Short Siding

In the late 70's, my friends Joe and Randy decided they were going to take an extended vacation and drive the Alcan highway to Alaska, spend some time seeing the sites, and drive back. They read voraciously so they knew all about the weather, the primitive road conditions, and everything else. When they started to pack up Joe's truck to go, they had a huge checklist. They had water, tools, spare tire(s), tire repair kits, medical kit, clothes, stuff to make fires, canned food .... a truck packed to the rafters for hard survival. I came by to watch them pack and BS a while. Randy proudly showed me his checklist and all of the stuff they had. especially the store of canned food. I looked at him and said, "Do you have a can opener?" His jaw dropped. He looked at me blankly. He checked his list. Then he giggled loudly and went in to razz Joe about what they forgot to add to the list. A simple, yet necessary, can opener. A quick rummage through Randy's mom's kitchen drawers found the desired item and it was added to the truck, and the list. We laughed about it for a while but I knew they were actually a little embarassed. But they got off ok and their trip went great. There were weeks of good stories when they got back, and tons of great pictures.

Goin' East in the Westbound Lane

I worked in a steel mill for nearly ten years. During a break one day a bunch of us were talking about travel. I explained that I was a traveling fool. Put me in a car, put me out on the highway, and I can drive all day. Someone asked how far I thought I could go in a weekend and I said I thought I could drive to Tucson and back within three days. One of my colleagues jumped up and loudly proclaimed that wasn't possible. I thought about it more carefully and concluded I thought it could be done. My colleague then made the mistake of betting me I couldn't do it. We haggled for a while and, because he was very confident this was impossible, we settled on the rules for the bet.
(1) He would see me off and get the mileage on my van
(2) I needed some irrefutable proof that I was in Tucson
(3) I had to be at his house within 72 hours of leaving with the proof
The bet was for $1500 AND EXPENSES (boy was he confident). We had to each put up the $1500 up front and let a mutual (and neutral) person hold it.
I won baby .... I won !!!!!!!
I made it with four hours to spare and I took breaks along the way. My proof? I drove into Tucson, went to the University of Arizona bookstore and bought him a t-shirt (correct size). The receipt had the name of the bookstore and location, and the date/time. Shortest stay ever in Tucson .... about 20 minutes. I got in, got the shirt, and left immediately.
It really frosted his you-know-whats and he didn't speak to me for weeks afterwards. He also refused to wear the shirt. I bet his wife whipped his butt for dropping $1500 (plus expenses) on a stupid bet. I wouldn't do it again, but, it was certainly worth it once.

Tickets! Tickets, Please !!

Speaking of having fun with teachers ... in high school we had a teacher named Mr. Musser. He taught German and Joe and I took this as our language course. I took it because I already knew a little German and felt it would give me a start. Joe took it because he needed to take a language. It was clear from the start that he and Mr. Musser were going to have a battle of wills all year. Joe was not a good student of language, and Mr. Musser was determined to make him so. Two hard-headed personalities at war.

Joe did poorly at German but Mr. Musser always kept after him. Joe and I paired up for an exercise where we had to come up with a conversation in German and do it in front of the class. The conversation went like this:
Me: Joe. Nice to see you. How are you?
Joe: Not so good. Could you tell me how to get to the hospital?
Me: The hospital? Sure? It's down Fuhrer street at the third traffice light. Why do you need to go to the hospital?
Joe: I have a broken arm.
Me: How did you break your arm?
Joe: My mother broke my arm.
Me: Your Mother broke your arm? Why would she do that?
Joe: Because I got an "F" in German class.

The class liked it but Musser was annoyed.

We decided to spring a major prank on him. Surrepticiously, for a couple of weeks, we worked on a story to give to him. The title of the story was "The Death of Vernon E. Musser." Basically we made him out to be a Nazi who was using his home oven for nefarious purposes. He was defeated and killed by a 350 pound bull (looked a lot like Joe) and his body was disposed of in the Lake. We were trying to finish it up one day, in class, when we had a substitute teacher. He discovered what we were doing, and we had a big fight as he confiscated it and said he was going to turn us in to the administration. We told him we had planned to read this to Musser when completed and he didn't believe us. He didn't think we had the cojones (and he told us this) to do that. We pleaded to get the story back and swore we would. He eventually gave it back to us but said he would check back with Musser in a week. If we hadn't made the presentation by then, he'd turn us in.

Four days later, we interrupted class right after it started, and made a big deal of both presenting, and reading aloud, the story to Mr. Musser. He was red as a beet. He was offended, embarassed, and laughing all at the same time. When we were done we presented him with the story and goosetepped back to our seats. We always wondered whether he took it just to be gracious, and that we had offended him, or whether he liked it or not. We found out that for years afterward he kept it in his desk and would tell other teachers about it. So we made an impression. Perhaps it was Joe's bloody red handprint on the front cover that really set it off.

It's sad to know that stuff like that today would either get someone sued, or would probably get us expelled. Interaction and fun between teachers and students, and the inability anymore to find ways to express feelings and frustrations without getting into more trouble, I think are fueling some of the violence and frustrations in our schools today. People really need to learn to lighten up.

How Much is that Igloo in the Window?

In February of 1979, the downstairs cellar gang decided to take a trip to Winnipeg, Alberta to see our first total solar eclipse. The recent Siberian eclipse brought back some fresh memories of that trip. We were raw beginners as far as air travel was concerned. We booked our flight months in advance and had our ticket info. I was a little nervous as I had never flown before and I am not a lover of heights. We went to the airport and discovered, to our horror, that the flight time had changed and we had 10 minutes to get our butts to the gate. Thank God this was before TSA and the rediculous crap people are subjected to in airports today. We sprinted down to the gate, ran onto the plane, they rolled out to the runway, and before I even had a chance to be nervous we were on our way to Chicago (plane change). We circled Chicago for a while then literally dove in to land. When we took off again it was like barnstorming. We climbed high and fast and rolled out to get out of the traffic pattern. Wild. Winnipeg was a nice city but Winnipeg in February was an exclamation point on what a Canadian winter could be. It was bloody COLD! Block heaters for your car are a requirement and the parking lots had electrical plugs in front of the spaces so you could plug the heaters in. We had never seen that before. We walked around town and found a nice Chinese restaurant, then, VERY EARLY next day, we took our little rental car out to find a good spot to set up for the eclipse. We found a reasonably flat, open spot next to "Bob's Road." We never did figure out if it was someone's driveway or an actual road. We set up the equipment to "cool off" and within minutes found that we were freezing. We had parkas and mittens and boots and hats, in layers, but by the time the eclipse started in had only "warmed up" to 5 below zero. As we contemplated the situation, and whether anyone would find our bodies before Spring, a piece of crap rusting hulk of an old van pulled up with a wild looking little bearded guy. He said it looked like we had a nice spot and asked if he could set up wit hus. We said yes and found out the guy's name was Walt. We came to love Walt. First of all, he was a carpenter and had hand made one of the most gorgeous (and freakin heavy) telescope mounts ever. Beautiful craftsmanship. We helped him unload and set up. But what sealed our devotion to Walt was the fact that he pulled out a generator and a mini kerosene torpedo heater and fired it up in the back of the van. We must have looked shocked and envious because he graciously offered to let us warm ourselves up in the back of the van. We nearly crawled over each other to be first into the van. The eclipse was awesome! The pictures were fantastic! Walt was a lot of fun. And if he ever reads this I'd like to truly thank him for saving our pre-frostbitten butts from disaster. Strangely enough, a few years later I was on a s Summer vacation and I decided to loop back up through Canada and see if I could find our eclipse spot. I found it! Still no clue as to where "Bob's Road" went, but, I found out we were just a few yards from being permanently frozen additions to the Winnipeg tundra. Once all the snow was gone you could see that the area we thought was a nice flat field, was actually an 8 foot deep ditch and creek that was covered over by the snow. Had we walked out to try to get a better position we would probably have sunk to the bottom of the ravine. I took lots of pictures and reported back to the cellar on my return.

The Beat Goes On

After Glacier, Craig had to get home but I still had a couple more weeks of vacation left. We had to drive to Boise, Idaho and Craig flew home from there. On the way to Boise, we decided to stop and see the Hell’s Canyon area. It was still fairly early in the season though, and we found that the road we were trying to take up into the area was closed by snow past a certain point. We parked along the side of the road and hiked up (a couple of miles) and walked around for a while.

While we were up there, because we were old motorcycle riders, Craig asked me if I could hear a 2-stroke bike off in the distance. I told him that I could and, as we listened, the sound got louder and closer. A few minutes later a guy came over the top of the snow bank blocking the road on a little yellow dirt bike. Nearly sliding out and doing a face-plant as he did so. He saw us and stopped and we talked for a while. Nice guy. He said he had to go back down, but, if we were headed for McCall keep an eye out for him. Look for the bike in the back of a white mini-pickup truck. He took off.

Later, as we hiked back down, there were some interesting marks in the snow that we speculated was our friend crashing.

When we got back to the truck, there was a note stuck on the windshield from our friend. He asked if we saw his “crash & burn” marks coming down and said he hoped he’d see us later.

We drove down and went into McCall. Nice little resort-type town. Good size lake. Lots of boaters. Also one of the entry points to get back into the Sawtooth Wilderness. As we drove through town we saw a battered white mini-truck with a yellow dirt bike in it parked at a restaurant/pub (The Brass Frog if I remember correctly). We laughed, made an abrupt turn, and parked. We found our friend inside and we all had a good dinner and talked about travel, motorcycles, forest rangers (he was studying to be one), and Idaho (he was from Pocatello), A very pleasant evening. He gave us some good tips on other things to see in Idaho.

The next day, we were going to take my 4-wheel drive truck and go back over a few logging roads back into the Sawtooth wilderness. That plan didn’t last long. Even with all of our preparation, the logging road had so much debris from the trucks on it that, only about five miles down the road, we punctured a tire on some ghastly looking shard of metal. We changed it and limped back to McCall where we had the tire repaired and called it a day.

Thoughts Like Molasses

In the late 70's I went on a long vacation out west. While in Tucson, I had the opportunity to get a job with a camping outfitter. Now, my dream, my fantasy in life was to move out west to live. I did not take the job. "Why not you moron?" You may rightly ask. The answer was a woman. I was in a very deep relationship with a girl and I refused the job to come home and be with her. Less than a month later, we had a very ugly break-up when I found out I was only one of several guys she was very adeptly juggling. That was a great heartache, and incredibly angering all at the same time. It tainted my relationships for several years after that. So, I blew my chance at my dream, and dumped the two-timer who broke my heart. A really rotten summer.

Before that though, one of the fun things about travelling by myself was the opportunity and chance to have some very interesting intimate encounters. I didn't spend all my time looking for them, but, if they presented themselves, I was hardly the one to turn them down. I met some really nice people and had some very nice encounters. I helped a girl in Colorado on a rather chilly morning whose car had stalled. The help was genuine and I had no other motives in the assistance than to help. Afterwards, when it was obvious the car had breathed it's last, she invited me in to warm up a bit and, after getting to know each other a bit, she "rewarded" my help. I met a really nice person in the Grand Canyon who was a waitress there. We talked for a while as she was getting off work and she and I decided to hike into the canyon together the next day. It was a fun day. She was a great person. Wonderful personality and sense of humor. Smart and sexy. We snuck off the path several times to enjoy ourselves. On another Grand Canyon trip, I met a girl while hiking in the canyon. We talked for a while just exchanging general information. She was going "up" as I was headed "down." I gave her my cabin number and half-jokingly told her to drop by later. I expected never to see her again. My surprise. She dropped by and spent the night.

Travel can be very rewarding.

Captain Nemo Loves to Read

Yes, it's been a couple of months. I told you this would be random.

Writing has always been a strange thing for me. I like to write, but, not all the time. The spirit needs to move me. I took writing classes in high school and college and I could write for assignments and get good grades. But I did not always like what I wrote when forced into it. I write my best when I need too. That sounds weird but it is true. Occasionally things come into my head and I am just compelled to write. The thought and the words hammer at me relentlessly until I put them to paper. At other times, it's just a hobby and a fun diversion. This blog falls into the second category.

I keep copies of what I write and someday I may decide to publish the short stories as part of this blog. We'll see.

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In high school, Joe and I had a fascination for language, and the way people killed it every chance they got. We eventually started keeping track of really great sayings, and really great killings, of the language by people we knew. By our senior year, the "Quote Book" was getting rather lengthy and, with a bit of horror, we realized it was almost becoming an obsession. We decided to give it a proper sendoff and be done with it. A burial at sea sounded like a good choice for our endeavor. So, Joe found a large mason jar and we folded up the "Quote Book" and placed it inside. We added gravel to fill any extra air space and make it quite heavy. Joe then used wax and other stuff to completely seal the jar. We then took it out to the end of a large pier on the lake near our homes, and, after giving a proper eulogy, we heaved the thing as far as possible into the non-briny deep.

Sometimes I think about ti and wonder what really happened to it. Was it destroyed during some storm and the book turned into just so much lake litter? Was it buried intact so that some future civilization may one day uncover our tribute to weird English? Did aliens steal it as proof that no intelligent life lives on the planet? Who knows.

One of the best quotes in there was Joes. He was talking about something one day and he suddenly announced, "Hey, I've just come down with an idea." Imagine, an idea being something like an infection or an virus. You come down with a cold, a flu, or some other malady. Joe comes down with ideas. It was great.

Big Sky Country

Craig and I went on a backpacking vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana. Beautiful place. Not the raw altitude of many other parks in the Rockies so you can still breathe, yet, the trails and terrain are quite rugged and beautiful. Bears everywhere. We saw or had encounters with nine bears in our short stay. We took two days to hike in to Red Eagle Lake, stay overnight, and hike back out. About a 12 mile hike using the long trail around the back end of St. Mary Lake. Really gorgeous. There are two campgrounds at the lake. When we got to the first campground the only other people there were three guys who were just morons. They had a huge smokey fire going (they had cut down a small green tree and were trying to burn it, rather than using the dead wood) and for dinner they were cooking ham and bacon. Friends, Glacier is bear central. Their dinner was a big red warning flag. Plus, they were cooking right next to their tents and all of their gear was piled nearby. Craig and I looked at each other and decided we didn’t want to hear the screams in the middle of the night as those three jerks were eaten. We moved on to the back campground. We were the only one’s there and we set up shop. That night, it was a New Moon so it was really dark. The entire sky was clear except for a thunderstorm over the mountain across the lake. Stars in the sky above, while we watched lightning flash over the mountain peak and hear the low rumble from the thunder. So bloody cool !!!!

Craig and I made a good team camping. I’m a morning guy and Craig is an evening guy. As I faded late in the day, he was setting up camp and being productive. In the morning, as Craig sat comatose with his coffee, waiting for consciousness to arrive, I was taking the camp apart and packing up. Synergy.

We also took a day hike back to a campground where we spent a day enjoying the scenery. Again, no one in camp. When we came out later we checked in at the ranger station and had a conversation that went kinda like this.

You boys have a good hike?
Yep. We spent all day back at this campsite (pointing to map). It was really nice there.
Um …. You were at that campsite?
Yes.
All day?
Yes. Why?
Weren’t the chains up?
Chains? No. Why?
Yeah. That campground’s been getting ripped up by Grizzlies lately. We closed it. Chains and signs should have been up to keep everyone out.
No chains or signs we saw.
Hmm. I’ll have to go back and check later. Bears probably ripped them down. I’ll have to put them back up. You say you spent all day back there?
Yes.
Well, you boys had a run of good luck then.
OK. Well, nice talking to you.

Dale Addendum - Stupidity II

Dale liked blowing things up. Well, everybody needs a hobby.

One day we decided to try to make a bomb out of a can of butane used for refilling lighters. Not one of those little skinny refill cans. In those days you could get a can about the size of a spray paint can. We used duct tape to attach an M100 to the can. Although reckless, we were not stupid or suicidal. We recognized the potential explosive capabilities of the butane and decided we needed to find a way to set it off with a large safety factor. About a half-mile from Dale's house they were building new homes. Several lots had the hole dug for basement and foundation but nothing had been poured yet. Just a couple of big 'ol holes in the ground. We attached an electric model rocket igniter (or several, I forget) to the M100 fuse. We then put the thing into the bottom of one of the holes (this was about 1:30 am - night stealth can be good) and moved a long way away from the hole. As far as we had wire for the igniter. When we pressed the igniter button it took our breath away. The entire foundation hole filled with a red fireball that billowed out and looked every bit like an
atomic mushroom cloud as it rolled up to the sky. We booked out of there as we expected the neighbors would be calling the police. The next day we slinked back and checked out the hole. The walls were peppered with metal shrapnel from the can.

Impressive and cool ..... but we never even discussed ever trying it again

Surprises Ain't Always Good

Joe and Randy had built a nice darkroom in Randy's basement and Dale had a darkroom in his too.  Each one was set up slightly differently and occasionally one group asked the other to do some processing for them.  Joe and Randy, in particular, asked Dale for special processing because Dale, good scientist that he was, liked to buy the photographic chemicals and, using a formulas book from Kodak, he mixed whatever developer was good for the film or papers he was trying to process.  

Also occasionally, since we were all pranksters, one group or the other would sabotage the other for a little fun.  Joe and Randy asked Dale to process a roll of film one day and I went with Dale to help.  After carefully mixing ingredients and going through a good half-hour of work to get the "perfect" negatives for Joe and Randy, we were finally able to open the developing tank and discover that the film was bogus.  It was actual film, but there were no photographs.  It has been completely exposed and the message "Ha Ha to You Too Sideburns" was scratched into the emulsion.  Dale had some rather large and bushy sideburns in those days so the reference was true, but the time we wasted to discover this was irritating.  Dale decided to strike back.  

From some dark corner of his darkroom he produced a glass bottle with a NASA label.  I have no idea how he acquired this, but, the bottle contained about six ounces of 80 molar hydrochloric acid.  I went out to find an old plastic film can and, while I was gone, Dale donned a mask and poured a little of the HCL into a stainless steel developing tank and dipped the film we had just processed into it.  The emulsion just liquified.  I didn't know Dale had done this and when I got back, before he could warn me, I walked into the darkroom and in less than one second, with a single breath, my lungs just locked and I literally fell backwards out of the darkroom.  The HCL was so reactive it was fuming and my first breath burned my lungs and made my body decide not to breath anymore.  I went outside to recover while Dale cleaned up.  Later, after the basement had cleared, we took the blank cellulose and the remnants of the melted emulsion and shoved them into the film can and returned the film to Joe and Randy.  What a mess.  

It hurt every time I breathed for about three weeks, but I never told anyone and never went to the doctor.  How could I explain it?  "Yeah doc, I burned my lungs with some fuming 80 molar HCL acid stolen (most likely) from a NASA government facility." "No problem kid.  Take two aspirin and call me from jail."

Dale also tried to destroy his neighbor's house one day.  His neighbor was having his yard graded and shaped and there was a front-end loader/grader working in the yard.  The operator would bring the bucket, very carefully, right up to the side of the house and grade the soil back towards the street.  Dale hated his neighbor.  He took a metal garbage can out and put it by the street next to his neighbors yard.  As the grader driver was approaching the house, Dale threw a lit M80 into the can and slammed on the lid.  When it blew the noise was tremendous and the can lid flew into the air.  The grader operator literally stood up in his seat and turned around to see what had happened as the grader continued forward.  He then realized he was still moving and sat down just in time to stop the bucket of the grader about two inches from the neighbors wall.  Disaster had been averted and Dale was PISSED that it had.  He sooooooooo wanted to see that thing go through the wall.  

Dale also got a copy of a formula for smokeless gun powder.  He mixed a huge batch in his garage and, with confidence that the formula was good and he had mixed it correctly, he put a big pile on the garage floor and threw a match in it.  Pea-soup fog is transparent compared to the blindingly thick smoke cloud that filled the garage, and then his house.  Minutes later his dad came home from work and ... well ... let's just say that "it" hit the wall.  

Thus, some of the adventures of Dale.

How Do You Spell "Rod Serling?"

After our snow adventure, Joe and I decided we wanted to see Coffeyville, Kansas on the way home to see the site of the Dalton shootout. The quickest way across to kansas cut across Colorado on some rather dubious roads. We decided to do it anyway and, with a full tank of gas (no services for well over 100 miles) we set out to cross Colorado. Late in the evening, after seeing nothing but fences and fields for hours, we saw a huge glow of lights in the distance. Soon we drove into La Junta, Colorado.

We thought we had entered the Twilight Zone.

La Junta is situated roughly in the middle of no damn where. Yet this speck on the map was brightly lit by streetlights. There were large buildings, major hotel chains, and restaurants. People were everywhere. There were theaters, movie and live. We saw ladies in furs and diamonds and real-live Rolls Royce automobiles driving next to us on the road. Mercedes Benz, Aston-Martin, and Jaguar were also common cars on the streets. We were convinced that if we looked on the right corner, we’d see Rod Serling laughing and waving. As they say today …… WTF !!!!

We stopped at a restaurant and went in to eat dinner. There we were in Levi’s work shirts and jeans and the place was filled with people in suits, tuxedos and evening dresses. We asked the waiter if we were supposed to be there, were we dressed ok, and he smiled and said sure.
We later found out that all of the fences and fields we had passed were huge ranches. The road we took in was used as a back access road to many of these million-acre ranches. La Junta was where the roads and the railroads met. It was where all of the obscenely rich ranchers in this part of Colorado went to hobnob, show-off, and talk business. We had walked into “Cattle Central” and didn’t even know it. We stayed the night just to say we had, and moved on the next morning. Still in shock over this discovery in the Colorado countryside.

Blue Light Means Snow Plow

My sister lived in Colorado for about eight years. When she moved there, she enlisted myself and Joe to help her move. I had a full-size van (the White Rabbit) and she had very little stuff, so it all fit into the van. We left with Joe and I in the van and my sister Connie driving her car and following us. She drove sooooo sloowwww that we had to keep slowing down and waiting for her so we wouldn’t lose her. This lasted until we hit the state line and then we’d had enough. We pulled over, put her in the van with me, Joe drove her car, and we got to Colorado without aggravation or incident.

After we dumped her stuff, we decided to take a couple of days extra and see some of the sights in Colorado. This had been planned all along and, since we were moving her in February, we brought along stuff to survive winter in the Rockies. To our surprise, they were having an exceptionally light winter and we were just cruising along. We saw Black Canyon of the Gunnison and then drove down to Silverton to spend the night.

Since it was not tourist season, Silverton was basically deserted except for a few locals. We found a motel and went to the office to check in. There was a sign on the office door, “In town for dinner. Back soon. Rooms are open. Pick one and we’ll get square later.” We found a room and moved in. Sure enough, about an hour later, the owner came by and we registered and gabbed a while. Like a majority of Coloradans, he was an import from another state. Sometime during this talk he looked up into a perfectly clear mountain sky and said, “Yeah. Looks like it might snow tonight.” Joe and I looked at each other and thought, “Yeah … right!”

About 4:30 am I was awakened by Joe kicking the bottoms of my feet while I was sleeping. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Get up. We have to leave NOW!” I was still half asleep and asked him what the $&% he was talking about. He threw open the motel room door and there was a blizzard going on outside. There was already four or five inches in the doorway and it was snowing incredibly heavy.

We threw our stuff in the van and took off. Here were a couple of flatlanders trying to crawl through the San Juan Mountains, on a road we couldn’t see (but we could see the dropoff at the edge) in the middle of a blizzard. It took about four hours to inch our way to Durango. With our eyes shot and our minds exhausted, we stopped at a little restaurant in Durango for breakfast. The place was packed. We couldn’t figure out what so many people were doing there, but, it was a nice diversion. About halfway through breakfast some guy came walking in the front door of the restaurant and yelled “plow’s coming.”

The place emptied in minutes!

They weren’t stupid like the flatlanders. They were waiting for the plows to clear the roads before they attempted them. Joe and I looked at each other, took the hint, paid, and got the hell out of there and headed east.

BLUE LIGHT MEANS SNOW PLOW!

We had to stop before we went up to Wolf Creek Pass and put chains on the van (required). Luckily we had brought some anticipating a problem like this. We had put them on in a dry run back at home at everything worked fine. When we tried to hook them up in the snow, they appeared to be too short. They wouldn’t go around the wheels. We stood flabbergasted. Then it hit us. We had gone up several thousand feet in altitude from home. The tires had expanded from internal pressure. We checked the pressure and, indeed, it was high. We let out some air to make them normal and the chains fit. We crawled through the pass.

On the back side of the mountains, the skies cleared and, within a few miles, the only sign of a snowstorm was the foot of snow on the van roof. We stopped at the base of the mountains for gas in a little station. The owner came out and asked if we had seen a red jeep off the side of the road a few miles up. We said no. He said his son had called him because he had run off the road “again” and he’d have to take the tow truck up later to look for the car. We wished him luck and took off. When we started the van to leave, the radio was on, and we heard that Wolf Creek Pass had just been closed because of an avalanche. We’d decided that was enough adventure for this trip and headed home.