The Peak

By Russell

Thud! "Ouch!" I yelled as my face hit the ground.

"Are you all right?" my mom cried as she came running over.

"Yeah, I’m fine," I said and continued walking along the trail.

We were hiking Lassen Peak, the tallest mountain and volcano in Lassen National Park, a high, forested camping ground. My family and I were on our yearly camping trip and we chose to come to Lassen Park. We had just started up the trail when I fell.

We continued along the trail and we got to a slightly forested area.

"Are we there yet?" my little brother Tyson asked.

"Nope, we still have a long way to go," my older brother Jarret said.

Whoosh! Half an hour later we got to the bare, rocky face of the gigantic mountain with switchbacks going up and up that seemed they would never end. Finally we got to the top. It was in the middle of summer but there was still snow on the top of the mountain.

"This isn’t the top," Jarret said. "The top is up there," he said as he pointed to a rock jutting out from the peak. The climb up that rock was very dangerous. Jarret and I were the only ones to actually go up. Then the damp fog lifted. It was the most spectacular sight I’d ever seen. I could see over the whole landscape. I looked down and I thought I saw some cars but it was hard to tell because it was so far down I thought they actually were ants. The silence at the peak seemed deafening. I looked around at the seemingly endless forested mountains and valleys and as I did my foot slipped on some loose shale and slid off the top but I grabbed the rock just in time and saved myself from almost certain death.

"I will remember this for the rest of my life," I said as I got my footing back and started to climb down the peak.