I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this

As you can see, I’ve officially sunk to a new low.  Two days running of Dumb and Dumber quotes for blog titles.  Anyway, no summer would be complete without the Senior Backpacking Trip.  In our student ministry, we take graduating seniors away for a week in the high country of Colorado for a week they will never forget.

The trip is significant on so many different levels that it is hard to really explain, but I’ll give it a shot.

First, it marks this significant transition from high school to whatever is next.  They have generally got eighteen years under their belt and are anticipating the next four (or so).  It gives them a chance to reflect on how life has been so far and what lies ahead.  It is a rite of passage of sorts.

But it also stretches people in ways they didn’t know they could be.  For some, it will be the first time camping.  For many, it will be the first time backpacking.  And for nearly all, it will be their first attempt to summit the mythic fourteener.

However, the challenges aren’t all physical.  Pulling away from civilization, comfort, and convenience can have a disorienting effect that makes room in the heart and soul for God to work and for certain aspects of life to become profoundly clear.  Maybe more so than one has ever experienced before.

But perhaps the most significant thing any of us walk away with is a sense of deep connectedness to one another that can only come from a shared experience that is so powerful that your relationships with one another will never be the same.