A "Journey of ONE"

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW6NVcqcRVE
Robert Frost

Introduction

Forty Days to Damascus; Discovering your Triple Crown
Excerpt from Samson’s 2015 thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail

How does one summarize the end of an amazing 2015 thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail which has encompassed so much of your life the past five and a half months? A pilgrimage that is forever willingly imbedded in mind and soul; linked forever as part of who I presently am what my future makeup holds. Lets’ begin at the very start. I was born August 19, 1958. That exact same day in 1958, in an ill thought out effort to quench his thirst after abandoning the safer route, a 17 year young teenager named Will Beeghley hiking in Yosemite Valley attempted to take a shortcut across the notorious western edge of Glacier Point. The kid wound up suspended on a one foot ledge 1500 feet above the valley floor awkwardly bent over hovering under a granite ledge which would not allow the frightened teenager to stand upright. Balanced on one foot there was no possibility of retreating back up the 2500 foot granite face. His three hiking companions who had wisely chosen to return along the familiar passage whence they had journeyed, upon reaching the valley, miraculously noticed their desperate hiking companion frantically waving his T-shirt from his self-contrived ill-fated positioned predicament 1500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. Young Bill was stuck on what has been termed the “firewall cliff.” Thousand would arrive on the scene to watch helplessly at the “soon to be national media spectacle.” This self-contrived event occurred well before modern rescue procedures and equipment could be implemented. As darkness crept in the crowds gathered and the prolonged rescue attempt was thwarted until the arrival of the light of the upcoming day. The bullhorns blared all night long successfully keeping will awake and no doubt reminding him of his self-destructive bull headedness. Only through an amazing, almost superhuman effort did a multitude of brave rescuers manage to pluck the marooned kid off the cliff, averting certain death. Oh how my Samson persona can relate to Will Beeghley. So many near death experiences. So many ill thought out self-contrived scenarios in my life. So many failed cliff hanging shortcuts with only one man to hear my cries of lament and yet I am still here. Like Samson, a man only God could love. Who would have thought? ………
“Bill, I hear it all the time, somebody tells me they have a story I’ve never heard before. The truth is I’ve heard it all over and over again; except your story. I’ve never heard anything like it. Your story takes the cake.” Neil Rucker
(Neil Rucker has been a Polygraph Examiner for 38 years. He has conducted more than 10,000 polygraph examinations during his career.)
“Til I finally died which started the whole world living. Oh if I’d only seen that the joke was on me” The Bee Gee’s
Hebrews 12:6 “because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son."
Bill Wasser
William Barksdale Wasser