The Best Week of My Life

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift.” – David Viscott

As a travel guide, my life is filled with transporting clients to different places, geographically and often, emotionally. I beckon you to join me on such a journey in the pages of this essay.

In 2015, I was living in Denver, Colorado, and “practicing” law. I did not love the former and I hated the latter. My workweek was spent arguing with people, poring over medical records, and generally gazing out the window at the distant mountains of the Front Range. (Yes. They are distant. Any outdoor enthusiast who lives in Denver will tell you those mountains are not actually all that close. People in Boulder and Golden may have different opinions…). I tugged at my tie and wished I was anywhere else doing anything else.

My escape from my discontent with my professional life was in those very mountains I gazed upon. My friend and I were on a quest to climb all of Colorado’s “14ers,” and my frustration with my chosen vocation helped push me up many a tall summit. As my friend and I progressed in our journey, the easier peaks got picked off, and we started exploring more difficult routes – routes that taught us about frostbite and how protruding ledges can interrupt near fatal falls.

On our drive home one evening, we concluded that we needed some sort of training if we were going to continue. I started looking for first-aid classes focused on the wilderness and stumbled across an institution known as the National Outdoor Leadership School, or “NOLS” to those in the know. NOLS is the gold standard in backcountry medicine, and I felt we needed the best we could find. I took some time off work and traveled to Lake Tahoe, California, for a two-week Wilderness First Responder Course. The 14 days I spent on the shores of that captivating lake were some of the best I have ever experienced. I spent my days in a classroom learning about pulmonary embolisms and snakebites and my mornings, evenings and nights were filled with climbing, swimming, hiking, slacklining, cliff jumping and having a fantastic time that I did not want to end. And I did it all with a group of people who were mostly in their early 20s – fresh out of college and looking to launch a career in the guide industry. There were no middle aged, disgruntled attorneys in my class, but I felt no alienation from my peers. In fact, I felt more at home than I had in years. I did not want to leave, and when the time came after graduation to go back to the “real world,” I was overcome with longing and sadness.

The world I returned to in Colorado was replete with angry judges, demanding clients, an increasingly uncomfortable tie, and that window that framed those mountains. Between moments of exasperation and frustration, I would occasionally receive emails from NOLS advertising job listings for companies seeking alumni trained in backcountry medicine. I paid little attention to these emails because that was not an option for me, as I had a $200,000 education that my family and friends expected me to use. Ultimately, those emails ended up in the trash as mere reminders of what a different life might have looked like.

One day, I received a call from an old friend visiting Denver for work, asking if I wanted to grab lunch the next day. Unfortunately, I had to pass as I had a court hearing and client meetings. That next morning, I put on my suit and that dreaded tie and drove downtown prepared for another day of doldrums and frustration. What I was not prepared for was the complete humiliation I felt as a Judge belittled me in front of my client and everyone else present for a clerical error I had no control over. I had little recourse but to stand there and take the verbal onslaught as I felt that tie grow even tighter.

After court, I went to prepare for my noon meeting with a new client. The appointment time came, and there was no client. I gazed out the window at those mountains, with the realization that my client had “no called, no showed” on me. I pulled the tie off and threw it across the room.

My friend was somewhere in that fascinating urban jungle, enjoying a lunch without me, and I now had nothing to do but prepare for my next meeting and check some emails. I was scrolling through docket updates and appointment requests when I came across an email from NOLS advertising a backpacking guide job at a place called “The Mountain Institute.” I had no desire to be a backpacking guide, but I also had no desire to be an attorney. In a fit of frustration, I opened the email. That single click put in motion a series of events that changed my life.

The opening tagline of the job description said something along the lines of “When you guide for The Mountain Institute, you get to live, work, and play in the oldest, highest, and longest mountain ranges in the world.” If a single sentence has the potential to captivate, that one did about as good a job as any ever has for a disgruntled attorney with a fascination for exploring mountain landscapes. I read on and discovered that The Mountain Institute was a non-profit based in Washington, D.C. and they operated outdoor education camps in the Andes, Appalachian, and Himalayan Mountain ranges. The more I read , the more fascinated I became. So, on an impulse fueled by that judge’s harsh words still echoing in my ears, I clicked “Apply Now.”

I revised my current resume to include my experience backpacking the Appalachian Trail and I drafted a cover letter outlining my passion for educating youth in natural settings that foster gratitude, silence, and reflection. If there was anything I needed at that moment in my life, it was gratitude, silence, and reflection. I promptly submitted my application to the Mountain Institute and returned to reviewing medical charts and interviewing clients. It was a poorly thought-out pipe dream, and I knew it, but in that moment, it felt good to flirt with the idea of a different life.

A few days later, I was going through my familiar routine (look out window, tug at my tie, repeat) when I received a phone call from West Virginia. When I answered the phone, the voice on the other end sounded a bit confused as she asked if I had a minute to chat. I confirmed that she had the correct number, and the lady introduced herself as Melinda from The Mountain Institute and inquired whether I had meant to send my application to her. Somewhat confused, I responded affirmatively, only to learn that Melinda’s puzzled inquiry stemmed from the fact that she was not used to receiving applications from attorneys. I assured Melinda that I had indeed sent my application on purpose and then I flat out lied and told her that I had a “burning desire” to work with young people. As they say, “a drowning man will clutch at a straw.”

During our conversation, I learned that the Mountain Institute paid its instructors a daily rate of $75, that they lived onsite at a 400 acre rural campus, shared bunk rooms in an earth shelter, would have no cell phone service on campus, would have to drive 15 minutes to the closest gas station and 45 minutes to the nearest community that could be considered a “town” and would spend their work hours instructing and leading teenagers on backpacking trips in the Appalachian Mountains.

It all sounded fascinating to me, while also not realistic for someone in my position. $75/day and living in a house made of mud was not precisely the escape I was seeking. But Melinda continued. She said something along the lines of “I think you are simultaneously over and underqualified for this role, and I don’t know how well you will fit in with your co-workers. Most of them are in their early 20s, fresh out of college, and looking for a position in the guide industry.”

And it all came back to me – Lake Tahoe, my Wilderness First Responder class, those evenings on the lake with a group of like-minded individuals, feeling at home in my environment and my own skin.

Long, LONG story short, I took a leave of absence from work the following spring and relocated to a bunk bed in a damp, drafty earth shelter in a remote, poverty-stricken area of West Virginia. The first group of children that I took backpacking hailed from the local region, and many of them showed up with holes in their shoes and plastic shopping bags that doubled as suitcases. Despite their meager possessions, many of them knew more about mountains, trees, and streams than I did. It was eye-opening, to say the least. I walked away from that trip with mixed feelings but a resolute opinion that this was way better than tugging at a tie and gazing at faraway mountains – regardless of the pay and living conditions.

The next group of students I led hailed from an elite prep school in New York City. They arrived at our mountain campus in fancy tour buses and offloaded sporting brand new Patagonia backpacks and North Face jackets. I knew more about the outdoors than most of them but found myself somewhat jealous of the expensive gear their parents had acquired the week before solely for this excursion.

On the first night of our camping adventure, the Mountain Institute guides hosted a nighttime stargazing activity. Since the area is a dark-sky sanctuary, this was a special moment for children who did not live in the local area, and the instructors typically received inquisitive questions from our students. One of those students was named Dominic. I hope I never EVER forget Dominic – he changed my life. Tears well up as I write this.

That night, Dominic asked me to join him on his stargazing blanket, and I obliged, pointing out the Milky Way and a few constellations, only for Dominic to remark that they did not have stars like this where he lived. Following along, I explained light pollution to Dominic and how, practically, all the stars he saw in that West Virginia hollow could be seen from his home in the city were it not for the unshielded lights that cast their artificial illumination into the skies, obscuring the natural wonder overhead. In that moment, on that blanket in the darkness of a spring night, Dominic reached out across the blanket, touched my arm, and said, “Mr. Johnson, I never knew that.”

From that moment on, Dominic and I were inseparable. I taught him how to poop in the woods, he taught me how to whip/nae nae, and we worked together to climb to the summit of Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Staring off from that bare rock summit at the seemingly endless expanse of the Monongahela National Forest, I knew I had found something special, but the true nature would not reveal itself for some time to come.

At the end of that trip, those fancy tour buses rolled back up the dirt road to the Mountain Institute campus, and my co-guides and I lined up to wave the students off. Just before the drivers closed the doors, Dominic ran off his bus and gave me a huge hug. He looked up at me and said, “Mr. Johnson, this was the best week of my life.” Trying to hold back the tears, I looked down at Dominic and said, “You know what, buddy? This was one of the best weeks of my life, too.” I told Dominic and his classmates goodbye, promptly went to the mud house, got on the painfully slow WiFi, and sent an email to the conglomerate of law firms I worked for, informing them that I was extending my leave of absence through the fall.

And when the fall was over, I went back to practicing law, tugging at my tie and staring out the window, wishing I was back in the mountains. The following spring, I found myself back in West Virginia, having some of the best weeks of my life with a group of teenagers and kids in their 20s. It was as good as it got, or so I thought. Fast forward a year, and I found a job leading backpacking trips for adults. I made (slightly) more than $75 a day, got to sleep in cheap hotel beds instead of a bunk bed, and I even received the occasional gratuity! I continued to travel that path and, a couple of years later, found myself guiding trips in Yellowstone National Park for an established, soon-to-be worldwide company. After that, a series of fortuitous events led me to where I am today, sharing this story with you – a former attorney turned luxury travel guide who has never felt more content and fulfilled.

I now attend an annual guide training where I hang out with a former judge, a retired Wall Street banker, a textile engineer, some formerly burnt-out corporate execs and even a few 20ish year olds. Many of them are just like me – they had a tie they struggled with and a window from which they gazed, and they imagined a better life.

I have the distinct honor and privilege of guiding esteemed clientele in some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. If you had told me on that mountaintop in West Virginia that one day my clients would disembark from private jets, dine on award-winning chef-created cuisine, and sleep on high-count luxury sheets in the middle of some of America’s most beloved lands, I would have laughed. But it is true.

I write this story inside one of the most exclusive and remote chalets in the world while occasionally breaking my concentration to stare out a window at the mountains of Denali National Park. There is no frustrating tie on my neck, no angry judges who have it out for me, and no frustration at the calling I have chosen. Instead, I pen these words and gaze longingly at those snow-capped peaks with a whole heart and abundant gratitude.

When I return home from this trip, I will walk in the door of my condo and head to the kitchen for a cold drink. As I open the bottle, I will look at all the pictures adorning that fridge door and reminisce about a decade of guiding across the country and the world. I will take that cold drink into my bedroom and place it on my nightstand. Inside that bedside table are dozens of Christmas cards, handwritten notes and sentimental tokens from teenagers, families, and organizations thanking me for the experiences they had under my guidance.

And before I lie down and take the rest that only a contented, weary man knows, I will tell myself one thing – I will say – “Mr. Johnson, this was the best week of my life.”  Just like I said it the week before and will say it the week after for as long as I can pursue my life’s calling.

I now live a life of fulfillment and passion that floats on a level of gratitude I never dreamt possible. Our mission at EXP Journeys is to “create authentic travel experiences that enrich lives and transform perspectives.” We have hundreds and hundreds of satisfied clients who will attest to the fact that we accomplish as much. But…you don’t have to look that far to find proof. You are holding it in your hands – the story you just read is perhaps one of the most enriching and transformative of them all.

Melinda…if you are reading this, THANK YOU. You were the first person in a long line of individuals who changed my life by giving me a chance.

And to the rest of you, thanks for abiding my extended absence. Until we meet again, I wish you all the love and encourage you to check out the following website. The Mountain Institute is now known as Experience Learning but regardless of what name it takes, it will always be one of the most magical places I have ever known. If you ever find yourself in Pendleton County, West Virginia, you should stop by. You will find a piece of my heart on that 400-acre campus and a chunk of my soul watching the sunset on nearby Spruce Knob.

Have a great week everybody!