Comprising a Life

During that summer in Colorado, each morning I would strike out early from the bunk house to explore a different trail or climb a new mountain. Among the climbs I remember doing were Mt. Ida and Long's Peak. Neither of these were technical climbs but I did get a Swiss teacher to take me up on a couple of technical climbs to teach me the ropes, literally. However his English was so poor it made communication very difficult and he seemed to take more than the average amount of pleasure from each of my mistakes. One of these included a free-fall of about 20 feet which ripped out two of my last poorly placed petons as I plunged.  I got a good gash from  granite face on that one and I decided right then there there would never be another one.  Back to rock climbing!

I eventually joined a small hiking - climbing group whose activities took me to wonderful glacial valleys and on a few technical climbs (but I never led again). When the snow eventually did come, I gathered up the first patches of it and made a smoky the bear snowman.  Then going into the kitchen I got my boss's chef's hat and put that on him.  The next day I flew home to New Orleans.

Oh yes and during that summer I also managed to squeeze in a happy romance which matured into a "same time next year" sort  of love affair which lasted well beyond the 14 months I served in Vietnam.