Climbing mountains

I found I was happiest out hiking either with my parents or friends or out alone in my car or truck. I remember riding my bicycle to Griffith Park with friends and catching crayfish in the streams then likely around 1960 or 1961. It says it's about a 6 mile ride on a bicycle to Griffith Park Observatory from Glendale. However, I started likely from near Glendale High school then. However, after the fire where a part of the high school was burned down by a student when I was a sophomore there it has been completely rebuilt now. Also, John Wayne Graduated from Glendale High school Too in the Greater Los Angeles country area.

Also, my grandfather was always out hunting something from Bear to deer to Moose to Elk to whatever as my father was growing up and once owned up to 40 hunting dogs he kept for chasing bear or other animals in the process of hunting from likely around 1900 until he retired during World War II.

So, the out of doors part was true regarding my grandfather, and my father and all my aunts and uncles too always. So, this out of doors nature of my family was always there even though my grandfather and grandmother stayed in Seattle when my father moved us to San Diego when I was 4 years old. Then my father would take us to the Borego Desert because of his memories working on his Aunt's Gold mine the summer he was 18.

And then when we moved to Tujunga and then Glendale we often drove up into the Angeles Crest Nationl Forest which is right next to Los Angeles county in the mountains there that go up to 8000 or 9000 feet next to Los Angeles.

So, climbing mountains was always something we did while I was growing up and shooting .22 rifles wiht my friends and my Dad was also something we did. However, when I got to be about 15 I sort of outgrew the whole gun shooting thing because I didn't like shooting things and though buying bullets was sort of a waste of money even though I kept my gun. I just stored it in the closet like I was taught to with my bullets as a child of 8.

So, climbing mountains was something that came naturally to everyone in my family growing up and ever since. 

The biggest deal in surviving this kind of stuff though is learning to navigate in any terrain you find yourself in.

For example, if you are going somewhere unmarked by signs or obvious landmarks you have to be very careful when everything sort of looks the. same. This is where people die a lot from getting disoriented as to where they actually are.

Another thing to watch out for is Whiteouts where you cannot see  your hand in front of your face. This can get fatal pretty fast especially if it is below freezing out and I myself have almost died on Mt. Shasta because of a Whiteout and blizzard.

So, climbing mountains is only safe if you really know what you are doing. Otherwise it is pretty easy to wind up dead one day if there is some variable you didn't count on that arises.

But, generally speaking all the people in my family have been adventurous and exploring everywhere because that is just what makes us like to be alive in a body here on earth.

By God's Grace