So I was naked, standing at the top of the tallest mountain in Colorado, when a middle aged man and his wife walk up from behind me.

There are those situations in life that come about and you say to yourself, “wow, this will be a great story,” this was one of those times. Great stories come about not because of great situations or feats, but irreplaceable moments. This you cannot, nor will I try to replicate.

We had been climbing for 25 day straight when we decided that we would hit one last resupply and attempt climbing Mount Elbert . Myself, Tyler, Nate, and Rebecca, my climbing partners at the time, had been pushed before, but this attempt would kill our bodies. We were in the Holy Cross range in the San Isabel national forest in Southwest Colorado, some 38 miles from the base of Elbert, not taking into account the 14,500 feet to the top. Our packs were heavy with food, clothing and gear, but mostly food. In the mountains hunger is death. Of course you can live a week or so without food, but you sure as hell cannot carry a 80 pound pack that week. Without a constant stock of food to your body, your pace slows and your energy plummets (a word not used lightly in the climbing community). The good thing about this, however, is as the days go by, your load gets lighter. The classic response come meal time in the mountains when someone asks what’s for dinner…”whatever’s in my bag”.

We moved quickly for two days, clearing nearly 35 miles of ground. We awoke the next morning at 3:30 AM, on three hours sleep, to make the final push up Elbert. Moving quickly to the base of the peak Tyler and myself decided to ditch our packs on the trail, planning to retrieve them on the way down. The other two in our group, for some reason, did not trust the area (in their minds, I’m sure full of thieves and bandits) and decided to carry the packs up. Less then two hours in to the accent Rebecca ditched her pack in a much more elusive area, one that I was not sure we could find again. Nate did the same within an hour. After, six hours, of climbing, and my first assent up a waterfall, we reached the peak in the afternoon sun. Seeing no storms around we decided to lay down and eat lunch. Somewhere in the middle of our Raman Nate had the great idea that we should all get naked and take our picture at the top of the peak with a sign saying “Mount Elbert” hiding certain areas. I agreed with the proposed plan and we did what we had to do. So there I was standing at the top of the tallest mountain in the Rockies with two other naked guy and a naked girl when a man and woman summated from the other side and saw us. Not wanting to go back down they walked slowly in our direction and we scrambled for our clothing. When they said hello I apologized and said we were just having “a little bit of fun”….most likely the worst thing I could have said. The man was on his cell phone within minutes and, while I did not know for sure, I assume the person on the other side of that line wore some sort of badge and carried some sort of gun. Needless to say, we booked it down that mountain, found our bags and camped in the aspen forest with no fire…hiding at the end of the day cold, wet and alone in a forest is usually an indication that you most likely could have chosen better words on that particular day.

We have all been stuck at airports. It seems to be a common occurrence more recently, but airport delays have been happening since the Wright brothers first took off in the fields of North Carolina. I, personally, have developed some interesting methods to keep yourself sane while waiting for your flight to be called. If you are alone, just buy a book (that’s all I got); yet if you are lucky enough to be accompanied by a friend, there is so much to do inside of an airport, you may never want to leave.
Game 1- Go to the baggage carousel and bet (money, MM’s, dignity) on what bag is going to remain unclaimed the longest. This is a riveting experience that, if played perfectly, could last for hours. To mix it up a little bit, have each person move a bag to a different carousel and bet on who will find theirs first.
Game 2- Have everyone in your party talk to the people at customer service separately and complain about getting sick on the food. Usually by the fourth or fifth person, vouchers for free meals will be given out and I’m sure some sort of food security procedure will go into action.
Game 3- My personal favorite, form a line across the moving sidewalk and don’t move. Sure people will yell and be angry, but maybe next time they won’t cut it so close and leave for the airport a little sooner. Anyway, a moving sidewalk is designed so you do not have to degrade yourself to the lowest form of human activity, walking. Stand there and enjoy the ride.
Delays are going to happen. Either you can be angry and grumpy all day, or you can kick back and have the time of your life. Happy travels.

To stop or to drive past, this is the question that has plagued me since I first received my drivers’ license five years ago. Like many drivers, I have encountered my share of stranded motorists on the road and the question as to what to do becomes both an ethical issue and personal safety dilemma. A few years ago I encountered this very situation while driving through the back roads of Kansas while on a misguided trip to Frisco. It was winter and the snow was thick, yet manageable. I was driving down a county highway when I saw up ahead a pickup truck in the ditch. The nose end was sticking straight into the ditch while the back end was still on the road. The truck was an old Ford F-150, which I knew from personal, yet unfortunate, experiences was a rear wheal drive. The front end of the truck was pointed downward into the ditch-line as to pick the back two drive tires off of the ground. The old man driving was stomping on the gas pedal while not even realizing his rear tires were barely touching the road. Using my moderate amount of car knowledge and a freshman physics class at Whitewater I knew that if I jumped in the bed of the man’s truck his tires would grip the road and he would be good to go. I pulled over, nodded at the man with a smile, and jumped into the bed. I hopped out as he switched gears from reverse to first and he drove off, to cold to roll the window down, giving me the standard small town two finger salute. I never spoke a word to the man, and I would bet all the food packed into my trunk that the old man I just helped thought I was just a boy from town until he saw my license plate in his rear view mirror. This last winter while driving back to Wisconsin from Chicago a similar situation occurred. While driving on the interstate through the suburbs I saw a small Ford Fiesta stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire. I had no where to go and, growing up around cars, was well prepared to change a tire, especially on a car I could most likely pick up with a few buddies. No one else was on the road and it appeared as if no one had cared to stop…I didn’t either.
This has happened countless times throughout my life. Sometimes I stop, sometimes I don’t. I don’t know if I am scared or big city people or just more comfortable around small town folks, but that seems to be the trend. Or maybe in this age of cell phones and GPS I subliminally believe all people from a city to be instantly connected to AAA while people from the country would have to write a letter home to get some gas. I luckily have yet to need assistance on the side of the road, but if I do, I hope my Mercury Sable station wagon looks enough both big city and small town to sway some helpful motorist to stop.