My Journey to 14,000 Feet

It's barely 7 in the morning, and the sun hasn't risen yet.  My ears are beginning to feel the high altitude, which is approximately 11,300 feet.  I'm already short of breath.  Then, I look up, and there is a giant mountain staring me in the face.  I'm not more than 15 minutes into the hike, and I'm thinking, "How the hell am I getting up this hill?"  I don't want to ruin the ending, so I'll start from the beginning.

I woke up at 4:30 AM to get ready for this hike.  I ate a small breakfast (english muffin) and we were off by 5:10.  I was fully packed, (4 Powerbars, 1 apple, 1 turkey sandwich, 2.5 liters of water, a windbreaker, a sweatshirt, and my license, you know, in case something happened.)  My cousin couldn't go because she was feeling under the weather, so it was just 

myself, and her husband Gary.  We drove for a while and passed some small towns, which all look very different from the small towns back home.  While the small towns back home look uninviting and worn down, all of the small towns in Colorado look friendly and well-kept, except that they're stuck in the 1950s.  It's actually pretty cool.  We take the Georgetown exit off of I-70, and begin our ascent of Gallenas Pass.  It takes about a half hour just to get from the town below to the base of Mt Bierstadt, which was soon to become my greatest enemy.  We park the car at about 6:45, at which time I took the picture seen to the right.  You can't see it, but I was giving the camera a choice finger, but I was too delirious to actually take a proper shot.

At 6:52 AM, we begin the hike up Mt. Bierstadt, and 15 minutes later, we have the scene described above.  However, not too long after, things began to change.  I was still feeling terrible, walking behind Gary, but keeping pace nonetheless.  I started to look around, and the scenery was absolutely majestic.  The land in Colorado is so clean and untouched, and most of it probably looks exactly like it did 2,000 years ago.  There's something special about that fact, and most of us from back in the Northeast really can't appreciate that.  After looking around for a while, I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts.  One of the great things about a hike is that if you choose to, you can have the entire time to yourself, even if you're with a group, because everyone is too out of breath to really talk.  I began to think about my life:  the things I've done, the things I want to do, my strengths and my weaknesses, and my outlook on life.  I'm not sure how long I was thinking, because I was really into it, but I recognized that I often give up on difficult tasks way too easily.  I thought I liked being challenged, but only when I could easily overcome it.  What kind of challenge is that?  I realized that in life, especially now, I'm going to be challenged greater than I ever have before.  If I'm not willing to overcome these challenges and keep trying to take the easy way out, I'm never going to achieve the kind of success I desire.  At this point, I stared up Mt. Bierstadt, took in all its glory and splendor, and told myself, "I'm getting up this fucking hill if it's the last thing I do."  It also helped that I saw an 11-year old kid hiking up the mountain, and I would have been really embarrassed if an 11-year old could achieve something that I could not.

I took a drink of water, ate a Powerbar, and continued my ascent up Mt. Bierstadt.  I passed Gary, and began to lead us up the mountain.  At this point, and for the next 2.5 hours or so, I didn't feel a thing, not the altitude, not the cold temperatures, not the lack of oxygen, nothing.  My adrenaline completely took over, and it was me and that hill, and I was getting up.

It was around this time that hiking up Mt. Bierstadt actually became a blast.  I kept getting way ahead of Gary (he's 46 years old, so I guess it's to be expected)

 and I would stop for a minute or so to let him catch up to me.  During that time, I would take in the scenery, and snap a few photos so I could remember how beautiful it all is.  I hope the pictures that I've taken can help to describe how amazing it all was, but you really need to be there to understand the true beauty of it all.  As we got higher and higher, my smile got wider and wider.  I knew I was going to make it up, and I honestly was having one of the most enjoyable times of my life.  Gary described it best when he said, "Man, it just feels righteous being up here, and there's nothing else better than it."  Amen, Gary.

As we got higher and higher the trail turned from dirt to rock, and was we reached the final 200 foot ascent, it became almost a climb.  The final 200 feet was by far the most difficult, because you pretty much have to jump from rock to rock, and sometimes get on all fours to continue the climb.  While we were never completely exposed (couldn't fall off and kill ourselves) it was still pretty scary.  

Eventually, we made it to the top.  I raised my arms and spent a few minutes taking it all in.  No matter which direction you looked, there was something beautiful to see, and at certain points, we were even with the clouds.  You literally feel closer to the heavens at the top of a mountain like this, especially when you've gone through physical difficulties to get there.  After that, we spent 10 minutes taking pictures from every such direction, commemorating my first "14-er" which is what they call the 14,000 foot peaks up here.

Once we finally took all the pictures, we settled down to eat lunch.  Gary and I had a really interesting talk about Colorado, what it's like to live here, and the city 

of Denver.  Gary and my cousin Deb have lived all over the world (Thailand, Amsterdam, Jersey, Colorado) and traveled just about all of Europe, so Gary has an interesting perspective on different places to live.  That talk, combined with the experience I've had in Colorado, has helped me realize that I can't spend my entire life on the East Coast.  At some point, I'm going to need to live somewhere else for a time.  This world is too big and too wonderful to live in one area your whole life.  There are so many possibilities out there, and it's great to know that I have the rest of my life to explore some of them.

After about an hour on top of Mt. Bierstadt, we began the descent down the mountain.  For me, going down was much more difficult than going up.  

Going up requires a tolerance for high altitude and physical ability.  Going down requires experience and good balance, and I have neither.  So on the way down, I fell 3 separate times, and almost spilled out about a dozen more times.  I only sustained a minor cut on my 

wrist, and I'm pretty pumped that I'll now fit in really well with the emo kids.  Seriously though, by the time we got to the more solid part of the trail where it's pretty easy to get down, my knuckles were completely white.  I was finally about to enjoy the descent after that, and Gary and I got to talk for another hour or so.  It took us a little less than 2 hours to get down from Mt. Bierstadt, and I got one final picture before we left.

I will never forget the hike up Mt. Bierstadt.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, not to mention one hell of a good time.  More important than that though, was what the hike did for me mentally.  I learned a great deal about myself, and figured out some of the craziness that was going on in my head.  This hike achieved exactly what I was looking for when I took this trip to Colorado, and I feel I'm finally in the right frame of mind to begin the next phase of my life.  Great success!

Facebook link to photo album:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2225042&l=4a624&id=14200364

Organic Supermarkets

Just returned from my first trip to an "organic" supermarket.  While browsing around with my cousin, I started thinking about the whole organic supermarket trend, and what it means for business.  First off, I think the distributors of organic foods are going to be in great shape for the future.  Their market can and I think will grow exponentially over the next few years, and they should continue to see rapid growth because of it.  On the flipside, I'm not really seeing how small organic grocery stores can survive.  Almost no one in the store was buying a complete grocery order.  Everyone seemed to be purchasing a few items here and there, which proves that most people still view organic foods as a luxury and not a necessity.  The store is about half the size of a normal grocery store, so clearly they will have less overhead than most traditional grocery stores.  However, I am failing to see how these stores can survive in the long run unless people begin shifting their preferences to purchasing all organic foods.  Another interesting observation is that the store didn't have traditional checkout lines.  They have one long counter with about 6 different registers.  The result:  you couldn't purchase more than 20 or so items without it becoming a huge pain in the ass.  This further emphasizes my point about the small order sizes.

That's enough about the business end of organic grocery stores, now some personal thoughts.  The store that I visited did not carry Heinz Ketchup.  Before I went to school in Pittsburgh, that was a sin.  After living in Pittsburgh for 4 years, that becomes an unforgivable sin.  I really don't understand what can be so organic about ketchup?  I guess they don't use pesticides or whatever, but no Heinz Ketchup is inexcusable.  Second thing, they don't carry Gatorade at this organic store.  They carry like "Organic Sports Beverage" or something like that.  It's a freaking sports drink, what is so terrible about carrying Gatorade or Powerade?

Closing thoughts:  I think some of these organic grocery stores are taking this trend a little too far, and so do the people that shop there.  I can understand the need for organic fruits and vegetables and those types of things, but when you're knocking out Gatorade and Heinz Ketchup, there's a problem.  Maybe I'm somewhat old-fashioned, or maybe I just lived in Pittsburgh for too long, but I haven't quite bought into this organic trend.

Thoughts, comments?  I'd love to hear them.

First Full Day in Colorado

The end of my first full day in Colorado is coming to a close, and what a day it has been.  I woke up at 7AM, that's 9AM EST for all you folks back on the East Coast, and immediately got to accomplishing my goals for the trip.  With that said, the goals for the trip are pretty simple:

1.  Workout as much as possible

2.  Do a ton of reading and writing

3.  Figure out how I'm going to survive working corporate

Began the day with some pushups and situps, because I gotta work out that core.  Then I went for a run to Downtown Boulder, which is about 2 miles from where my cousins live.  I was pretty excited for the run, if only for the fact that I wanted to test the high altitude air.  I must admit, I really didn't feel any ill effects of the run until the very end, when my lungs did begin to burn a little bit from the thin air.

Once I arrived downtown, I realized that Boulder is a very interesting place.  It used to be a typical Wild West town, as it was inhabited by goldrushers in the mid to late 1800s.  After a while, the town began to form into a modern-day small city, and now looks like most of America.  However, I do have some interesting observations on Boulder.

The first thing I noticed when arriving downtown is that Boudler is an extremely clean city.  I didn't run into any panhandlers, and all of the shops were nicely kept.  Upon closer examination of the shops, I realized that I would never want to step foot in any of them.  Every store is either a trendy coffee shop with a name like "Bean Temple," an odds and ends store that sells overpriced, fancy things that I would never want to place in my living room, or some sort of art store.  I must admit the pet store named "Farfel's Favorites" gave me a good laugh (it's funny if you're Jewish).  The one redeeming quality of Downtown Boulder is that there are a ton of bars, pubs, and other places to drink, and most of the drinks are relatively inexpensive.

Sidenote:  The people here really like to drink.  I'd fit in well.

After the visit to downtown, I ran back to my cousins house for a quick shower and chance to get the day started.  My cousins decided to take me to a pretty sweet alehouse for lunch called "Walnut Grille" or something like that.  I ate buffalo meat for the first time, which looks and tastes kind of like steak, but apparently is much more healthy for you.  Delicious.  At the end of lunch, our waitress told us that the restaurant was unveiling a new IPA (India Pale Ale for all you rookies) at 6PM and that it would be free for all patrons from 6-6:30.  For those of you who don't know, IPA is by far my favorite type of beer, so I was pretty pumped to say the least.  Anyway, after lunch we took a trip over to "Liquor Mart" (notice how I didn't forget that name) which is by far the best alcohol store I have ever visited.  They carry Pyramid Apricot Ale, which has eluded me for 2 months, and isn't distributed in the Dirty Jerz.  Also, they sell about 300 different beers from all over the place as singles, and if you mix and match a 6-pack it winds up costing you like $9.  Had a nice reunion with Tiger today, and am looking forward to the other goodies I bought at "Liquor Mart."

After returning from that glorious trip, my cousin and I went for a short hike up a local mountain/hill.  Yes, I posted that picture to prove to all the naysayers that I actually did it.  Hell, I wouldn't believe me either.  It took a little over an hour to get up and down the mountain, and it was actually a pretty cool experience.  The real fun comes on Saturday when I get up at the asscrack of dawn (4:30 AM) to climb what they call, a "14-er."  A 14-er is a mountain over with a peak of more than 14,000 feet.  Apparently, there are like 60 "14-ers" in the Continental US, and about 54 of them are in Colorado.  This hike is going to take about 5 hours at an ungodly hour in the morning because the lightning is intense in the afternoon.  Yikes!  There's something rewarding about getting up to the top of the hill and seeing how far you climbed.  It also doesn't hurt that the view is amazing.

After another shower and a few hours spent reading/napping on the hammock, I went back to the Walnut Grille and sampled their new IPA, for free.  It was a pretty damn good beer, something I would definitely drink again if I could get it in a bottle.  I had 2 pints, and was actually feeling a little buzzed after leaving the restaurant.  We picked up some Chinese food, and then came back to watch the Democratic National Convention.  My cousins are really into the DNC, and while I don't have that great of an interest in politics, it was pretty awesome to see Barry O. speak in front of an electrified audience of 75,000 people.  When he speaks, I really feel like I am making a personal connection to him, and that he can change this country for the better, because god knows we need it.  Without a doubt, that man needs to be the next President of this country, and I really think it will happen.  I guess we'll have to wait until November 4th to find out.  I'm still trying to hold off on the optimism because I know what happens to people/things/teams that I root for, they lose.  So let's say I am guardedly optimistic that Barry O. will be the next President of the United States.

I've already written way too much, and I'll try to keep the posts shorter from now on.  I hope you enjoyed what I have to say, and haven't fallen asleep at your computer reading it.  Good night all, sleep well.

P.S.  After Obama's speech, I came back to my room and saw that the Phillies had blown a 4-1 lead, and lost 6-4 to the Cubs.  That's 2 losses in a row by the bullpen in the 8th inning.  Ryan Madson and Chad Durbin can't pitch in the 8th, and this job needs to go to JC Romero.  I never thought I'd say that I wished Tom Gordon was back.  (Come on, you really didn't think you were escaping without a Phillies note, did you?)

Song of the Day:  Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling into Place

Inaugural Blog Post

Hello,

Welcome to my blog.  For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jeff Kaplan, Kaps for short.  I am a 22 year old recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh's College of Business Administration.  In less than 2 weeks, I will begin my career with a large accounting/consulting firm.

The reason I am starting this blog is because I need to share my thoughts about life and the changes that go along with it.  The name "Three Quarters Left" comes from the fact that as I begin this blog, I've lived approximately one quarter of my life, which means that there are three quarters left (advanced math stuff, I know).  Many of you have heard of a quarterlife crisis, and I believe I'm experiencing some degree of that right now.  College was amazing and the experiences and memories I have from it I will treasure forever.  Right now though, I'm in a completely crazy transitional phase.  I believe that sharing what goes on in my crazy head may help me to figure out the path I need to take.  It is also my goal for at least one person who reads this to understand that many people around this age are struggling with change, and that someone else can empathize with what they are going through.

I promise that this blog will provide insight into my life, my thoughts about the world around me, and most importantly, humor, because who wants to read something that doesn't make them laugh?

With that, I welcome you to "Three Quarters Left," and I hope you enjoy what I have to share.  Please feel free to comment at your leisure, even if you think this is a complete load of crap.