Written by Alex Musicant
As we pass through the middle of first semester and start to feel at home, I can’t help but think about beginnings and how simultaneously terrible and awesome they can be. To me, nothing illuminates this better than my FOOT trip last year.
I came to Colorado College after a gap year during which I lived in a foreign country and spent three continuous months in the backcountry, so I reasoned coming to college would be well within my comfort zone. At least people would speak English and have running water.
However, coming to college was a giant leap outside of my comfort zone. I found life at CC difficult to adjust to for many reasons: the ridiculous pace of the academics, having to take full responsibility for my time management, trying to develop close connections quickly, and getting lost in the sand dunes while racing an impending lighting storm.
That last one requires a bit of explanation. Like many freshman, I was lucky enough to be placed on a Foot Trip. The first day was fairly standard. We hiked an eight mile trail that took us to the summit of four fourteeners, nothing too far out of the ordinary.
The next day started out much the same. We packed up camp and drove for the sand dunes. On the car ride there, all anyone could mention about the sand dunes was snowboarding down them in effortless glory. Anyone who has been to the Sand Dunes knows that this glory is not effortless.
It in fact comes at the heels of the gallons of blood, sweat, and tears shed to get up that yellow pyramid-shaped demon. Eventually, you regain your strength and can enjoy the absolute beauty of the sand dunes. We set up camp and walked around the dunes, pretending that we were explorers lost in the desert.
At night we cooked some pasta and played hot seat. Finally we could rest. On the Foot Trip application I said I was in much better shape than I actually was, and my body was feeling the weight of that lie. Just when we were about to go to bed, we saw a flash of lighting in the distance.
The tone of panic in my leaders’ voices and the immediacy of their pack up of camp informed me of the danger, otherwise I might have led a mutiny to stay the night. Begrudgingly, I packed up my things and willed my legs to move, consoling myself because the hike would be pretty much all downhill.
If you think that all sand dunes look the same in the day time, you have never wandered around in circles in the sand dunes at night. We got lost for about an hour. How you might wonder? After all, there are only about three sand dunes. To this day I’m not sure, all I know is that we went up the same dune about three times before realizing we were utterly abandoned by our sense of direction.
Eventually we did make it out, but the journey took such a toll on my body that the next day at the hot springs I was too sick to stand up straight and I spent the next week recovering in my dorm room. That trip was a lot like the beginning of college; messy and exhausting, but in its difficulty, conducive to some of the best memories and friendships I will ever make.