“We are lost!” cried Penny.

“Yes, I think we most definitely are,” I replied.

Strangely, I did not feel frightened. In fact, I felt faintly excited.

This all started about an hour ago. Our Pathfinder club was on a backpacking trip to the Pinnacle in autumn, and we were staying in the cabin at the top. This morning, we had woken up and were eating breakfast in the cabin while listening attentively to the day’s schedule. 

“We are going to hike to a place where there is a gorgeous view! We came at just the right time for all the leaves to be the most vibrant. Make sure to bring a water bottle,” Pastor Art reminded us.

With the boys at the front and Penny and I near the back, we were off.

“How long do you think it will take to get there?” I asked Penny.

“It’s probably about four miles to get there, so about an hour?” Penny replied.

We were silent for ten minutes just looking at the beautiful scenery. After a while I got bored and broke the silence. “I wonder what Ms. Judy is doing back at camp.”

Penny thought for a moment. “Hmm, probably making the schedule for this afternoon.”

Still chatting, our group was keeping a steady pace. “I think we are about halfway there,” Penny stated after half an hour. However, we had just passed by a small trail with a sign half covered by leaves without anyone noticing.

Twenty minutes later we saw Pastor Art looking puzzled while looking at the trail map. “We should have turned left already, but I haven’t seen any other trails. Maybe we should go back and look.”

“I doubt we would have missed it. Let’s just keep going,” Mr. Hardy said.

“Wait, is that a road? There was no road on the map.” Pastor Art told him.

I looked at Penny nervously. “Do you think we went the wrong way?”

“No, we can’t have gone the wrong way,” Penny replied. “There was no other path!”

Another ten minutes passed. “Shouldn’t we have gotten there by now? I don’t think we have gone that much uphill,” Penny sounded slightly tired.

We had decided to go on the road, and were marching past houses with a lot of random stuff in the front yard.

“Hey Ellie, what are they laughing at?” Penny asked me. I looked,and saw the boys snickering at an “interesting” statue of a woman. I sighed and then took a closer look.

“Hmm. Do you think that looks Greek? Even though it’s wooden?”

“Maybe the style is…Look! A porcupine!” Penny said, pointing at a driveway.

“Oooh!”

We kept hiking until Pastor Art called out. “I don’t think we were supposed to come here. Let’s turn around and see if we find another path we missed.”

We all groaned as we turned around and retraced our steps. Mr. Hardy was letting people take turns using his hiking rods. We got back to the place where we should have turned left and paused as Pastor Art re-checked his map. We all peered around until Penny called out.

“A sign!”

“Oh, we must have missed it! How did all of us not see it?” I exclaimed.

“I guess we were all distracted talking.” Penny replied.

As we began hiking on the correct path, I sighed, relieved we were finally on the right trail. Soon enough, we got to our goal: a scenic overlook where you could look out over all the surrounding hills. There was a large rock on which we sat down to eat our lunch. The hills were all covered with vibrant reds, oranges, yellows, and just a few greens from the occasional pine tree. The leaves were almost all done changing color. We had made it at just the right time, the peak of fall. 

All too soon Pastor Art told us we should get going. Trekking back seemed to take forever. I had stopped appreciating the scenery, and just wanted to be back at camp. Each mile seemed to take an age to end. No one was talking. We were all just trudging along in weary silence. Every half hour one of us would ask how many miles were left. Even the energetic boys were worn out. Eventually, we got to the cabin. Ms. Judy came out to meet us.

“Where have you been? You’re an hour later than when you were supposed to return.”

“We went the wrong way and had to double back.” Pastor Art replied.

We all went inside and rested while we recounted to her the whole story. Later I found out we hiked ten miles that day. It wasn’t very fun at the time, but now I have a story to tell about my adventure at the Pinnacle.