After starting off in a dense forest and traveling alongside burned trees and steep mountain sides, sophomore Stella Harper finally reaches the top of Pine Mountain after walking for four hours.
“When we were going up the mountain, it was so hard the first few miles, but then you got to a point on the mountain where you were going along the edge of it. It’s called The Devil’s Back. It’s so awesome, so cool [and] the view is amazing,” Harper said.
Harper and three other people walked a total of 10 miles on their recent hike. They took nine hours to walk the Acorn Trail and North Backbone Trail and only stopped for a small amount of time to take a break, eat and rehydrate.
“I haven’t done many hikes, but it was for sure [more challenging]. It’s a day hike, so you can’t sleep there. The incline was going up steep mountains. It [felt like] very, very steep stairs, but it wasn’t; it was a trail,” Harper said.
According to Harper, walking for a long period of time can get tiring and make you want to quit, but she perseveres because she knows what the outcome will be once she reaches the top.
“In the moment you’re suffering – everything hurts – but the moment you stop and look behind you at the progress you’ve made, you’re like, ‘I’m climbing a freaking mountain,’” Harper said.
On the way to the hike, Harper and her group sometimes stop in town to ask locals for information about the mountain.
“[A local] showed us all the things: where to get to and what [the hike] will look like. He basically said that it was a really, really hard hike and that he was surprised that we were doing it,” Harper said.
Harper did her recent hike at Pine Mountain with Venture Crew, a program part of Scouting America. It consists of teenagers from ages 14 to 21 and is known for its more extreme high-adventure-type activities.
“Venture Crew is the adult version of [scouting]. We do way more hard things like climbing a mountain, and honestly, you get more opportunities and more responsibility,” Harper said.
Venture Crew is made up of six people, and they meet every Wednesday to plan their next activity. One of the members, junior Alden Snyder, recently went on the hike at Pine Mountain with Harper.
“[Harper] seems like a motivated person. She seems chill, like a good person, nice [and] friendly,” Snyder said.
Harper and the rest of the members of Venture Crew have ranks. Currently, they are all at adventure rank, the lowest rank, and as a group, they are trying to get to the highest.
“We have a book that has all the requirements and all the goals we want to reach, and we get it signed off by our scoutmaster. For example, for being able to tie certain knots, you have to show your skill in it, and then you’d get signed off,” Harper said. “It’s just a bunch of tasks you have to do in order to get a certain rank.”
Each hike that Harper does is an opportunity to train for a bigger trip that occurs once each year: a 50-mile hike up Mount Whitney.
“The scout group does Mount Whitney every year, so [Pine Mountain] was a little day hike. That was a little taste of what Mount Whitney will be like. We’re doing it next year,” Harper said.
Harper joined Venture Crew a year and a half ago. Her only regret is that she didn’t join sooner.
“I’ve been backpacking and camping ever since I was born. It’s also in my blood because my grandpa was a mountain climber as well,” Harper said.
According to the student hikers, Venture Crew allows Harper and Snyder to experience new things. It teaches them new ideas in a good community.
“I really enjoyed [my last hike] because it gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of important stuff. Now that I’m older, I feel I can be doing more of it on my own,” Snyder said. “But I still enjoy helping the younger scouts learn [too].”
