One Last Excursion

The majority of incoming MBA students take the summer before school off from work to enjoy relaxing and traveling prior to the mayhem that is the first year of business school. The thought is that this is probably the last period of prolonged downtime that one will have for four or five years, and what’s another $X grand on top of all the rest of the debt you’ll be racking up. Almost as soon as you get to campus of a top business school, recruiting starts, which means several events a day, including mixers, industry seminars and company presentations. It’s all great stuff, and having access to the biggest and best companies in the world is a huge benefit of attending a top school. But it’s very taxing and time consuming. Not to mention the workload in terms of classes, studying, preparing for interviews, involvement in clubs and extra-curricular activities (necessary for networking). I know, boo-hoo, I get to go to college again. But from what I understand, it’s actually quite stressful and exhausting. Then, you work all summer in your internship, where you’ll likely be working many hours (no less than 60 a week and as many as 90 or 100, depending on if its investment management or I-Banking, my two areas of interest). Then there’s the second year and more of the same, including actually trying to land your full-time job, followed by your job out of school, where your work schedule will likely be just as hectic and vacations will be short and infrequent, if at all. (Everyone’s heard the I-Banking horror stories of two-week, extravagant excursions being canceled at the last minute due to workloads.)

However, while most students are in the middle of trekking around the world or lying by the beach, that wasn’t really an option for me. I’m still working – my last day is Friday the 10th. Our house has been on the market for over three months and we’re going to get far less than we had hoped for it. Heidi is working all the way to the end of our time in Colorado as well, and I just couldn’t justify quitting work sooner. The loss of income and the double whammy on the money spent for a several month vacation just could not be justified at this point. Plus, I really don’t like debt, and it’s already hard to swallow the amount I’ll have to borrow as it is.

All this leads up to the mini-vacation we did take last week – our final wilderness excursion into the backcountry of the Colorado mountains, particularly an idyllic 35-mile loop in between Aspen and Crested Butte (called the four-pass loop). We are backpackers and have explored a good bit of Colorado in our short time here, and we really wanted to take advantage of our proximity to such incredible backcountry opportunities one more time. Heidi and I had done this trip once before, I think in 2004, but it was so great then that we wanted to go back. Plus, my brother Joe was going with us, and we wanted to show him what might be the most striking chunk of scenery in Colorado. As it turns out, it was probably in the top three tips we’ve ever taken.

We did it in four days, three nights, and got heavily rained on during the first day. Contrary to most storms in Colorado which hit for a few hours in the afternoon then go away, it rained on us until about 10pm on the first day, which really made setting up camp miserable. But the next three days were rain free and we had some fabulous campsites each night. The trip was slightly tainted on the last day, when Heidi, while trying to toss me a trekking pole so I could cross a stream easier, threw it like a harpoon from about 12 feet away. There was basically no time to think, and I just reacted and stuck my right hand out to catch it. The pole was basically a spear at that point (they have sharp metal ends so as to be able to cling to rock), traveling perfectly parallel with the ground and at a high rate of speed. It sunk into my hand in the webbing between the first finger and thumb and gashed it pretty good. Blood gushed immediately. Now, Heidi is great at many things, but she doesn’t really excel at throwing stuff. Fortunately, she’s a great nurse and had a nice fist aid kit along. The skill with which she tended to my wound matched the utter lack of skill with which we she tossed (more like a javelin throw) the pole. We were still five miles from the car, and we didn’t make it back to Denver until over six hours from the time of the accident, so it was too late for stitches, although stitches would have been highly advisable had we been close to a hospital. Yet, the hand has healed really well and I think I’m ready to lift weights (and lots of boxes and furniture) just over a week later.

This was preceded the night before by Joe chasing after an annoying elk, yelling like a madman and clanging pots together. Watching that was, in a word, awesome. Heidi was laughing uncontrollably. All in all, a great trip with just a minor accident, some rain and a parade of people to keep it from being a 10. Check out these pictures.

Colorado, representing…