What is the noblest delight? What brings greater pride to man? Discovery! To know that you have been where no others have been before. To behold what no other human eye has taken in before. Breathing in an atmosphere that is totally fresh. To come to an idea no one has stumbled upon before. To give birth to a thought that changes the world.To be the first on your block with a new-fangled invention that is bound to change the world. To know that you have seen something before anybody else has. To stand on the moon, planting your country’s flag like Neil Armstrong. Finding life on Mars. The crew of the Starship Enterprise going boldly where no man has gone before.

This is what it means to have really lived. To know that you have made an impact because you did something, saw something, tread upon something new that nobody else could have. This pure delight in discovering means not just mere dabbling; exploring means going deeper into the figurative jungle. It means not just going far enough to say that you’ve been there, a pointless trek to wherever just to prove it was there; it means going further, always.

Life really is an exploration. And you have to see everything as if you’re seeing it for the first time, which is really the only way you’re going to see it anyway.

This quest for discovery is how we approach our hikes. To live is to see, to experience. In the attempt to see more, experience more, the Adventure Buddies push on through thick and thin. Here, we attempted to get under the Park Glacier that was calving on Mount Baker. We couldn’t quite go over the hill that separated us from the mountain but were able to watch the sun set over the mountain.