No, but I would have. Remember when Derek is so excited to win the male model of the year award that he walks up to the podium with Hansel's photo flashing “winner” behind him? Oh, you haven't watched Zoolander enough times to recite it from memory? Well that's what happened. And it would have happened to me had I not won. But fortunatley I did! During the Earth Treks holiday party when Chris Warner was about to announce the Columbia winner of the Avi Award I was ready to scream! Thank you Earth Treks for this amazing opportunity. Taking the time to reflect and write during the application process has been a blessing. Thank you for the support from my family, friends and coworkers. Oh, and after the winners were announced, we threw down and partied hard on the dance floor!
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As I was hiking Old Rag last week I started daydreaming about the Camp 4 bathroom stalls. They are covered with graffiti. One piece of graffiti was a “record book”. A trail to the top of Yosemite point leaves from the Camp 4 parking lot. A person carved into the thick plastic resin stall, “Top of yosemite point 1:14, beat that”. Others carved their times beneath it. Since carving on bathroom stalls isn't my style, I’ll write it here; Old rag marathon 13hrs 10 minutes, beat that, I’m sure you can. You can do old rag as a 9 mile loop. I don't know when I got the idea, but I finally did it last week, 3 laps on Old Rag’s 9 mile loop to make a 27 mile hike. Another “hall pass” (thanks family) landed me in the back of our van sleeping in the parking lot to get an early start for the hike. Sidenote for parents of children with climbing dreams, keep them out of a van for as long as possible if you want them to have a “normal” life, we just got a van, but I bet if we had it earlier we may be in it full time like others “livin the dream”. Anyway, while completing my second lap a guy around my age hiking with I assume his parents and family asked me if I was hiking this by myself. I answered yes and he told me “congratulations”. I said thanks, and of course didn't mention that I was in fact hiking it for the second of three times that day. I save that kind of arrogant spray for blog posts. I thought it was weird that he would congratulate me on that. On lap three I was going through the “rock scramble” portion of the hike well after dark, by headlamp, with the cold night wind blowing over the exposed granite ridge, having not seen another person in hours. I joked to myself, Congratulations, NOW you are doing this by yourself! I got back to the car 13hrs 10 min after starting. As soon as I fired up the engine and turned out of the gravel parking lot my headlights landed on a big brown bear in the road. The bear started running down the road and I followed it at a distance. I guess I wasn't as alone as I thought.
Thanks everyone for your support and comments. The Earth Treks Holiday party is this weekend and the winner of the Avi Scholarship will be announced. Stay tuned. |
Travis BatemanEarth Treks Employee Since 1997 Archives
October 2017
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