“It’s freaky,” are the only words that would come out of my rosy red lips. It was the weekend and my dad and I had gone on a HATS retreat. He was at the bottom of the 125 ft. wall belaying me. As I climbed up the rough, hard, scratchy surface of the rocks I begged myself not to look down. But suddenly my nerves told me to look down, and there I was looking down. Well I have to admit it was a beautiful view but furthermore I was high up and as far as I was concerned the only thing holding me up was this rope, so I started to climb faster so I could get to the top faster.

“DAD,” I screamed as I looked down again. “It’s alright, your doing great, and almost there,” he encouraged me. So I climbed, but slower now as I followed the crack in the rock. As I reached close to the top I tried to figure out where to put my foot. There weren’t many small ledges where I could place my feet now.

“Go to your right, Sarah,” someone shouted, maybe it was my dad. But I followed these instructions anyway. As I grabbed on to the rocks my hand started to slip.

“Ahh,” I whimpered. “I’ve gotcha” my dad said encouraging me. I got my sturdy grasp back and slowly kept climbing. All of a sudden I realized I only had a couple feet left till the top. I was filled with Joy! As I stood at the top, I looked at the magnificent view. Mountains surrounding the place, greenery all around, and a small creek gurgling right below me, it was peaceful. But I had to push myself to going back down.

As I leaned back to rappel down, queasiness overtook me, and I suddenly realized I was scared as I looked down. But then when my brown eyes glanced back down I didn’t look at the distance I looked at all the people encouraging me! I swallowed a big gulp of air, who knew it could be my last one considering how I was feeling about this. I placed my feet sturdy on top of the rock.

“Act like the rock is the floor and you’re walking across it,” my dad shouted. So I leaned back, inches at a time so I didn’t freak myself out. This part actually seemed to relax me as I rappelled. As I reached towards the bottom I swung over to my left and hit a huge bolder.

“Ouch!” I yelped. But I knew I was almost there so I kept my strength and kept going. Then I realized it was about to be over so I came down slowly so that I could enjoy the last few seconds of this journey. Then when I hit the hard ground again I landed with a small thud. As they started to take off my harness I looked back to where I had climbed grinning in joy, because this climb was no easy challenge, this climb took strength, courage, and bravery. If it wasn’t for my dad though I may of never experienced this great thrill in life. As I walked across the small creek I watched other girls climbing and rappelling, but if there was one other thing I knew about these other girls and my dad they had bravery to climb this.

So I turned to my dad and said “Thanks so much, it was a ton of fun.” And he answered, “I had a great time to.” And the next thing I was asking was “Can we do it again?”