SWOOSH, all I could hear as the night went on. My friends and I were at an outdoor camp and were taking a mountain biking trip. Soon came the morning as the sun started to rise. I was outside with my friends from camp by the fire. It must have been twenty degrees outside, but we were ready to bike. We started off going up on our bikes and everything seemed to be going great. We came up to a hill and everyone stopped. The guide we were with told us how we were going down the biggest hill of the trip and to be careful. I was feeling confident so I decided to go fast and 17 seconds into the ride it happened.

CRASH, I had hit a rock and I started to leave my seat as I was flying off my bike. Time felt like it was slowing down. I had been laying on the ground yelling for help as the wind was blowing swiftly down the hill. I thought I was in shock because the world was spinning yet my body was still. Soon after someone came down the hill to help. I had realized my leg was dislocated. I looked at what was left of my cold dead knee. My confidence had been torn apart as shocks of fear went up my spine. I was scared to get up, my mind was racing with doubts. It had been 3 hours since the crash and we had put my leg back in its socket. Then all the pain started coming back in, as we were racing to the emergency room. I waited there to hear good news, but nothing I heard was good. We came out of the emergency room at 9 pm, it had been a day. I was scared to try and walk on my own. I was scared to bend my knee, I kept thinking in my head I'm not going to recover. My friends helped me walk to places and helped me practice walking normally and bending my knee. We had one trip left in camp, it was 16 hrs until we left for it. It was the big fourteen thousand foot mountain that I was dreading. I kept having more doubts even after the progress I had made. I thought “well I have made it this far and I know I can't quit now.” We drove up to the mountain and began hiking and sooner than I knew it we were at the campground. The only thing that was standing in the way of me was the mountain. We woke up at 1 am and started up the mountain trying to get to a peak before the sunrise. 

We made it! I will never forget the moment. After six long hours, I was staring at all the mountains around me and looking at the people coming up the mountain. I felt my doubts drift off of me in the wind. When we got down my counselor said “kid now that's some guts you got” It made me feel like myself. I learned that sometimes when you have a mountain of challenges you have to concur and face them head on.