 | | I remember that he had on some loose-fitting tennis shoes with broken laces and no socksclearly not the thing for hiking. So we were in general unprepared and on Mt. Washington that's not a good idea; at 10,000 feet the weather can change quickly and the temperature had been known to plummet 30 degrees in minutes.
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| | As the trail narrowed and got steeper, Devin and I fell behind. Soon we lost sight of everyone else. And then, coming to a fork on the trail, I directed us off onto the wrong path. We hiked another three miles before we saw a sign and I realized we were going the wrong way. By now we were both hot and sweaty and not having much fun. But Devin had his heart set on getting to the top. We began to retrace our steps. I remember the trees were close by the side of the trail and we both were thirsty. My brother, of course, had the only canteen. I didn't know at that point if we could get back on the right trail and still make it to the top. We had lost a lot of time.
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| | As we went on, Devin got more and more upset with the way things were turning out. His feet kept flopping around in his shoes and his face was streaked with dirt. Finally, he sat down in the middle of the trail and started to cry. ''Now we'll never get to the top,'' he sobbed. I told him we would still try to do it just to get him up and moving. We finally got back on the right trail and set off up the mountain. My plan was to go part of the way and see what happened. I'd say to him, "Let's go a little further and see what happens." We started and stopped, started and stopped. Other hikers passed us. Like the tortoise, we just kept going. I
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