Hiking

Over the summer, while I was in New York, my cousins and I decided it would be nice to go on a hike through the mountains. We all hopped in the mud-covered, shabby, black jeep and took a 45 minute ride to a famous trail. I remember sitting next to my cousin Samantha, passing by hundreds of trees at a time. Once we got to the trail, we parked in the battered, old parking lot and my family piled out of the car. We all huddled up and figured out which path we would take. We finally made a decision on what trail to take after what felt like hours of arguing. We got started hiking. The views of the mountains were breathtaking. The trees were every color of green you could imagine, but these precious moments were short lived. My littlest cousin, Christian, said he heard deep growls and heavy footsteps. My uncle told him not to worry; it was probably just someone's dog. Then, one-by-one everyone in my family started hearing these spine-chilling noises. It was a huge elephant in the room because no one really wanted to announce what we were all thinking. Then we saw it, a trail of massive paw prints. You could see the claw marks in the mud. So, we made the decision any reasonable family would and decided to get back to our car as fast as we could. There was one problem though, the owner of those massive footprints was adjacent to our terrified assemblage. His fur was jet black and coarse. This bear started slowly making his way to us. We were all sure he noticed us, but right when we thought he saw us, he turned around and walked away. At that moment, we all took a deep, relieved breath and stated hastily making our way back to our jeep. When we got to the car, we decided that we wouldn't go hiking in those woods again.