“If you want a blank spot on the map, you got to leave the map behind”-Jon Krakauer

Our last full day in Colorado began with a pancake breakfast at the KAO. Since it was Sunday, a few Catholics in our group decided to head into town to attend mass. However, since this was southern Colorado, the mass was apparently in Spanish. After they returned from a mass they didn’t understand, we finished packing and hit the road for Colorado Springs. Upon arriving, we ate lunch at the Ultimate Chinese Buffet which included a full sushi bar and crab legs, a step up from a week of eating peanut.

Once lunch was finished, we drove to a ziplining course on the western edge of the city. After waiting for around half an hour, we were fitted into harnesses and helmets. The course included six ziplines across various ridges and canyons. To get to the top, we rode on benches placed in the back of a reconfigured pickup truck, which, in a way, reminded me of Jurassic Park. Once we reached the first zipline, we were given instructions on how to proceed. This zipline was nicknamed the Olympian because several of the positions in which you could attempt were in tribute to Olympic events.

Two of these positions were called the backstroke, where one kick themselves off the poll and swim as if they were Michael Phelps and another was called the long jump in which one would get a running start and upon reaching the edge of the cliff, jump into the air. I opted for the backstroke. For those who have never ziplined, a rope is attached from your waist to the cord above. You can either choose to hold onto the rope, or if you feel comfortable enough, let your hands free, but whatever you do, do not touch the wire on top, as I brutally learned on my last ziplining experience in Colorado getting rope burn.

The next four ziplines, I did a trust fall and even hung upside-down in a Spiderman-like position. However, as we approached the last zipline, a gray shadow began to appear over the horizon. As the old Colorado saying goes “If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait 10 minutes.” Due to the altitude, and the drastic change between the Rockies and the Great Plains, summer thunderstorms can appear in an instant and can get quite severe. As the thunder to role in, we had to ditch the last zipline and huddle under a tarp. Deciding that it was best to get us off the mountain as quickly as possible. We climbed back into the pickup trucks and descended. Huddled into the back of a pickup truck in a downpour, I now definitely felt as if I was in Jurassic Park and fully expected to see a T-Rex in the rearview mirror.

We were given a partial refund for missing the last zipline. After drying off we went to a hotel in Parker, a suburb of Denver and flew out the next morning. Returning to humidity of Pittsburgh, I realized just how special the “land of blue skies” really was. Though I have nothing more to say about this trip, I will continue writing about Colorado for the rest of the semester. If everyone could take one thing away from this blog, I hope it would be to embrace the journey and that sometimes the greatest adventures are the one’s least expected. Fifty years from now, I doubt I will remember dealing with the disappointment of Philmont burning down, having my granola bars confiscated by the TSA, the gross food, the hailstorms, the altitude induced headache, or even not getting to finish the zipline. What I will remember is the laughs, the July snowball fights, and buying a weed-inspired RubberDuck at Pike’s Peak, naming him Chris and taking him the entire way on the trip. I will remember sight of everything one can see atop a mountain, the smell of Aspen trees, the sound of a bald eagle, and the warmth of the Sun as it rises over the Maroon Bells. Those things, they last forever.