Awestruck on the Ocean Floor

I had no idea what the next 12 hours would reveal. Our guide made sure we were dressed for whatever was ahead, and we all had full water bottles in our packs plus windbreakers, bag lunches, cameras—all the basics. We were good to go.

illustration by Viktor Miller-Gausa

Dale Mason
Publisher

Just after 6 a.m., a dozen of us—mostly teens, all in decent shape—began a trek up what started out as a meandering trail through a forest of towering ponderosa pines. We set out at the 8,000-foot level. Our goal was to get to the 13,500- foot summit of Colorado’s Horn Mountain. And we had to start back down by 3 p.m.

I was my normal, fun-loving self. Lighthearted. Cracking jokes.

After a couple of hours, our easy hike on a well-defined trail changed. Now the trail was narrower, steeper, rockier, and much less traveled. Although the hike took us higher and the air became thinner, our guide kept encouraging, “The view is tremendous! Keep going. Don’t give up.”

I think we were all wondering, How much farther before we’re above the tree line? Then, it began to happen. The pines were below us. The “trail” gave way to an openness with aspen leaves fluttering in the cool breeze and the occasional chirping of a marmot. But our eyes focused on the steep incline. It wasn’t fun anymore. It was work—dangerous work.

Sometime around 2 p.m. and several hundred feet above the tree line, a few people from our group gave up and decided to head back down. The rest of us kept moving, even when it meant crawling.

Finally, about 20 minutes before our deadline, I and several others discovered the end of our climb. The fruit of our labor would be an apple and a few minutes of rest before hours of knee-jarring descent. But in the meantime, I took out my camera and all but collapsed atop a boulder. Alone with my thoughts, this jokester was struck speechless at the tremendous scene before me. An unending range of mountains and clouds spread out all around.

This beautiful view from the top of the world was really a look back in time at what had once been the ocean floor. The Bible and its account of the global flood became real before my very eyes. I was reminded how God’s Word reveals that this entire globe was covered by water during the catastrophic judgement of Noah’s day. That 20 minutes on Horn Mountain was part of a series of wake-up calls that God used to change my life.

Friend, find yourself a quiet place to consider God’s awesome power as you read this issue of Answers, especially the eye-opening article by Answers in Genesis geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling that begins on page 44. Consider the Creator’s power and the world-changing reality revealed by strata and fossils. Then ask yourself: “Have I lifted silent praise to the Creator recently?”