What's in a Peak

Similarly to several of my peers, I found myself hiking through the beautiful foliage of the park this weekend. However, it seemed that a number of forces were determined to make arriving at the trailhead  as difficult as possible. Soon after leaving campus, the tire pressure light went on in my car. Since I didn't feel comfortable driving at high speed with wonky tires, the other car disappeared ahead to and I could no longer follow them. We tried to follow signs to the nearest rest area to fix the tires (the car was shaking all over the road by this point), but ended up turning too soon and leaving the turnpike instead. This meant that we had to pay the toll that we had no way to pay for. An impressive amount of nickels was scrounged from the console of my car before we were finally let through. Once at the nearest gas station, some friendly travelers helped me check the pressure of the tires and fill them accordingly. We later had trouble meeting up with the other half of our group before getting there; there was confusion as to which group was in front of the other. Nonetheless, about two hours behind schedule, we finally made it to the beginning of our hike. We also had trouble finding our way back due to misleading GPS instructions and lack of cell service. It strikes me as ironic that our greatest obstacles in summiting two peaks were entirely manmade. Technology, machinery, and their accompanying malfunctions were our greatest setbacks.

At first this seemed surprising, why wouldn't the peaks themselves be the hardest part? However, after reading about how the mountains were formed, it's clear as day. My phone seems a pretty poor match for structures created and shaped by millions of years of geological and glacial forces. These topics have a way of making one feel infinitesimally small.