On Saturday a friend and I took his '67 Toyota Land Cruiser out in the mountain to scout a bike trail that I've been mapping out for the upcoming holiday. It's a fairly long trail and climbs up a mountain so we decided to check it out to see if the first, and most difficult, part was ridable. We climbed the mountain with the Land Cruiser and decided that it would be too difficult to bike up. However, since we were at the top of the mountain we decided to explore some four wheeling tracks. I had a general understanding of where we would be going because of maps and google earth so we felt pretty comfortable exploring around. Going down the backside of the mountain was a little more difficult than we could've planned. We came to this one spot on the trail where the decent was around a 60 - 70 degree drop, loose gravel, a narrow trail, and a long, long roll down the hill on both sides if we were to screw up. We had no choice but to go down because there was no room to turn back around. As we headed down and the backend started to fishtail we both had the though of impending doom in the front of our minds. We made it down unscathed and continued along the trail. The rest of the trail was less techinical and not as dangerous. We finaly came to a fork in the trail and had to make a decision on which to travel. I knew that the left would take us safely back to a paved road , while I right one, well I had no clue on the right one. We decided to take Robert Frost's advice and "take the one less traveled," (the right). We putted along and enjoyed the decent of the trail. After a while we came to the final decent. From the top we could see the end and the road. The final decent couldn't have been more than 200-300 ft and didn't look as dangerous as the first part we came down, but still looked like it had it's risks. However, this time we had a choice to turn around if needed. We both questioned if we should attempt the risk with the end in clear sight, or double back to the safer trail which would take significantly more time. As we stood at the top estimating the risks vs benefits I was reminded how many times we were faced with these kinds of decisions in our spiritual lives. How many times can we see "the end (goal)" in sight and rush down the quicker, and possibly more dangerous, path? When faced with these decisions how often do we listen to that initial prompting of "turn back"? Even though we judged that final decent less dangerous than the first we decided to double back to that fork in the road and take the safer route. That increased our time spent getting back by 45 minutes because we had to climb back up the mountain and circumvent around it. We both felt both felt more comfortable with the decision that we made. Sometimes in our lives we don't have a choice to avoid the danger and must continue on but there will be many more times where we will have to make the choice of "risking it" or "double backing".
On Saturday a friend and I took his '67 Toyota Land Cruiser out in the mountain to scout a bike trail that I've been mapping out for the upcoming holiday. It's a fairly long trail and climbs up a mountain so we decided to check it out to see if the first, and most difficult, part was ridable. We climbed the mountain with the Land Cruiser and decided that it would be too difficult to bike up. However, since we were at the top of the mountain we decided to explore some four wheeling tracks. I had a general understanding of where we would be going because of maps and google earth so we felt pretty comfortable exploring around. Going down the backside of the mountain was a little more difficult than we could've planned. We came to this one spot on the trail where the decent was around a 60 - 70 degree drop, loose gravel, a narrow trail, and a long, long roll down the hill on both sides if we were to screw up. We had no choice but to go down because there was no room to turn back around. As we headed down and the backend started to fishtail we both had the though of impending doom in the front of our minds. We made it down unscathed and continued along the trail. The rest of the trail was less techinical and not as dangerous. We finaly came to a fork in the trail and had to make a decision on which to travel. I knew that the left would take us safely back to a paved road , while I right one, well I had no clue on the right one. We decided to take Robert Frost's advice and "take the one less traveled," (the right). We putted along and enjoyed the decent of the trail. After a while we came to the final decent. From the top we could see the end and the road. The final decent couldn't have been more than 200-300 ft and didn't look as dangerous as the first part we came down, but still looked like it had it's risks. However, this time we had a choice to turn around if needed. We both questioned if we should attempt the risk with the end in clear sight, or double back to the safer trail which would take significantly more time. As we stood at the top estimating the risks vs benefits I was reminded how many times we were faced with these kinds of decisions in our spiritual lives. How many times can we see "the end (goal)" in sight and rush down the quicker, and possibly more dangerous, path? When faced with these decisions how often do we listen to that initial prompting of "turn back"? Even though we judged that final decent less dangerous than the first we decided to double back to that fork in the road and take the safer route. That increased our time spent getting back by 45 minutes because we had to climb back up the mountain and circumvent around it. We both felt both felt more comfortable with the decision that we made. Sometimes in our lives we don't have a choice to avoid the danger and must continue on but there will be many more times where we will have to make the choice of "risking it" or "double backing".
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1 comment:
hey buttercup, it looks like you had a fun time driving around the mountains with your man friend. Looks like a good time
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