Hiking A Really Small Mountain

Hello Friends and Family!

This post is a little late....okay a lot late.  One Sunday the 22nd of October our Director Martin got the good idea to take us hiking! Our other Director Kathy was back Stateside for a Reformation Concert at Luther and to see family.  So off we went to climb a mountain or at least a really big hill at a very steep incline in weather that most people would hesitate to leave their homes in!

Our Hike was about an hour northwest of Nottingham in the Peak District, a lovely area filled with towering hills!  The drive there was beautiful and filled with adventures of winding roads, cute villages, blind turns, shady gear boxes, and road raging drivers.  Overall and adventuresome drive (going home was much less panic inducing).  Once at the trailhead we quickly realized we forgot some key items and headed off to find some hats and mittens because if you're freezing amongst the trees then up on the hill well let's just say it was the best 15 pounds I spent! 

New Hat = Warm Ears = Happy Girl

After a brief shopping trip we were off our trail started along a cute little brook and up to a sheep pasture!

However, I feel that it is necessary to note that sheep pastures suck! they are extremely wet, muddy and filled with sheep poo leading to a very slippery walking terrain but more on that later.  Our walk continued across the pasture and then up the side of a very large hill!

The climb was steep and the path, because of the amount of rain, was also multi-tasking as a river bed.so let's just say there were multiple points where we questioned our choices of fun weekend activities. However the views made it completely worth it and the higher you went the more incredible the views got! 

Our River Bed of a Path 

Throughout our lovely hike it was continuously raining and sleeting as well as blowing so hard sometimes you felt as if you were going to be blown right back down the really small mountain and of course as you went up the worse it got.  The final leg of our journey up the really small mountain turned less into a hiking experience and more into bouldering. However we made it! 

Notice Martin Gripping onto us that was because we could barely stand because of the wind 

You can see the rain but it made the hike all the more magical! 

Please ignore my hair! We were sitting on the highest peak whether mother nature wanted us to or not! 

Did I mention how Beautiful it was at the top 

On our way back down we were in much higher spirits despite being soaked to the skin from the driving rain and falling into mountain streams (don't try to mimic the mountain runners they actually know what they're doing you're just going to twist an ankle or end up in a very cold body of water) and maybe seeing if muddy poopy sheep pastures are also good slip-n slides (again another bad idea (although this one was less of my own fault and more gravity's bad idea) you don't get too far and the cons far outway the positives).  This hike challenged me a lot and there were many times I thought to myself that I didn't want to go on or that the view wasn't going to be worth how miserable I felt and yet making it to the top definitely is going to be one of the top ten most amazing things I did this year!

Cheers!

Meghan

“A Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide