The Mountain is the Teacher
Teaching is what I do for a living. It is also one of my most greatest responsibilities as a dad. And my old cabin, nestled on this mountain, have taught me some lessons about family, tradition, self-sustenance, and grit to say the least. But it has also provided me the opportunity to pass on knowledge, which I have come to realize will last longer than any object or dollar. Knowledge that I feel is being lost as we as humans move more and more away from our past traditions for various reasons.
My son has taken a deer or two off this mountain before but never a buck. I don’t know why it feels different to take a buck but it does. Perhaps it is because they are harder to come by. But nonetheless choosing to take an animals life is a tough lesson in and of itself. Perhaps this is the ultimate lesson on the mountain or perhaps it is the prize, although it doesn’t feel that way.
The cold nights sleep in your bunk to an even colder morning getting dressed because the wood stove died down as the night went on. The mile walk up the mountain to the stand, to sit there in the freezing cold temperatures in the dark to only hope something comes walking by your way when the sun comes up. You have to want to do these things. They are hard.
Most kids feel school is the most difficult thing they have in their lives at the moment and in a way it is. But the lessons taught in school are in actuality, done in relative comfort. The mountain doesn’t care about how old you are, what grade you are in, or even what your experience level in the outdoors is. The mountain presents mental and physical challenges that are harder than any academic test a child will ever face in school. It is the difficulties faced on the mountain that allow me to offer my insights and wisdom to my son that I gathered only in my own experiences. The ultimate lesson comes from experience and the challenge. When a child, or anyone for that matter, faces adversity, that person resets their bar of tolerance to a new height. The mountain is a metaphor for what is coming in my son’s life or anyone’s life. Life isn’t easy, adversity is constant, and the challenges will be many.
It is the time together, the conversations, the shared experiences, and the lessons being passed on that are the real reasons I choose to do this, why we choose to do this, and why hunters choose to do this. It has never been about what you take off the mountain but that certainly helps feel like the prize of all this hard work.
I am a proud dad regardless of the end result.
ReWild Outdoors, rewild yourself, rewild the kids, rewild your life.