How a Wrong Turn Hiking Led to a Life Lesson
Mount Mansfield is Vermont’s highest peak and it is, to this day, the hardest mountain that I’ve ever traversed. The reason is because I went down the wrong side of the mountain.
You see, in my relationship with my husband, he’s the navigator, I’m the communicator. So, I often rely on him to make sure we’re going the right way. Even in a place like Prague, where they tell you to “get lost in the old streets of Prague,” he literally can not get lost.
But that wasn’t the case on Mount Mansfield. We were rushing because there was a storm coming. Also, the Vermont Brewer’s Festival was that night, so we were in a little hurry to get down the mountain, and he took a wrong turn at the top.
So this is a story about marriage survival as much as it is about mountain survival.
We ended up taking the Laura Cowles trail straight down the mountain. It’s one that you should probably only take up the mountain, because my thighs were absolutely shredded by the end of this trek.
So, what I learned on Mount Mansfield was that I need to not only on my partner to get me through a hike, but also rely on myself. I need to make sure I’m paying attention to the signs as well, so that we don’t need somebody to rescue us on the other side of the mountain and drive us back to our car.