“Where are we going?” I asked again. I was hiking with at an extreme altitude with my cousins. A few weeks ago they had said that they had discovered something really amazing.
“You’ll see when we get there.” They answered with knowing smiles on their faces.
“Stop being a pain!”
“You’ll just have to wait!”
I almost decided to stop right there and wait until they told me. The only problem was that they were capable of leaving me there. My curiosity spiked, I just walked on, following three backpacks in front of me. I finally drew on some of my courage to ask one more question.
“When are we going to eat?”
My cousins laughed and one of them patted me on the back. “In about an hour.”
When we finally stopped, I dropped my backpack on the ground and ran into the woods. On my way back, I heard them talking. I gathered that we were going to hike for another day until we got to where we were going. That dampened my spirits. I was ready to give up.
We set up camp for the night. I was expecting some of the food that my cousins had brought, but I was very surprised when one walked into the camp holding a pair of rabbits already skinned and cleaned.
“We’re eating that!?” I said indignantly.
“If you don’t like it you can go hungry.” One of my cousins said.
“Fine.” I muttered.
After we ate the rabbits—which weren’t as bad as I thought—I went out of the camp and lay down looking at the stars. I was trying to find some constellations that I knew. In any case, it was peaceful and I was enjoying it. While I was lying there, I heard a twig snap behind me and someone trying to breathe silently.
“Don’t even try it, Matt.” I called out behind me.
“Shoot!” Matt called out from behind me. “How’d you know I was coming?”
“You snapped a twig and you breathe like a horse!” I answered quickly. “Now I know why you don’t go hunting. You’d scare every animal within a mile away.”
After that I went back to my tent and unrolled my sleeping bag. Next to me, Josh—my oldest cousin—was already snoring. I rolled my eyes and got comfortable. Soon I was also asleep.
The next morning I woke up after dreaming of eating waffles, bacon, eggs, and sausage for breakfast. I was very disappointed when I learned that we were just eating bread. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything else until lunch, so I shrugged and just ate what I was given.
After eating, we packed up our stuff. Then we went back to walking. We walked and walked and walked……..and walked. I was starting to feel frustrated with how little progress I thought we were making. The only thing that kept me going was my huge curiosity about where we were going.
When we finally stopped for the night, I was ready to sleep right there. I stayed up only because I was hungry. That night we ate some of the provisions that we had brought. Everyone seemed exhausted.
We woke up early the next morning and ate breakfast as we walked. My cousins seemed excited at how close we were. There was frost on the ground when we woke up. I guessed that we were going up even farther. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about that.
Before long, I began to see sky through the canopy up ahead. That didn’t seem right, but I was too tired to think about it. When we reached the summit, I stopped and stared. In front of me there was a scene that just left my mouth wide open.
Just in front of me there was a small slope down to a plain surrounded by mountains. The plain started as a little stripe of brown dirt, but gave way to a wide open expanse of ice that glittered and shone with the sun. I couldn’t even see the other end. It was awesome!
“Wow!” I whispered to myself.
“I told you it was worth it!” Matt said.
Finally I walked down the slope, careful not to fall. When I reached the bottom, I felt really small. I saw the ice plain going on and on in every direction. My pack was heavy, but I had forgotten everything but the beauty lying in front of me.
I saw Josh and Matt running and sliding on the ice. It looked like fun, but I noticed that they hadn’t checked if the ice was thick or thin.
“Hey!!” I called.
“Don’t worry!” My other cousin, Andrew said. “The lake is frozen solid. There’s no reason why they can’t slide around.”
“Did you say ‘solid’?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“That’s impossible!”
“No it isn’t. Here, come with me. I’ll show you how we know that it’s solid.”
I followed him onto the ice. From here I could see that the ice was very smooth. Far into the lake, there was a hole. Obviously someone had dug it trying to find water or to fish. When I looked into it, I couldn’t see the bottom.
“Now do you get it?” Andrew asked me with a smile.
“Yes. No I get it!” I said staring down the hole.
I went back to the shore and dropped my pack with the rest. Then I ran out to where Matt and Josh were running around. I ran around with them for a while until I got tired. Then I went back to our packs and helped Andrew set up the rest of the camp.
“Does this lake have a name?” I asked.
“Not that we know of.” He shrugged. “We just call it Golden Lake because of the color it gets at sunrise.”
That night, after eating a warm meal around the campfire, I looked up at the sky and saw that I could see more stars than the last time I looked. Later I fell asleep thinking that there couldn’t be anything better than this winter paradise.
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