Swiss Miss (3 of 4)

Immediately, we came across a small glacial pond. It was unbelievable that we had never come across it before. We all skinned our feet from their sweaty socks and shoes and plunged our feet in to let out our various shrill tunes of shock. Our feet all went numb immediately, but, just for a challenge, the kids stayed in the water until we told them that we had to go. My quietest girl (Emily) had found a small bird that had ants on it. The bird allowed her to come close enough to brush the ants off its back. Finally, we got the kids to move on.

Soon, we found ourselves hiking along a slightly precarious trail, which seemed to drop straight away beside us. Suddenly, the line stopped ahead of me. Lee turned around and gave me a strange look. I worked my way around the kids to talk to Lee and see what had stopped us. Lee was looking to see which way the path led from where we were. He looked up. He looked back. I looked down. Down at the base of the steep slope, we could see what looked a little bit like a path. But, between us and it was a lot of dirt, rocks and boulders and nothing to hold it all in place. It was clear that an avalanche had beaten us to the path during the previous winter.

Lee said that he would go down and see if he could find a way to get around it. But, before I could do anything, some of the kids started following him. I told them to come back but they would have to go over a part that scared me to death in order to do so. So, I decided that perhaps they should stay where they were. But that didn’t seem to make much sense either. Some were still behind and some were following Lee.

Eventually, most of them followed Lee. One of the last to meet with the rest of the group was my tallest camper. He was about 12 or 13 years old and was not really aware of how tall he was yet. Some of the timid kids had scooted across on their bottoms to get to a flatter part where they could sort of stand. But this boy decided that we would just jump.

I watched in horror as the dirt gave way beneath his feet. His feet flailed and he was nearly running to try to get his balance back. We all stopped breathing when we watched him begin to fall in slow motion over the side and begin to slid down the slope. Somehow, his feet found some lightly secured boulders and he stopped just below us. He scrambled up to stand with the rest of the kids but when he did, his backpack started sliding off his shoulders. He looked as though he might want to save it. Everyone screamed at him to let it go. Obviously, I was even more nervous about our situation after that.

I would feel better once all of the kids were together. But, Emily was still behind me. Her eyes had begun to gloss over and she pulled her arms around herself as she began to shake. It was obvious that she was scared. I offered her the option of going back. However, she was scared of heights, so even going back along the trail behind us didn’t seem like an option to her. So, I decided that I would have to stay by her and make sure that she knew that I was there to help her. So, I went first, secured my footing and then got her to follow my footsteps. I sat on the dirt and propped my feet onto some roots whose trunk was lost somewhere beneath us in the dirt. I was able to get her to slide in next to me. She looked down the hill and began to whimper.

“I just need to get her over this part,” I thought, “then we will both feel a little bit more secure once we can stand up. So, I slid to the very edge of the roots and found myself at the part that had actually been terrifying me as well. I couldn’t let on to her about my fear though. So, I slid myself into the dirt and tried to keep sliding to the side because I knew that there was absolutely nothing to keep me from slipping right down the mountain at this point. I got about a foot and realized that Emily was not behind me anymore. She too, had left the security of the roots, but then, as soon as she did, she panicked. She couldn’t move. She was too terrified.

Pg 4: Getting Emily across