Free Topic # 3: Adin Katz

For this journal I would like to recount the journey that I took in my Boy Scouts career to Philmont Scout Ranch.  Particularly, I feel as though my journey up to the top of Mount Baldy has a lot to do with some of the concept that we have discussed in class.  We began early before the sun had risen, which was technically against the rules but we wanted to summit first, and started hiking the five mile stretch to the top covering close to 4000 feet of elevation most of which was in the last mile.  The weather was brisk but began to warm as the sun came up and lit the world around.  The mountain came into sight seemingly out of nowhere as we came out of the trees and into an open field.  After an arduous scramble up the last mile or so of loose rocks that were devoid of life we summited.  The fourteen members of our crew stood alone on top of the world, the tallest thing for miles and miles around.  It was here that we had what I would now define as a bit of communitas, we all took turns commemorating out accomplishment by urinating of the side of the cliff, no it might not have been the most mature thing to do but at least we left no trace.  In that moment we all felt as if we had accomplished something great and together we were bound not by the fact that we were all boy scouts from the same troop but because we had shared the accomplishment of summiting this mountain together.