When I finished writing my lengthy blog post about surviving my first Great Walk tramping trip, I felt good. I thought I had adequately described the challenge this walk was for me, and I was excited to share my accomplishment with the world. But as I scrolled through my picture folders to find a few of my favorite shots to add to the post, my stomach sank. The picture folder I had named "Kepler Track" was empty. I frantically searched through other folders hoping that the photos were dropped in the wrong one by mistake. But they were nowhere to be found. I checked my camera's memory card, but as I suspected, I had deleted the photos from the card and somehow forgotten to paste the pictures to any folder on my computer.
I gave myself a few days to get over the loss of about 300 pictures that I took over those amazing three days. But even now, I am crushed. I'm not just upset because I had some beautiful shots--which I did since I was 1400m or 4600ft high in the mountains above beautiful Lake Te Anau. I am upset because I lost all documentation of my great accomplishment: my first Great Walk and multi-day hiking trip. I walked 37 miles in three days, and as I mentioned in my post about the track, taking pictures on narrow paths through the mountains where I was so physically exhausted that I more closely resembled Frodo or Gandalf than myself was my favourite part of the trek. Those photos were my trophy, my reward, for surviving.
I know many other people who have lost treasured photographs on trips, and I feel a kind of solidarity with them now. It is devastating that I misplaced some of my trip photos because I learn so much more about different places and about myself when I am travelling. I feel like losing those pictures robbed me of the memory of myself in a period of significant growth. And yet, I know I will always have my memories, and the evidence that I have changed is right here for everyone to see.
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