The Spirit of Adventure E-term 2016: The Rocks, the River, and the Snakes

By Austin Winkles

May 24, 2016 - Today we took our adventure to Great Falls Park in Maryland. Here we met up with our guide, Beth Norcross the Founding Director of the Center for Spirituality in Nature. She took us on a nature hike through the woods on Billy Goat Trail B. Our walk began with a simple trail, and then began to follow the river. Once we could stop and sit, Beth has us do some spiritual exercises. The first spiritual exercise required the group to find a peaceful place near the trail, to sit, and to write down the things around that caught their attention. I wrote about the trees, and how the woods looked like a good place to climb a tree with my tree stand and hunt.

After the first exercise we continued down the trail. Then Sarah screamed when we came across the first of several snakes on our hike. This snake was a copperhead snake that was about a foot long. Seeing this snake really scared a lot of people, including myself. When I saw that particular snake my first instinct was to run the other way. I deal with a lot of copperheads back home, and I know they can be dangerous. I can usually get away with cutting them up with the lawnmower, but not this time. This time I had nowhere to go other than back the other way. Once I calmed down and gathered myself, with the help of the group, I conquered my fears and went past the snake. Only to find out there were three more snakes up ahead! These snakes were at a distance by the river lying on rocks, but I know that if I can see them they can see me.

Once we finished our trip through Billy Goat Trail B, we met up and went down the road to see what is known as Great Falls. This place, on the Potomac River, was beautiful, and I have never seen anything like it. Seeing the way the water flows, and how it hit the rocks was truly majestic. I am not a big fan of snakes, or climbing over rocks like goats, also I have hiked before, but nothing like today. The point of adventures is to try something new and to face our fears, so in the Spirit of Adventure we took on those challenges today.