Bolen leads students on annual hike through Fish Canyon Narrows
Apr 15 - Elizabeth Powell
The Bible department hosted its third annual hike through Fish Canyon Narrows near Castaic on Tuesday—also known as Senior Test Day. The group of 16, led by Dr. Todd Bolen, professor of Bible exposition, included 13 TMU students and Bolen’s two sons, nearly half the size of last year’s hike, which consisted of 31 hikers.
At 8:30 a.m., the Bible hikers gathered outside of Trophy to carpool to the trail head, about a 30-minute drive from the campus. While seniors in various departments took their exams, the crew trekked five miles into the canyon, often wading up a flowing creek bed, and five miles back, arriving on campus around 4:30 p.m.
“We didn’t go to the end of the trail,” said Hudson Lind, a junior studying biblical counseling who went on the hike for the first time this year. “We went to where it was pretty much impassible, because the water got too high and it got too narrow.”
The hikers stopped in the same place they had the year before. But, Lind remarked, they couldn’t help going a little farther.
“Just because we wanted to beat the record, we went ten minutes more,” he said.
The Fish Canyon Narrows hike is voted the No. 1 hike in Los Angeles County by Los Angeles Magazine, a strong incentive to Lind who loves to hike around his home in Washington state and had nothing planned for his day off.
But Lind’s real purpose was to get to know Dr. Bolen and the other students who gave up their day to go on the hike.
“Most people that went I didn’t know super well beforehand,” Lind said. “I knew their faces, I knew who they were, but when you spend eight hours on a hike together, you just learn their background, how school’s going for them—you become a lot closer.”
For Titus Laird, a first-year biblical languages student, the strengthened relationships and good conversations that took place with other Bible majors were the best part of the hike.
“A lot of times through the course of college, you’re talking to different people from different majors, and sometimes you don’t meet people who have the same goals as you to go into ministry or biblical counseling,” he said. “Just hearing how the Lord brought them to that major is probably the most encouraging thing that I’ve heard in my personal walk for a while.”
Though the hike was hosted by the Bible department, students were encouraged to invite their friends from other disciplines along as well. A few students from outside the biblical studies major joined the hike, including Jeshua Whickham, a marketing media student who had gone on the hike the year before.
Before the group set off for the day, Bolen led them in reading a few passages of Scripture about the beauty of creation and how it glorifies the Creator. For Lind, having God’s Word set the tone for the trip and being able to worship as they hiked together was a highlight.
“Psalm 104 is a poetic retelling of creation—it’s beautiful,” Lind said. “We had that in our heads, how the water’s rushing to its appointed place, so that stream falling down is actually doing that in obedience to its Creator, going where it’s meant to be.”
For Lind, who didn’t realize most of the hike included wading through a rushing creek bed and was dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, this was a sweet reminder.
“It’s such a cool idea for a hike, and beautiful,” he said. “As the trees and the rivers praise the Creator, we just want to join.”
While the hiking and wading interrupted the flow of conversation at times, Laird observed, but this almost strengthened the camaraderie of the group.
“The joint effort and then just the commonality in going out in nature because you appreciate it is definitely a good place to get to know people,” he said. “We just had a train of everyone, and you would fall back to the next person and be talking, so it was fun.”
The hikers didn’t forget their classmates back on campus taking their senior exams.
“We prayed for our friends on the senior test on the hike,” Lind said. “We knew they were in the middle of agony, so we had them in our heads as we were hiking.”
By the time the students returned to campus, it was 4:30 p.m.—enough time to take a shower and get some homework done.
For most students going on the hike, the choice to go on the hike meant giving up a large chunk of the day they otherwise would have spent studying.
“It was a sacrifice,” Lind said. “But it was worth it—definitely worth it.”
Laird agreed.
“Unless you’re taking a test—and if you feel like you would be intruding on the Bible majors—please come,” he said. “It would be awesome to have more people come. So, come next year.”