On that morning in July, I woke up really early. Perhaps it was the sound of the Big Thompson River outside my window, although that same rushing sound invariably put me to sleep as I lay in bed in the evening. As I lay in my bed, looking up at the wooden beams of the cabin, the heavy smell of the pines outside the open window reminded me that today was going to be super.

Dad had taken my cousin, Neal, and me into the mountains a little over a week ago, so that by now I was getting used to the altitude. I had been told that kids who weren’t used to the altitude often got mountain sickness. I wasn’t quite sure what mountain sickness was, but it sounded pretty bad; I sure didn’t want to get sick with it.

So I was happy that nothing bad had happened. Every day that went by was better than the day before. No mountain sickness. Over the last few days, Dad drove us around Rocky Mountain National Park so we could look at the sights. There were elk, plenty of deer, once or twice a beaver next to its house of sticks in the middle of the pond, and once we saw a moose. Later Dad drove us into the nearby village where we explored its souvenir shops and ice cream parlors. One particular ride was really great, when we made our way to the highest point in the park far above timberline where there were no trees, only grass and rocks and tiny flowers everywhere. Almost every day Dad took us trout fishing.

As we were getting ready for bed the night before, Dad told us that the next day we would drive to Bear Lake and from there would take a big hike. He explained that we would first hike to Emerald Lake, and from there to Lake Haiyaha and back to Bear Lake. Neither of us had ever even seen Bear Lake before, so we were looking forward to the trip.

By now the smell of the pines was combining with the delicious smell of pancakes. I hurried out of bed and dressed. Neal was already in the kitchen with Dad, and I joined him at the table.

“This is going to be some adventure,” I said as I poured syrup over my pancakes.

“Yeah,” Neal said, “your dad has never let us go on a real hike since we’ve been here.” He dug into the pile of pancakes on his plate, pouring far more syrup over them than he needed. “Boy, am I hungry,” he said. He acted like he had never been so hungry.

“It’s the mountain air,” I explained.

Dad had told me this before we came up to the mountains. “When you get into the mountains and get used to the altitude,” Dad had said, “you will begin to eat like a horse. It’s the mountain air. It really increases your appetite.”

I wasn’t sure what Dad meant. Did he mean a kid could eat like a horse eats or eat as much as a horse? I thought about this while I was wolfing down a pancake, and I decided that it probably meant the second.

We had been to the mountains many times, but this time Dad was doing all the cooking. Usually Mom came with me and Neal’s kid sister, but this trip was different. This time it was men only. Dad and Neal’s dad were brothers. Neal also had two brothers who had summer jobs and couldn’t come. The mothers stayed behind in Greeley, but they didn’t seem to mind. They said that they would have plenty to do and that they really didn’t need the men anyway. Neal’s dad didn’t much like the mountains, so we seldom saw him there.

“Who’s ready for more flapjacks?” Dad asked. He was holding the big iron skillet in one hand and waving the metal spatula in the other. Neal called it a “fl ipper”; he didn’t know what it was properly called.

I quickly asked for more. “How many?” asked Dad.

“Three.”

“Are you sure?”

I really wasn’t sure. Still, I thought, certainly I can eat more than this. Then I wondered if it might be better if I didn’t eat too much like a pig—or was it a horse? “Three’s enough, Dad,” I said.

“How about you, Neal?” Dad asked, “Can you take any more?”

Neal rolled his eyes and sighed. “Really, Uncle Charles,” he said, “I’m stuffed!”

Neal’s stuffed all the time, I thought. The way he eats is really gross.

“Well, boys, be sure you have enough for a good long hike,” Dad said. “We should be off before 10. We have to drive up to the park, and it’s about 10 miles from the park entrance to Bear Lake. Sometimes it storms in the early afternoon, and we don’t want to get caught on the trail in a storm.”

We were off before 10, feeling not just stuffed but supremely satisfi ed. So far, no day had looked so promising. Along the way Dad laid out some rules. Here we go, I thought. I had heard them before, but Dad wasn’t sure Neal had.

“When we get on the trail,” Dad explained, “there are some rules that all good hikers learn to obey.” He was driving our five-year-old Chevy at a deliberate speed, making sure he kept clear over on his side of the road each time we came to a switchback. There were plenty of switchbacks on the gravel road that came up out of the valley and through Devil’s Gulch to the parkland above. It was one of my favorite roads—gravel, switchbacks, and all.

“First, remember that you never throw anything down over the side of the trail. That’s real important.”

“I can’t see anybody doing that,” said Neal. “What would they want to do that for?” he asked.

I knew what a boy would want to do it for, because only last year I had done it. I remember how embarrassed I was to have Dad point out just how dangerous it was to toss a rock or anything else off the trail. I also remembered that I had expected some sort of punishment when we got home and was relieved when it didn’t happen.

“Children, and grownups too sometimes, just think that it would be really fun to see a big rock go tumbling down the side of the mountain,” Dad explained, “but, Neal, guess what might happen?” he added.

“I dunno,” Neal said. He often pled ignorant rather than make a stupid mis- take.

I thought that Neal should know. He was a smart kid.

“Well,” Dad said, “you think about it a minute, Neal.” The streets were so crowded in the village that he had to concentrate on his driving. When they left the village, he continued. “You see, often on the trail you’ve come up from a part of the trail just below you, so if you throw a rock down the side of the mountain.” He paused again. “What do you think might happen?”

Neal looked puzzled. I thought, come on now, Neal, you’re not that stupid. He should have fi gured out by now that someone might be on that lower part of the trail, but then I remembered that I hadn’t figured it out last year either.

“Someone,” Dad’s voice grew very serious, “someone might be hiking on just that part of the trail below you where the rock would fall. Someone,” he spoke slowly so that the message would get through to Neal, “might be seriously hurt, even killed.” Dad always spoke more slowly when he wanted to emphasize the seriousness of what he was saying.

“Oh, yeah, I see.” Neal brightened up a bit. I thought, I hope he really does see. We don’t want that to happen again this year.

I knew Dad pretty well, so I waited for the next rule. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Another very important rule about hiking is this,” Dad said. “Never take a shortcut on the trail. When you see the trail above you, you may be tempted to cut off the switchback just to save time. Remember not to do this.”

I wondered, Is Dad going to quiz Neal again? But he didn’t. Instead, he just plowed ahead with the explanation.

“What you never know,” Dad explained carefully, “is whether that trail above you is the same trail you’re on. You see, there may be a split in the trail just ahead, a division that you don’t know about. So if you took the shortcut you would get on the wrong trail.”

We quietly looked at each other. Were there any more rules? We had no time to find out, because at this point Dad pulled the Chevy into the parking lot just below the lake. Already the lot was almost full, but Dad found a spot, and we all climbed out. We made our way up to the lake that sat in a natural basin below the high peaks of the Front Range. Dad found a huge fl at rock just beside the lake, and we all sat on it while Dad opened a bottle of pop and took two Black Cow candy bars out of the paper bag he carried in his pocket. As we chewed the sticky candy and drank the pop, we looked across the glistening lake to the mountains beyond.

The view was breathtaking. High above us towered the Front Range. I remembered that the Continental Divide ran right along these mountains from north to south. I had learned this by reading the offi cial park map. Dad pulled this map out of his other pocket and placed it carefully on the rock in front of us. After showing us the circular route that we were going to hike, he sat his pop bottle on the map to keep it from blowing away.

“See that mountain,” he said, pointing directly ahead. “It looks like a big fortress, a rock tower that guards Bear Lake. It’s called Hallett Peak, and it’s almost 13,000 feet high.” We took a long look and were duly impressed.

Although we nodded solemnly in agreement, I thought that it looked more like that tall hat that I had seen in pictures of Abraham Lincoln. Still, it seemed best to agree with Dad.

Dad picked up the pop and took a long drink. “Just to the left of Hallett,” he said, gesturing, bottle in hand, for emphasis, “is Otis.” I thought, wow! Dad’s really warming up to his task. If he isn’t careful when he’s waving that bottle around he’ll spill the pop. It occurred to me that Dad might end up pointing out the entire Front Range. “What do you think Otis looks like?” Dad asked.

Neal frowned and stared at Otis Peak for a moment; then ventured an opinion. He was never one without an opinion, no matter how bizarre. “A caterpillar?” he suggested slowly.

I could tell that Dad was less than impressed. “Well,” he said with scant enthusiasm, “maybe.” He turned to me, “What do you think, son?” he asked.

Now, if you really want to know, I hadn’t the slightest idea about what Otis looked like. It was just one big mountain as far as I was concerned. But, I thought, if Dad wanted to play this game, I might as well join in. “A snake!” I offered this idea with as much force as I could, even though I was uncertain.

“Come on, now,” said Dad. He felt that both of us were sadly lacking in imagination. “Look again. You see, it looks just like a long loaf of bread. Can’t you see that? It’s obvious. I can’t imagine how you two boys missed that.”

I thought that Dad’s view of the mountain was every bit as questionable as mine had been. I kept my mouth shut. Dad took one last, long drink of pop, emptying the bottle. “Okay,” he contin- ued, “that sharp peak farther down the range is Taylor, and between Otis and Taylor, see that big white patch of snow? What do you think that is?”

Feeling inspired, Neal decided to take a wild guess. “A glacier!” he answered.

“Right!” Dad said. “You got it. It’s called Andrews Glacier. There’s a pass right through the mountain range called Andrews Pass, and that glacier sits right in the middle of the pass.”

I was relieved that Dad made no effort to identify the entire Front Range. The day was so bright and clear, and I was anxious to start hiking. Fortunately, Dad was too, for he picked up the candy wrappers and collected the pop bottles from each of us and took them to the trash bin nearby. As he came back he said, “Can’t be too careful about taking care of the park. Never leave litter around. It spoils the beauty of the place for everyone else.”

Another rule, I thought. Dad was full of them. We followed Dad off the rock, and in a moment we were on the trail to Emerald Lake. Everything started out normal, and for several minutes we were content to follow Dad, but soon we found that while he walked ahead at a steady pace, it wasn’t fast enough for us. We wanted to really move on the trail, to see as much as we could in the time we had. I decided to pass Dad. He didn’t seem to mind. Neal couldn’t stand bringing up the rear, so he did the same.

“Don’t get too far ahead,” Dad cautioned. “I can’t keep up with you in this altitude if you go too fast.”

“Okay,” I said, but I started moving just a tiny bit faster. Now I didn’t want to cause Dad any trouble, so I tried to keep a steady pace. Neal surprised me. He was actually out of shape and a bit heavy, but he kept right with me. About two minutes later I looked around and was surprised that Dad was nowhere in sight. I could hear him, however.

“Hey,” he shouted, “I can’t see you.”

We realized that we were outpacing Dad, so we stopped and waited for him to catch up. When we started off again we still kept ahead of Dad, who followed behind. Gradually, however, almost without knowing it, we must have increased our pace, because soon Dad was out of sight again. This time Dad didn’t call out, and we just moved on.

I was beginning to think that it was really neat that Dad trusted us enough not to call us back this time. After all, we were “big boys” now.

We rounded a bend in the trail, and I saw that it clearly appeared just above us on our left. A lot of other people had noticed this too, because there was a small rough path just at that spot where hikers had obviously climbed up the steep slope to reach the trail above.

I had no trouble making a quick decision. “Hey, Neal,” I said, “See the trail above? I’m going up to it on that little trail. That way we can save some time and energy.”

“I know I need to save some energy,” Neal said. He was already sweating a bit, and he was obviously out of breath. “I think I ate too many pancakes this morning,” he added.

“Well,” I said, “maybe you did. On the other hand we needed a good breakfast to make this hike.” I looked at the path, and I looked at Neal. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” he said. We climbed up the short, rough path. Reaching the trail above, we turned to our left and con- tinued along the trail as it ascended the mountain.

We kept up our steady pace, and gradually we emerged from the forest of Englemann spruce and into a broad, open valley. There were fewer trees here; most of them were bristlecone pines, slightly scary with their short and strangely twisted shapes. In fact the valley was mostly a long stretch of beautiful green grass, and there were all kinds of flowers everywhere. I had never seen so many in one place. There were also at least as many boulders as there were flowers. The trail continued beside a rushing mountain stream that ran down the middle of the valley. Ahead of us stood the peaks that we had seen earlier while we sat by the lake. By now, however, they were much nearer. They towered above the valley.

We walked over to the stream, took off our hiking boots, and cooled our feet. No problem—the water was freezing cold.

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that we haven’t come to Emerald Lake?” Neal said. “I don’t see a lake anywhere. I wonder where it is,” he added, putting on his socks and boots again. He was panting and sounded worried.

I always knew that Neal was a worrier, so I thought I’d give his spirits a boost. “It’ll be just over that rise,” I said confidently. “I think that stream probably comes out of the lake. We should be there in a just a few minutes.”

“I sure hope so,” Neal said. “I’m getting tired. This stop was just the thing, but what I really want is to sit down for a good long rest.” I had to agree. The thought of sitting along the edge of Emerald Lake sounded wonderful to me. We needed a breather! Besides, we had gotten so far ahead of Dad that it would be a good thing to take a rest and wait up for him. “I wonder where your dad is,” Neal said. The worry in his voice hadn’t disappeared; in fact it was stronger than ever.

“Oh, he’ll be along pretty soon,” I said. “Don’t worry about him. He knows what he’s doing. He’s hiked in the mountains for years.”

The sky above was a brilliant blue. There were scarcely any clouds to be seen. I thought that the day was turning out to be the very best that I could remember. Even the chance of an early afternoon rainstorm seemed to be gone. The trail, rising steadily over the broad meadow, wound between the boulders. Soon we came to the top of the rise. No lake. Instead, the trail continued beside the stream that could be seen emerging from around a very large boulder far ahead. We made our way quickly to the boulder. Again, we were disappointed. Still no lake! Now, however, we looked toward the mountain range and saw that the stream emerged from beneath an enormous field of snow.

We made our way to the edge of the snow. Neal put his hand into the water and pulled it out immediately. “Boy, that is the coldest water I’ve ever felt,” he said. He held his hand in front of his face. “My hand is almost frozen.”

The snow bank appeared to be quite thick, and it stretched far into the distance, right up to the foot of a high rock saddle between two mountain peaks that towered on either side of it. My curiosity was aroused. I scratched my head. “I wonder,” I said, “how long this snow has been here.”

“A long time; maybe forever,” Neal said. He was obviously impressed with the size of the snowfi eld. “Look,” he added, “it’s really not very clean. There’s lots of dirt all over.”

As we examined the snow we saw that the trail wound upward for some distance along the edge of the snow but gradually disappeared among the many boulders that were scattered as far as we could see. There seemed to be no reason not to follow the trail, so we went ahead until the trail disappeared. At this point I knew that we had to make a decision.

Glancing up at the sky, I discovered that the sun was no longer directly overhead but had moved westward to- ward the mountains towering above us. I began to realize that I was a tiny bit worried myself, but I tried to mask my worry. With as much confi dence as I could muster in my voice, I said, “I don’t think we have much time left before we have to go back.”

Neal looked across the huge snowfield. The fact that it looked like a wonderful place to have a little fun drove every bit of worry out of him. “We still have a little time,” he said. “Let’s go out on the snow.” As he looked at me as if to say, You’re chicken if you don’t come with me, he ran out on the snow, shouting, “Come on!”

Well, why not, I thought, and not to be outdone, I joined him. It took only a minute or two to discover that we were having the time of our lives.

“Let’s pretend we’re skiing,” Neal said.

“Well, okay.” But I was obviously skeptical about this suggestion.

We started down the steep slope ahead of us, slipping and sliding as best we could, steadily gaining speed. This was fun! We began to notice how close we were coming to the large cracks appearing before us in the snow. Once Neal barely managed to avoid a particularly large crack. I was following close behind and turned my body just in time. Now I wasn’t so sure about this adventure. Perhaps I was scared. Occasionally falling, we finally made our way to the bottom of the snowfield where the icy stream began. My fright forgotten, however, I thought, This is the most fun I’ve had since I came to the mountains.

I then realized that something was not right. To begin with, the time on the snow had taken much longer than I had counted on. The sun would have moved even closer to the mountain. But there was no sun! Instead, creeping steadily into the western sky over the summit of the mountain range appeared a large dark cloud. The afternoon thunderstorm! We were in for it!

We were both brushing off the snow that clung to our pants. I looked up to the sky and the mountains behind us. I turned toward Neal. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, “and fast!”

“Yeah,” agreed Neal. “Let’s go!” He looked at me. “I can’t figure out where Uncle Charles is,” he said. “I thought sure that by now he would have caught up with us. Besides,” he added, “we never did find a lake.”

“No,” I agreed. “I can’t fi gure that out at all. Dad must have gotten tired. We’ll probably find him along the trail somewhere,” I said, “waiting for us.”

As we began our descent along the trail we became increasingly aware that the storm cloud was overtaking us. But the air was weirdly calm. In a few minutes the cloud would be directly overhead; there was no sky to be seen to the west. With the first low rumble of thunder, we began to increase our speed until we were running down the trail. Soon, we found ourselves back in the spruce forest that was becoming darker by the minute.

I was running ahead of Neal, who was having trouble keeping up. “Wait up a minute,” he called. By now we were both panting heavily. “I don’t like this,” Neal said. “Are we ever going to get to the end of the trail?” He tried to sound brave but wasn’t very successful. At this point the wind began to pick up. We could hear it as it moved through the treetops high above us.

“We’ll make it,” I said, trying to sound as confi dent as I could. “But I don’t understand why we haven’t found Dad.”

The forest grew darker as we continued down the trail that steadily wound on before us, descending the mountain through a series of switchbacks. The thunder became louder and closer to us.

Finally, just as we thought the storm would overtake us, we came to a clear- ing along the trail and saw, far below us, the lake and the parking lot from which we had started. Another burst of thunder; this time even closer. We ran as if some dread demon pursued us. Still, it took another 10 minutes to arrive at the lake. To our great surprise, Dad was already there, but he was not alone. Two uniformed men stood beside him. Dad looked very stern, and I thought, Now we are in trouble.

I decided to face Dad as calmly as I could. “Hi Dad,” I said, trying to act as though nothing had happened. By now Neal knew also that something was very wrong. “Hi,” he echoed, faintly.

“Where have you boys been?” Dad asked sternly. “You were gone so long that I thought you might be lost. I just now called in the park rangers to start a search for you. Do you realize how serious this is?” he asked.

By now an occasional big drop of rain fell on me, mixing with a tear that I couldn’t stop. I tried to put the best face on the situation. I answered as well as I could. “We’re sorry, Dad,” I said, but my voice was quavering. I realized that I was coming very close to crying. Standing next to me, Neal couldn’t look at the three men. He was already sniffling and staring at his feet.

Each of the uniformed men spoke. They were even more stern than my father. They pointed out how serious it was to be lost in the mountains and how much our long overdue appearance had worried my father.

It’s hard to admit, but we were both crying by this time. I was ashamed. A 12-year-old boy crying. It was downright embarrassing. Dad put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Neal’s shoulder. “Of course, we all were relieved to see you running down the trail,” he said quietly, “but we hope that this has taught you an important lesson.”

We nodded silently, even though the tears still ran down our cheeks. The sky above was totally black now, and a terrible thought ran through my mind. If we had actually escaped being zapped by God, we still faced Dad’s punishment. I didn’t want to think about that.

Dad shook each ranger’s hand and thanked them, and they turned and walked back to their car with its official insignia on the doors, climbed in, and drove away. Dad turned to us and, surprisingly, smiled.

Now the rain was beginning to fall in earnest. A jagged streak of lightning lit up the mountainside behind us. We hurriedly followed Dad to the car and climbed into the back seat. By now the wind had really picked up and the rain came in sheets. At least, I thought, we escaped the storm. That’s something to be thankful for.

Dad drove out of the parking lot. While the windshield wipers wiped furiously I wiped the tear stains from my cheeks. Still, I felt that I must fi nd the answer to the mystery. Why had Dad not caught up with us? “I guess we got too far ahead of you, Dad,” I said, “but we did slow down a couple of times. We thought that you would catch up with us.”

Neal felt that now was the time to impress his uncle. “We even stopped once,” he added hopefully.

“Well,” Dad said, “When I came to Emerald Lake, you weren’t there. I knew that something was wrong, and that’s when I began to worry.”

I was surprised. “You got to the lake?” I exclaimed. “But we never found the lake. We kept thinking that it was just over the next rise, but it never was. How could you get to the lake when we couldn’t?” I asked.

Neal, gaining confidence, added, “All we found was snow,” he said, “lots of it, actually.”

“Ah!” said Dad, “I see what happened. Remember what I told you about taking shortcuts along the trail?”

“Yes,” we said in unison.

“Did you take a shortcut anywhere along the trail?” Dad asked.

It had become clear to me. We had violated Dad’s rule not more than an hour after he had given it. I felt ashamed. I could feel my face burning and a funny feeling down in the pit of my stomach. “That’s right, we did,” I said slowly. “We saw the trail just above us on the mountain.”

“And a little path leading up to it,” added Neal helpfully.

“So we took it.” Again we spoke in unison.

“I remember seeing a trail running off to the left not long after you boys got out of my sight,” Dad said as he drove along.

He didn’t have to ask the question. “We took another trail—the wrong trail,” I admitted. I was feeling very bad by this time.

“And you said that you came to snow?” Dad asked.

“Lots of it,” Neal said. “The snow went right up to the mountain. And it was very wide, too,” he added.

“Can’t you guess where you were?”

“No,” I said.

“You were on Andrews Glacier and much farther up the mountain than Emerald Lake. That’s why it took you so long to get back to the parking lot.”

That evening, Dad fixed one of his special meals—a little of this and a little of that, all fried together in the big iron skillet. As we ate that delicious concoction and drank our milk, we both agreed that this was one of the best meals we had ever eaten. Before bedtime, Dad got out the Bible, as he always did, and read from it and prayed, thanking God for keeping us safe.

After he prayed, he added his little moral—Dad had moral sayings as well as rules to pass along. “Well, boys,” he said, “We live our life best when we live according to the rules that God has set for us. Often we are tempted to take shortcuts instead of following them as we have been told. Shortcuts may be harmless, but again, they can be very harmful.” He smiled. We were happy to listen to Dad’s advice rather than endure his punishment. “Now,” he said, “I think it’s bedtime for you both.”

The roar of the mountain stream made it easy for me to drift off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. As I slipped off into sleep I thought, Today hadn’t been the best day of all in quite the way I thought it would be, but, then again, it sure was a day of high adventure. I thought of telling Neal, but by now Neal was already asleep.

Norman M. Carson, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of English at Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pa. He retired in 1991 after teaching at the college for 37 years. Send comments or questions to nmcarson@geneva.edu. This story was an entry in the Witness creative arts contest and was recently published in the Geneva Review.