August 2nd, 2009: Tyler Mosbey finds himself planted in a massive field of tall grass somewhere in the Grand Tee Stone Mountains of Wyoming. This is “camp” for Mosbey and the ten other boys in his Boy Scout group accompanying him. They have just hiked 5.5 miles with eighty-pound backpacks; this is the first of a 22-day backpacking trip. What’s going through Mosbey’s mind? “I’m gonna die, because five and a half miles killed me and we still had 145 miles to go,” said Mosbey.
Death was not a joke for these backpackers. The trip was literally a matter of survival. Hard storms occurred every day, usually starting at 3:30 or 4pm. “We couldn’t take that many breaks cause we had to get back to camp before the storm,” said Mosbey. Storms consisted of heavy wind, rain, and snow with nothing but a tarp-like tent to protect them. “We were inside a lightning cloud on top of mountain. Lightning struck about a quarter of a mile away,” said Mosbey of one of the many frightening experiences. “On the brighter side I was also standing on top of a rainbow. I could stick my foot right through it.’’
On the tenth day two people had to go home, one because of a breathing problem due to the high altitude and the other because he wanted to commit suicide. “We call it mountain sickness, he just missed everyone else and just didn’t want to be there so he considered hurting himself,” said Mosbey.
Two days later Mosbey went to bed with a bruise covering half of his calf. “I fell down a cliff and a rock the size of a wheel hit my ankle,” said Mosbey. Mosbey says the scariest part of the trip was walking across glaciers. “It was scary because there were crevices (big, gaping holes) under the snow,” said Mosbey. Since you couldn’t see where the holes were, it seemed someone was destined to fall through. “My friend fell through once, and we were all attached to a rope, he yelled ‘falling!’ and we stuck our ice axes in the ground (catching him from further falling)” said Mosbey.
22 days without comfy beds laden with pillows, stocked pantries, freshly washed jeans, and steaming hot showers are hard to even imagine. “The only reason I got through that whole trip was because I wanted to see everyone again,” said Mosbey. After running out of food on the eighteenth day, the group was forced to fish in the nearest body of water for something to tide them over for the next four days.
A feeling of redemption swept over Mosbey as he reached the parking lot on the last day. He had survived the most grueling experience of his life, but it was a trip he never wants to forget. “I got my tattoo because of this trip,” said Mosbey. He thought the best representation of the trip would be a compass and a rose, which is now drawn in ink across part of his leg.
