Anyone who’s anyone knows that I love adventures and that I love the great outdoors. So when I got an opportunity to hike up a volcano and see one amazing view I got pumped and was all over it! It was only 8.42 miles up, no big deal right? But there was a catch to this hike, as there always seems to be.
A) I was unprepared for the hike only having a sleeveless shirt, shorts and flip flops.
B) The high on top of the volcano was about 32 degrees farenheit with a potential low of 20 degrees fahrenheit.
C) We were told by several people it was THE hardest hike and were warned not to do it.
D) We had to get started at 11pm to be able to see the sunrise due to the 6 hour hike.
All of these things didn’t matter to me though, honestly it made things more exciting. Me, Katie, Destiny and Kennadi were the only four out of the seventeen that decided to go. We made a plan to go out and buy warm clothes and snacks to be prepared for the hike. We had also planned to take a power nap before getting started around 11-11:30 at night to be prepared for a long night/morning.
I told the people that went with us that I was going to set a pace to make sure we saw this sunset. I promised them we would NOT miss the sunrise like some of the people we had talked to. The beginning was already treacherous, it went from parking the truck to hiking a very steep incline but we were determined. 2 kilometers in our legs were burning like crazy, we were out of breathe and one of the girls wanted to turn around. But we kept going. 4 kilometers in another girl wanted to drop and the guy we were with felt the same.
Then the plot changed a little bit more for us. 5 kilometers in all of us were dying from the literal non-stop steep incline and then a very heavy fog comes out of no where. It’s already 3 am, meaning it’s still dark, but then you add a fog that doesn’t allow you to see but about a foot in front of you. Most of us are keeping high spirits and pumping those up who are down and not wanting to continue.
At this point we’re about 7 kilometers in and the people who are bringing up the rear start getting nervous that we won’t make, they feel like they’re slowing us down too much but we never let them quit. I told them that I promised we would be there and that’s my every intention. The same girl who wanted to quit 2 kilometers in gets a 2nd wind out of no where! We stop to eat and pray and start to kill the hike again! We decided throwing on a little worship music might help so worship music we played!
We finally make it to the top about five and a half hours later, and see the most beautiful stars I’ve ever witnessed!! It was so clear that we could literally see Mars and part of The Milky Way. We all just sat there in silence awww struck at Gods beautiful creation! And then something happened that none of us were expecting…
