Colorado is a land of rolling cornfields, harsh deserts, and wide winding rivers.  Perhaps even more of Colorado's nature is revealed through its mountains.  Colorado boasts wide mountain ranges, covered with forests, musical brooks and streams, and giant panoplies that can be seen from the top of the world-- giant arrays of folded land.  The trail that a Boy Scout must follow to attain the rank of Eagle Scout is not unlike the trail that a mountain climber must take to the top of the world-- the top of a 14,000 foot mountain.
    As I begin a climb on the trail up a mountain, I find the trail almost level.  It goes up a little, consistently, but is coated in soft earth and pine needles, the air permeated with the scent of trees.  There is shade aplenty and the going is easy.  As this trail is, the rank of Tenderfoot among Scouts is.  The requirements are not hard and were easily understood and were well marked.  Older, more experienced Scouts in the Troop provided assistance, and they taught me the skills I'd need.  They shaded me in their midst, covering for my mistakes.  Here I learned the basic skill of work and the value of knowledge.
    As I continue, the air begins to thin, and the trees grow scarce.  The trail loses the pine needles, but is still soft and not very steep.  An occasional bird song or the babbling of a nearby brook enrich my path.  I feel joy in the simple act of being, for that is the nature of this part of a mountain.  So it is with the Second Class and First Class ranks in Scouting.  They began to be a serious challenge to me, hard requirements with a lot of knowledge that I had to learn.  They represented the first few stones scattered along the trail, stones for me to trip on, or to climb over.  These ranks taught me the value of spending time on a project, to see it through, and how to apply organization to time, in order to get things done.
    Above treeline, the trail is almost deserted.  There are only a few others who have made it this high and most are only tiny specks on the edge of my vision.  Breath comes short as I pause to decide which of the faint impressions in the grass will lead to the correct trail.  I can see for a long way, and now that the trees have thinned, the top of the mountain stands rugged and strong before me.   It looks to me as if a giant had clumsily dropped the rocks that make it into a pile.  And it is far away, and extremely high.