Stream Hiking

The stream is shallow and the current mild, but my friends and I treat the hike as an epic quest. We slosh through the water whooping and yelling imaginary commands: a small band of explorers, average age of seven and a half. The chaperones have fallen back and are now halfheartedly trying to reign us in. Our water shoes slip on the wet rocks as we surge forward, no one's slowing down now; not when we're this close to the falls.

The falls are a small set of waterfalls that sit 3 miles upstream from Steve's house. There's an easy footpath that cuts the journey in half, but we always take the stream. The annual trip originally started out because Sammy once dropped his pack in the stream and we spent five minutes chasing it down the current. We realized that traveling by stream was much more exciting than the path, so we convinced our parents to outfit us with water shoes. 

Today there were five of us kids, Sammy (who lost his pack), Steve (who's house we start at), Amanda and Isabel (twins), Adam (my best friend) and me. Sometimes there are more, our hike has gained some popularity through the years and today some local hikers have joined our pack. We're slogging through the deep section when we hear the roar of the falls; the current has picked up significantly so we know we're close. From here it's a race; we churn through the water in an attempt to be the first one to reach the high rock peak at the top of the falls. I reach the base first, Amanda and Isabel in front of me having tripped over the same protruding rock. I pull myself up the rocks and then I'm standing at the top, looking back down the river. I can vaguely see Steve's house and the sign marking the Adirondack trail that they had posted. I feel elated at having reached the peak first. I had earned my spot here this view was my reward, on top of rubbing it in the faces of my fellow explorers. 

I took some liberties in describing the exact events, but I vividly remember these hikes I took as a kid. It was how I fell in love with nature. For my friends and I, the Adirondacks were a playground.