Trip to catch up on!  1/27/24: "Let's conquer the fear of height first and then challenge ourselves with the new thing (ice-skating)'" That's how we started our journey to Bear Mountain. But when we reached there, we were informed that all trails at Bear Mountain were closed. The weather was perfect and all twelve high schoolers were set to climb the mountain and they didn't want to settle down to walk around the lake. So, we changed our hiking itinerary to another trail (Anthony-Nose Trail) which was just 4 miles away from Bear Mountain. Most of them were novice to hiking and didn't know what to expect. The trail was challenging with mostly steep ascends for the first 2/3 of it. Kudos to these young women who were visibly tired but just kept going and didn't stop too long!👏👏👏👏 None of them had seen a valley view from the top before and were at awe when they saw it for the first time. Some of them were afraid to go little bit closer to the edge because of their fear of height. But with peers' encouragement and self-determination, they managed to go half-way closer to the edge. Everybody was thrilled at their achievement! 🤩🤩🤩🤩 After hiking and lunch break, these highschoolers were all set to challenge themselves with ice-skating deal. Only three students had gone for ice-skating before, but everyone knew what it entailed - icy/slippery, difficult to balance, and mostly falling. But those things didn't deter them from donning the ice-skates and hitting the rink. At first, they were scared, holding dearly to the rail, and could barely move forward. Every time they hit the floor, they would just laugh at it, get up and keep going. If anyone tried to give up, other students would encourage them and give them a helping hand. It was just rewarding to see them progressed from barely standing on the skates to working on step-step-glide without support! 👍👍👍👍 So, when asked, how was their day or what they learned, they said: " Don't stop trying and don't give up"