Catie Fairfield – Loveland, Colorado … Campion Academy’s Outdoor Club climbed Colorado’s highest peak, Mount Elbert, during the annual backpacking trip, September 8-10. Mount Elbert’s elevation is listed at 14,440 feet above sea level.

 

The club students and sponsors hiked up two miles, set up camp, and worshiped together around the campfire to open Sabbath. Jill Harlow, Outdoor Club sponsor, challenged the students to connect their experience of climbing the mountain to their spiritual walk with God and to share with others that evening. 

 

They spent Sabbath hiking the five miles to the summit, gaining more than 4,000 feet in elevation. The climb includes several false summits with the challenge of not being able to see the actual summit as they hiked. The students successfully reached the peak even though some struggled with altitude sickness and fatigue. 

 

Shawn Ferguson, senior student, explained, “We couldn’t see our goal. We were just hiking, which was hard because we didn’t know how long it would be until we got there.” 

 

Abigail Brown, freshmen student, reflected that this trip “was an experience like no other. I loved getting to know people more and relating God to the journey of hiking a mountain.” 

 

The students shared how the hike applied to their spiritual life while they relaxed around the campfire the night of summiting. Campion student Lily Testardi reflected, “When you’re on the top of the highest mountain in Colorado, you look at life very differently than when you’re in a building. Times like these just help us remember how good God is and that, if He can move the foundations of these mountains that we could barely climb, there’s really nothing that He can’t do.”

 

Testardi continued, “Summiting [Mount] Elbert put a lot of my worldly problems into perspective and reminded me that there’s more to life than what we’re experiencing right now, and that God is bigger than all of this. They call it a mountain top experience for a reason.” 

 

—Catie Fairfield, Campion Student News Team. Photos by Catie Fairfield and Erik Stenbakken.