Rocky Night

My bones are still quivering. I made it to Boulder, Colorado late Monday night for a visit with my number one green power maestro, Nick Algee. After a day of typing and phoning from his couch I slipped on my brand new squeaky clean sneaks and followed Nick out the door. We hit paydirt about ten minutes later as the Rockies are literally in Nick’s backyard. Six hours later, we slammed into the front door caked in mud, cuts, slog, and very wet rumpuses. My shoes aged about ten years from the experience. The good news is, we didn’t die.

The whole problem with hiking with no cell phone, compass, trail map, watch, flashlight, or tread on your shoes in the Rockies starting at 5pm (even if it’s in your friend’s backyard) is that it’s quite dumb. I’m too scarred by the experience to tell the whole story, but basically we went from hiking up a little hill to get a sweet look over the city of Boulder to fixating on an obsession with getting to a summit that became more elusive and higher up every time we climbed over a new rock.

Highlights include:

1. Nick’s three minute spread-eagle position hold while trying to climb up a rock ledge and not dying
2. Nick following me through a two foot wide cave hole to get up to the next crest in the mountain, eating snow, cursing his wide shoulders, making an excellent subject for my photographs, lunging his stomach out, and not dying
3. Reaching the top top summit just as the sun drops over a distant peak and posing awkwardly for the camera with Nick on a big boulder hanging over a fifty foot cliff and not dying
4. Stretching my legs and rear across a six foot cavern awkwardly and nearly wetting myself from fear and lack of support from the rock, finally shimmying my way down into the bear-free ravine and not dying
5. My fifteen foot ass ride down wet needles and rocks after meticulously squirming my body down a highly precarious rock ledge in the dark, and not dying

Nick survived all this with only five hours of sleep the night before. I had been on the road for a week in Arizona and New Mexico and was looking forward to some fresh mountain air and kicking back on the couch after this. What I got was a load of boo-boos and a lesson in common sense.

I know what you’re thinking. Gotta send that man a well-sealed Fed-Ex package of hot chocolate and some sweet candy for his troubles. Well, yes. That’s true. But I’d be a shmuck if I didn’t mention that Nick has a hot tub in his backyard and a kitchen full of cold beverages and savory snacks.