Most of us are getting so used to using electronic devices as a daily routine. It has become a part of our lives.

The Outdoors Club went a backpacking trip  chaperoned by Mr. Prosalik and Mrs. Lewis. The Club went to Hawk Mountain, a branch of the Appalachian trails. It lasted from Friday night to Sunday morning. Due to issues with a seatbelt in the van, leaving from malvern did not occur until 6 pm. The Club arrived at the campsite at around 7:30.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we woke up at around 7:00. Mrs. Lewis made a great point about being in nature that relates to this.

“When you are surrounded in nature, you tend to go to bed when the sun goes down and wake up when the sun rises. Some of us didn’t find out until Sunday afternoon that we had been going to bed at around 8:30 each night.

Then there was the hiking. We woke up on Saturday, packed our tents and sleeping bags, ate breakfast out of our home-brought dishes, made our lunches, then set out. We drove a short distance to the place of commencement, and then we started hiking. We hiked for about an hour and a half, taking a couple of breaks for rest and snacks and lunch. Our day’s adventure was far from over, however.

After lunch, we set out again to take on the hardest part of the journey: the final climb to the top. This consisted of about a mile and a half of pure, steep, uphill. When we finally got to the top, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. You could see for miles and miles. You were just way above everything else. And after we were done at the lookout, we went away from it a couple hundred feet and played bottle cap ultimate frisbee for about 20 minutes. Then we went back down the long and unforgiving downhill, which Mr. Prosalik said to be actually “harder on your body then uphill.” This is definitely true.

When we arrived back at the campsite, we did a kind of meditative activity in which we all went to different places in the woods and just thought about something for about a half hour. Then, we ate dinner, made a fire, sat around it drinking hot chocolate, and went to bed.

On Sunday morning, we packed everything up, ate breakfast, and left. We hiked back on the route in which we came to this campsite, took a break, then walked a little bit more to the van, and we went back to Malvern to be picked up.

Overall, it was a great experience. The weather was a little cold in the mornings and nights, but we had enough layers at our disposal. I can’t say that there wasn’t an element of relief when I got back, but it was still an awesome time. I recommend this club to all the current freshman-juniors to participate in next year.