4 July 2001-3

I wish I could find the words to describe the scene. It is a memory I have been twice blessed to collect.

It is an hour or so before midnight. There's a full moon, but none of it is shining now. The sky is entirely covered with dark thunderstorms, lightly sprinkling down, with hard, bright flashes of lightning from all sides. In this darkness, winding their way down a twisting mountain trail is a line of over seventy backpackers, moving slowly, steadily in single file.

You cannot see the hikers in the darkness, only the thin white beams of the scattered flashlights and the more common blue, red, green and yellow glows of fresh glow sticks.

A modern neon-colored "firewurm" winding its way through the trees and rocks.

Conversation is steady but muted.

We're near the end of the wurm, looking down at the head weaving their way through the aspen and firs below us in the valley.

As we wend down the switchbacks above the others, rival cheers of the two camps involved in this adventure ring out in the darkness, and then settle down to quiet discourse again.

When we reach the gravel lane of camp, the wurm disintegrates, hikers passing each other to reform their groups, moving in a large mass.

A quick head count at the mess hall, and we're off to our campsite, bedding down by flashlight.