpacking adventure in the mountains of New Mexico. Everything I would need for the adventure, including food, clothes, tent, etc.… was packed into my 60-pound backpack. It was the hardest, yet the most rewarding adventure I have ever been on in my life, and it made me learn so much about myself through the many challenges I faced. There was one event in particular, one of the scariest moments of my life, where I believe I observed an element of flourishing in the face of adversity. In Perma, one the main elements in Engagement and within engagement is Flow. In my opinion flow is a state of existence where nothing else matters in your mind aside from the current task or activity at hand.

One of the first days into our hiking adventure there was torrential down pour of rain during the middle of our daily hike. One of the scouts who was with us, Sasha, forgot to put on his rain attire beforehand, and was drenched as we trudged uphill through the rain and mud. Before we reached the destination for the day, he collapsed, falling to the ground and could not get up. Immediately all twelve of us worked together to divide up all of his belongings, and we had to carry him the rest of the remaining 3 miles. The only thing on my mind was getting him to our destination. Something went off in my mind, nothing else in that moment mattered except helping him. We eventually brought him to the site, made his tent, and did everything we could to help but nothing seemed to work. Luckily, a hiker who happened to be at our same campsite lent us his satellite phone to call the rangers at basecamp. It was going to take them over a day to reach us, so we had to follow their directions precisely. Luckily, the rangers were able to reach him and take him to a hospital. He was diagnosed with having hypothermia, dehydration, and altitude sickness all at the same time. Thankfully, all 12 of us experienced flow, with keeping this man alive as the only thing on our minds.