Descriptive Essay: A Worn Path

I 'm lucky, crazy lucky. To be living a dream, to have found it so young, for it to be afforded by hard work and minimum wage, to be healthy, and to have hiked so many miles, with such great people, it 's more then anyone deserves. All I can do is soak it up, learn from my blessings, and become better through them. After three months on the trail the daily routine becomes monotonous. It becomes easy to overlook beauty, to put my headphones in, my head down, and walk right by the greatness around me. If I 'm not careful, I 'll become desensitized to the wild flowers, the trees and even the mountains themselves. I believe appreciation is a virtue, it can be trained to find beauty anywhere, or in apathy lost entirely. Some days I don …show more content…
The state line is the Continental Divide. Rarely maintained by trail crews, it 's an overgrown and understated section of trail. Getting lost, crawling over fallen trees and pushing through knee deep brush are common activities. The trail actually stays directly on the Divide, this makes for what we call PUDs. (pointless ups and downs) I know that I 'm not the only one who 's felt the extra elevation change, the others in my group have as well. It takes a toll on the body. My legs have been felling thin and tired, and I 'm getting way skinny. Despite the challenges, the trail runs along two spectacular mountain ranges, the Pintlers and the Bitterroots. The Pintlers, still with patches of snow, gave us many views of rocky peaks, and many lakes to swim in. They were our first dramatic mountain range, and we were glad to be there. The Bitterroots where less dramatic, but more remote. We would walk all day without crossing a road. Most days we were completely alone. Sadly, in the Bitterroots we lost Donger, our Australian hiking partner, he came down with Colorado Tick Fever. It 's a viral infection, the only cure is time. He 's back in Australia now, we miss him. After the Montana/Idaho boarder Stabby, Kiddo and I made an impromptu hitch into the town of West Yellowstone for the Forth of July! It was a great place to be for the forth, especially for someone who 's been in the woods so long. It was overwhelming, street vendors, tourists, and fireworks. We ate everything we could find. On the fifth we took a zero day. (We hiked zero miles) Zero days are essential for physical and mental recovery. We sat around, drinking chocolate milk, surfing the web and reading good books. On the sixth we hiked out of town, and into Yellowstone National