You may have heard of the popular story of “Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” and if you haven't it's about a young boy who wanders away from trails and people on a mountain in Maine and finds himself lost. He is lost for weeks as he tries to survive off of the only things he has on the mountain until he finally finds civilization and gets help. Well, my friends and I this past week recently experienced something similar (of course a much more mild version of the old story).

All summer my friends and I have been planning on taking a trip to Blueberry Mountain, a small mountain about two hours away from where we live, right on the boarder on New Hampshire. Blueberry Mountain was said to have a natural spring that was so clear, clean, and turquoise in color that it looked magical so of course we had to check it out for ourselves. We planned to go on Tuesday of that week and I volunteered to drive. We chose to leave at 10:00am, an early enough time to leave since the mountain was two hours away from where we live and I had to pick my mom up at her work at 5:00pm.

Tuesday came and I frantically woke up realizing I had overslept and that it was 11:00am. I hopped out of bed, quickly got ready, and left to get my friends. Once i had gotten my three friends we finally set out on our trip at about 12:00.

We drove for about two hours. The closer we got the less civilization there was around us and soon we lost service on all of our phones. Once we arrived at the mountain we drove along a one-car-wide dirt road until we saw a few cars parked on the side with a gate shortly up ahead. I parked my car (basically in the woods so I wasn’t blocking the narrow road) and we got out. As soon as we got out of my car we were hit was swarms of bugs. I ran up and down the road trying to get away from them but they were unavoidable. Swatting the bugs away every two seconds, we walked up to the wooden gate to find a small bulletin board next to it with a small map of the trails. The map only showed about three trail names and none of them had anything to do with the natural spring we were looking for. We found a name that we thought would most likely be where the spring was and we began walking down the small dirt road to find it. We walked past a couple of trails until we came to one on the left. “Thats the first trail on the left we saw and thats the one we are supposed to take according to the map,” my friend Kira said.

All four of us shrugged our shoulders and headed towards the trail. In the beginning it was a nice, flat trail that was easy to walk but as we got deeper and deeper into the woods, the harder it got. It started getting steep and the trail was getting harder to follow as it started bleeding in with the rest of the woods. We climbed up the mountain, stepping on rocks to cross streams and tripping over roots in the ground. At one point it got so steep that we had to hold onto the ground as we were climbing up. The air was heavy and still with no wind which made it even harder to breath so we would take breaks to catch our breath and drink water, and we couldn't breathe through our mouths without sucking up some kind of bug. We were about a half an hour into climbing the mountain and we had yet to see any people or signs that led us to the spring. During one of our breaks we contemplated whether or not we should continue or head back and search for a sign for the spring. My friends, Josie and Kira, walked up a little further to see if they could tell how far it would be until the top of the mountain and Lauren and I stayed behind. They came back a couple minutes later and said they couldn't see a clearing in the trees. Lauren and I said we should head back to try to see if there was a better trail up the road but Kira and Josie were persistent with staying on the trail we were already on. That’s when Kira decided we should split up. Her and Josie would continue up the trail we were on and Lauren and I would head back down to try and find a better way to get to the spring. Without hesitation, we agreed. None of us had the thought in our minds that none of us had cell service, therefore there was no way of contacting each other once we had found the spring.

We parted our ways as Lauren and I headed back down the mountain and the other two continued up it. It took us about fifteen minutes to get out of the woods and back onto the dirt road. The two of us walked for about five minutes until we came across this family so we stopped and asked where the spring was. They said it was just a short hike up the trail just to our left. Lauren and I, excited that we finally found what we were looking for, plowed through the trail like race horses. It took longer than we expected but we didn't stop and once we heard water we started running. We climbed up the last steep part of the trail until we saw a clearing in the trees and looked down to see beautiful, clear flowing water through rocks and a big, green pool of water. There was only one other family there jumping off the rocks and swimming around. They welcomed us, offered to take our picture, then left shortly after. Lauren and I had the place to ourselves as we stayed taking pictures. I felt the water (which was incredibly cold) and then decided to just jump in and get it over with. I went over to the top of a rock near the waterfall and deepest part of the pool. It took me a while but as soon as I jumped in I was overwhelmed by the frigid temperature of the water. I came up out of the water gasping for breathe but, surprisingly, it was in a calming way. I wasn't frightened or in any hurry to get out of the water. After the hiking the cold water get so refreshing and clean. Lauren later jumped in as well and we swam for a couple more minutes until it was time to leave. We still hadn't seen Kira or Josie and we felt bad because they never got to see how beautiful the water was. Lauren and I put our shoes on (I had to use most of my water from my water bottle to clean the dirt off of my feet) and we went back down the trail to the dirt road and walked back to my car. We were expecting to see the two others at my car but as soon as we got back we saw no signs of them. We tried calling and texting them but nothing would go through because none of us had service. Most cars had left, it was only mine and about two others. The two of us got in my car and drove closer to the gate to look down the road to see if we could find the others. We sat there for about ten minutes as the time passed by and it soon got too late to the point where I wouldn't be able to get my mom from her work in time. I had to call my mom and tell her but I wasn't able to because of our ongoing problem (not having cell service). Neither of us knew what to do, I had to find service so I could call my mom and tell her I couldn't get her but we couldn't just leave the mountain unannounced because what if the other two came back and saw my car missing? We took the chance a quickly drove down the dirt road out of the mountains onto the main road. I kept looking at my phone only to see the “No Service” signal. I even drove into some sketchy looking houses driveways to see if I could pick up their signal but I got nothing. After about ten minutes of driving around outside the mountains I decided to drive back to see if our friends finally came back. Once we got back to the gate we didn’t see any people. We were in a pickle because I really had to call my mom to tell her I could’t get her so she wasn’t waiting, not knowing where i was, but also I couldn’t leave my friends without them knowing where I was. Lauren and I thought of what we could do until i remembered I kept napkins in my car and I had a pen so I took out a Halloween Jack-o-lantern napkin and wrote, “Kira & Josie, gone to find service. Be back soon to get you! -Jess and Lauren.” I found an unopened bag of pop-tarts in the back seat and went outside to the front gate and hung the napkin note on in, weighing it down with the pop-tarts. Once the note was placed, Lauren and I got in my car once again and exited the mountains. Once we got on the main road we kept driving until we either found service or a local store where we could ask to use their phone. After about five minutes of driving down the road we came to a small food shop. As soon as we pulled into the small, dirt parking lot people stared at us as if they knew we weren’t from around there. The two of us walked into the store with all eyes on us as I approached the lady at the register and said, laughing, “Do you have a phone I can use? Because I need to call my mom and we lost our friends on a mountain.” I said ever so casually. The lady didn’t say anything she just went into the back, grabbed their phone, and handed it to me. I dialed my moms work phone number and as soon as she picked up I told her what was going on. “You lost your friends on a mountain and you just left them there!?” She asked in a concerned voice. I was laughing the whole time while explaining the situation because of how ridiculous it was but she was worried for my friends. I reassured her everything was okay and hung up, gave the phone to the lady at the register, and left. We drove back to the mountain and as we were on the dirt road heading into the mountains we saw two girls walking along side the road. It ended up being Kira and Josie with exhausted and pissed off looks on their faces. I picked them up and as soon as they got into the car Kira said “What the hell?” At that moment I figured they never saw our note. Lauren and I explained everything that happened as Josie and Kira explained how they got lost and needed up hiking the entirety of the mountain, a three mile hike. In the end we all laughed about the whole situation and left to go get food because we were exhausted and starving.

Now here are a couple of ways to prevent something like that from happening and some advice for you if you ever go hiking. First and foremost, DO NOT SPLIT UP! Stay with the group of people you went with and if you do want to go separate ways make sure you have service or even bring walkie-talkies. If you don't have service or walkie-talkies and are still wanting to split up then set up a meeting point at a certain time. Splitting up was definitely our biggest mistake because we had no way of communicating with each other and didn't set up a plan to meet at a certain place or time. A second piece of advice I highly encourage is to bring snacks and a LOT of water. You need to stay hydrated and energized when doing physical activity especially when doing an activity as vigorous as hiking. Don't just bring one small snack or one small bottle of water, bring a couple of each because, like what happened to us, you could end up doing more work than you thought you would or stay longer than expected. I only brought one bottle of water, half of which I used to clean off my feet after swimming. My friend I was with didn't bring any food and was starving by the end of it so stay hydrated! Hiking takes a LOT of energy so eat food to keep your body energized. Something that actually helped us throughout the whole thing was the fact that we had the supplies to leave the note. Even though they didn't see it, it still could've been helpful especially in worse circumstances. I don't necessarily mean to carry around Halloween napkins and pop tarts all the time but bring something that you could use to signal for help if you really needed to. Lastly, bring a map! Or at least do your research of the hike if you are unfamiliar with it. Check to see how long or tough it is and what trials to go on. The mountain we went on didn't have a very helpful map and the signs weren't helpful either which was another major reason we got lost. Also, online it said that it was only a “nice, five minute walk to the spring”, which was a huge lie, so do your research! The main thing is to be prepared which we, obviously, were not. If you end up doing all of those things then you should have a great hiking experience. Happy hiking!