BrantLivesOn: August 2015

"You literally saved my marriage" he said as tears rolled down his face. Everyone in the circle was crying as Dan stood up and embraced him. It was well after sunset and a chilly wind had begun to blow down from the jagged, glacier strewn mountain peaks. Blisters, sore knees, chafing, and paralyzing beef jerky aftermath caused most of the men to sit in awkward postures on their bear canisters or log seats. Around the circle a small gathering of ultralight tents were shaking lightly in the wind, behind those an icy cold mountain stream gurgled over a bed of white rocks, and behind that thousand foot cliffs rose up steeply and framed a star-studded night sky. However, none of the 12 men in the circle seemed to be aware of anything in that moment except the people standing up telling their stories.

Michael sharing some Dan stories as night approaches

It was the 7.5th annual Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike and this was a special year because two days after the hike ended Dan Hoffman was getting married. This year the hike was his bachelor party. In typical DHMH fashion we had arrived at the trailhead six hours late with way too much food and not nearly enough physical training. Two hard-earned days later we found ourselves nestled in the appropriately named Enchanted Valley of Olympic National Forest in the northwest corner of Washington state, surrounded by redwood-sized trees draped in green moss and jungle vines. As we sat in a circle and shared how our friend Dan Hoffman had impacted each of our lives, doubled-over laughter and legitimate tears accompanied every set of stories. "Remember that year you worked for Starbucks and couldn't pay rent?" "Remember when you helped me propose to my wife on top of a mountain in the dark?" "Remember that time we drove around Morocco together?" "You specifically showed me what family was" "You talked me off a ledge" "You sent me peanut butter when I was trapped in the Peace Corps" "You sat up and prayed with me all night" "Dan, you realize it's not normal for twelve people to all consider you their best friend right?" You see, this isn't just an annual hike, it's a brotherhood.

Entering Enchanted Valley

Day two I was hiking along with Clint, making conversation to keep my mind off of my sore feet, and I asked the question, "Why do we do this?" Why do we abandon the shelter, running water, and toilet paper that we've worked so hard for to go out and walk on dirt paths with 40 lb (or in Clint's case 52 lb) packs? I wasn't asking that because I was questioning the stunning beauty that surrounded me that is only available by foot. I wasn't asking because I thought the blisters, sore feet, terrible trail food, and absence of showers detracted from rather than added to the experience. And I wasn't asking because I thought that the risk of death or injury outweighed the sense of accomplishment. I was asking because it was more than worth a hundred times the pain, risk, and discomfort. What inexplicable value did I feel in my soul, so invigorating that I actually rejoiced at so low a cost? It was the brotherhood and forced dependence, it was the overcoming of deliberate and strenuous circumstances, it was the sense of the very presence of God, it was the feeling that this is what I was made to do. To meet once a year with men like Dan Hoffman, who had intentionally walked beside me during some of my greatest times of need, on a muddy mountain trail surrounded by forests of mythical proportions and bears of mythical existence, and once again walk beside him and share another experience impossible to forget. To take part in the very essence of life. The 2015 7.5th annual DHMH of Olympic National Forest; another epic success.