I had occasion to open up our Challenge Course Policy and Operations Manual earlier today and re-read a quote that always rings true as we embark on a new summer season;
“Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiousity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of our essential being; for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
– Wendell Berry, The One-Inch Journey