Monday, April 27, 2009

St. Paul's Trail

If the Hash runner's trail is introduced as "difficult," I know better than to question the meaning of the word. Last Saturday we were given two different starting locations to choose from. Sarah, Florian, Britney and Irene chose to do the runner's trail. Tracey, Hetty and I decided to do the "easier" walker's trail. I really think that we made an excellent decision. Easy isn't the adjective I would use to describe this hike. I can think of many others: challenging, beautiful, scenic, spiritual, rugged, dangerous. It certainly, for me, was a spiritual experience, to walk the trail that Paul would have taken while crossing Macedonia. (That's one of my favorite stories in Acts; Paul sees a vision of a Macedonian calling out to him for the Gospel.) Saint Paul really must have been in excellent shape! After spending a fair amount of time on the trail, we ventured down to the river. Beautiful!
I love the little waterfall in the background of this picture. Confession: I did fall on this hike. It was slippery!
We had to cross the raging river over very high rocks. Luckily, experienced hikers were there to consult with regarding hand/foot positions for rock climbing. Rock climbing is one of my criteria for a challenging hike, another is whether or not you have to scoot down rocks on your bottom, another is if have to hang off the side of a hill. This was a challenging hike.
Do you see the lighter grove of trees above the river? That's the St. Paul's Trail. Amazing. (Another favorite adjective...)
The clouds began rolling in quickly. Luckily, we only experienced minor sprinkles. It actually was refreshing.
Once across the river, we were able to take the road back to the meeting area. This was my first time back early from a hike. We hung out on the bank of the river eating oranges and waiting for our friends who did the difficult hike. Personally, I was glad to have taken the road St. Paul traveled.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Great pictures Holly. Of course I love the little Bible geography lesson. It must be amazing to see an area that has so much history.