Jeremy Madsen is a junior at Mountain View High School. He writes that his real writing background (in part), came from the wonderful counsel received from his mother. His essay Water and Life recently won third place in the BYU Re-write writing contest for high school students.

Fourteen scouts, eight leaders, and I unloaded from our fleet of dust-coated pickup trucks. We shouldered packs and applied sunscreen as the sun peeped over the horizon, lighting up the glorious desolation of southern Utah. Wilderness stretched as far as the eye could see. To the south, a line of cliffs, impassable, loomed above us. To the east and west tumbled mounds of rock, interrupted by the occasional sagebrush and one dirt road cutting through the desert like a thin, pale scar. To the north lay utter wasteland: mile upon mile of deep gulches, sudden canyons, towering buttes, and broken hills. Into that, we were about to trek.

“Does everyone have plenty of water?” a leader called.

I looked down at my backpack. With fifteen years of hiking experience, I knew the two-liter canteen around my shoulder and the two extra water bottles in my pack would be plenty to drink for a short hike. “Yes,” I replied.

Temperatures were already climbing as we left the top of the bluffs and began a long, treacherous descent into the dry wash. We proceeded in single file. From the bluffs, we looked like a thin line of ants, winding our way around countless switchbacks, constantly descending. “Watch your step,” a leader warned. “And keep drinking.”

Our plan was to explore two slot canyons hidden down in the wash. The first passed by quickly, and we pressed eagerly on towards the second slot canyon. I whistled as I walked. Overhead, the sun continued to rise. Even though I wore a wide-brimmed hat, sweat dripped down my face. Every few minutes, I took a swig from my canteen.

The wash stretched on for bend after bend, without a second slot canyon in sight. “How much farther?” I asked one of the leaders.

“Not far,” he replied.

“It’s really hot,” another scout said. “It’s got to be at least a hundred degrees.”

I shook my canteen and frowned. The sun beat overhead, turning the wash into a golden oven. Was it just me, or did that bright ball of heat seem closer than usual?

At last, we reached the second slot canyon. To celebrate, I drained the last of my canteen and refilled it with the two bottles from my backpack. The cool air of the slot canyon provided a short respite from the heat, but I began to worry. I had drunk more than half my water, and we were not halfway. My sips became less frequent.

As we left the second slot canyon and began the long trek back to the cars, the sun showed no mercy, shining directly into the gully and allowing not a speck of shade. Perspiration soaked my shirt as I focused all my energy on placing one foot ahead of the other.

We passed a dead crow. It lay in the sand as if struck out of the sky by shear heat.

We were halfway back when I tipped back my canteen . . . to find it empty.

A strange thought crossed my mind. I had no food. I had no water. I had no cell phone or matches or flashlight. I was twenty miles from the nearest town, closer to the middle of nowhere than ever before in my life. If I had been alone, with no cars waiting at the top of the butte, I could die.

“I could die,” I repeated to myself, and laughed at its strangeness.

I looked back at another scout. “You still have water?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I ran out a while ago.”

“How much did you bring?” I asked.

He held up a single water bottle, empty. I shook my head and turned back to the trail.

We reached the base of the final ascent, and there we wavered. Hope failed. Strength quailed. The bluffs towered high above us, insurmountable. Shade and rest could be found at the base of the bluff. But water? Water lay only at the top. We had to climb on.

Never in 15 years of hiking had I faced such an ascent. Every step I took required twice the effort as the last. My legs were lead, my muscles jelly, my backpack a bowling ball, my face a furnace. In my extremity all I could think was, “Why? Why are we here in the desert? Why did we come in the middle of July? Why did I not bring more life-giving water? Why!”

Yet, by sheer force of will built from a lifetime of hiking, I struggled on. Step by staggering step, I left the others behind and surged forth to freedom, life, and water.

As I staggered into the parking lot, others who had turned around earlier shouted greetings that I did not hear. All I said was “Water! Water!” A cooler creaked open and a bottle appeared in my dehydrated hands.

How can I describe how that water tasted? Think of something that is essential to your everyday survival. Then it is denied. You find yourself without it, struggling on in utter helplessness. You exert every ounce of energy; you endure one of the greatest struggles of your life to find it again. Finally you find it, and you let it fill you from the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet. How does it taste? To me, it was a taste of life itself.  

I drank the entire bottle. Throwing it aside, I drained another. I dumped more on my head, the ice-cold water prickling as it dripped down my shirt. I laughed and cried and stopped short.

My friends were still down there. They still faced the climb, and they had no water.

I began stuffing my backpack with water bottles. “What are you doing?” someone asked.

“Going back,” I said, shouldering the backpack, “to rescue the others.”

As I headed down the trail with one of the leaders, how different everything was! Exhaustion fled; energy returned; spirits revived.

We found the stragglers resting underneath a solitary tree, gathering their strength before commencing the final ascent. Seeing our approach they too cried, “Water! Water!” My backpack emptied in moments. And although once more I faced the long climb out of the wash, I did not mind, for this time I did not need saved: I had done the saving.

Many things are like water. Peace, for example, or knowledge, or love. Our lives, like that hike, tend to be much longer, much harder, and much hotter than we expect. That day in the desert, I resolved that, in the future, I would do more than carry enough for myself. I would carry enough for others.