Life After Retail

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July 1st was my last day working at Eastern Mountain Sports. I pray that that I will not find myself reopening that chapter of my life, ever, but it has happened in the past. But for any of you all who weren’t aware, between last fall and last month I spent living at home and working at EMS. Retail is pretty miserable, but does give generous time off, and I was able to take time to head up to Katahdin last January with Dom Winski ’09 and spend a couple of weeks in Ecuador with Jake Feintzeig ‘09. In case you weren’t sure, mountaineering is miserable.

Anyway, with a couple of weeks between jobs, Peter Shellito ’09, Alice Bradley ’11 and I headed off from New England and drove out to Boulder. Because, well, apparently Boulder, CO is simply the place to be. We crashed with Clara Chew ’09, despite the fact that she has no furniture to speak of, because Clara is awesome. But really, she has no furniture. Her living room has a love seat she found by some dumpster and her kitchen has a microwave but no toaster and enough plates and silverware for four people to eat at once, as long as they don’t all need knives.

Boulder welcomed us with two days of rain, so we could spend time with Andrew Palmer ’10 in his natural habitat: the climbing gym. There were famous climbers there. And plastic holds. And free bagels. It was like heaven. But once the weather cleared up Peter, Alice and I had to do some real climbing and got on the first flat iron. And I just want to remind you all that run out 5.6 slab, is still run out slab. Even if someone is soloing the route next to you in running shoes.

Then we coerced Clara, against her better judgment, to join the three of us on an alpine route in Rocky Mountain National Park called the Shark’s Fin. The climb involved hiking in the night before (Saturday) to bivy near the base of the climb, so Sunday we could be off the climb before noon lightning storms, and hike out that afternoon.

Despite all odds, the trip was actually going pretty well. Tying emergency bivy sheets around Clara’s sleeping bag kept her from freezing all night and in the morning we managed to make it to the base of the climb by six, and we were rapping off shortly after noon. The climb itself was awesome, despite plenty of loose rock. Really what climbing is all about for me.

Anyway, upon returning to the base of the climb we discovered that marmots had taken one of Peter’s boots, and both of Clara’s sneakers. Then Peter spotted three shoe shaped objects lying in the snow field below the climb. Apparently the marmots, after finishing with their new prizes, tossed them off the cliff to the valley below. Sadly, one of the objects was actually a rock, and Clara walked four miles out with one shoe. And then it rained. After every trip, convincing Clara to go on another seems to become a little more difficult.

We hung around boulder for a couple more days before heading back east. We joined Palmer, Lily He ’10, Dan Egan ’10 and Ellen Ludlow ’10 for some decent sport climbing outside of town one day and then Peter, Alice and I did a really amazing line on the Bastille in Eldorado Canyon, maybe the best 5.7 climb I have ever done. Peter and I drove back to Massachusetts while Alice continued on to Alaska. The drive back was exactly what one would expect a drive cross country to be, long and dull. We stayed with Jake for a few hours in the midst of the trip. He seems to be doing really well, and I hope to get a chance to actually check out Madison next time I pass through.

After getting back home I had a day to unpack, get a government ID, and repack before flying out to Alaska early the next morning. For the last week I have been here in Anchorage living with Anson Moxness ’11 and family, working with Alice’s dad at the USGS. I just found a room to rent so I can move out at the end of the week, as I feel bad to be crashing with Anson’s parents, who have been really wonderful.

My time in Alaska is going well so far, although I haven’t seen the sun since landing. There is a really nice climbing gym I have been going to after work, and plenty of mountains right outside the city. So far I have been getting around by bike, so I will need to rely on bumming rides if I want to check out much of Alaska beyond the city limits.

-Andrew