Hertzler Outpost

Longs Peak Start @ 2:30 am

We did it! Andrew and I climbed Longs Peak with our friends, Matt and Ben. It was more difficult and treacherous than we expected, but we made it back without falling off or giving up. Our previous hike up to the half-way point didn’t seem to help much. Over 12,500 feet elevation the altitude began really making things difficult. Being light-headed, dizzy, and out of breath while climbing across a narrow rock path above a 100 foot drop off didn’t leave me feeling confident. In spite of the challenges there were at least 300 other people on the trail and about 50 others on the summit when we got there!

We’re glad we did it, but we haven’t talked about doing it again yet.

Here’s Matt’s video of the event.

Audrey in the Coffee House

Helping students stay awake as they study, keeping fresh coffee available, and cleaning up are some of the things Audrey is doing as part of her job in the Coffee House this summer. The brilliant neon yellow uniform t-shirts didn’t make her terribly excited, but she likes the job otherwise. Earlier she was doing a lot of babysitting during the day for staff member parents on the conference team, and I think she likes this job better.

At Chasm Lake Under Longs Peak Summit

Later in the summer Andrew and I hope to climb Longs Peak (14,395 feet), behind us in the picture. This morning we hiked half the distance (4 miles) up to Chasm Lake which sits under its very imposing summit. The last four miles will, of course, be where the majority of the difficulty comes, and they say it takes about 13 hours round trip. And you have to start at 3:00 am so you can make it up and off the summit area before 11:00 am or so to avoid thunderstorms.

It was pretty fun today and not too hard, but I’m sure that last section will be a challenge.

Andrew, Computer Lab Monitor

Helping students log in to the computer lab computers, setting up printers on other laptops, and refilling paper in the printers are a few of the things Andrew is doing as part of his summer job as Computer Lab Monitor. Another high schooler had the morning shift (during classes) when the lab was virtually empty. Andrew got the busy shift today, but I think he’s enjoying it.

Empty Sobe’s

Since we’ve been here Audrey has consumed about one Sobe a day, and the bottles have accumulated on the already very small kitchen counter. So Cathy got some thrift store flowers and made a mantle arrangement of them which makes our temporary home seem more homey.

Cathy is a Registration Helper

Today about 800 600 staff members of Campus Crusade for Christ will go through registration for the Institute of Biblical Studies, CCC’s biennial summer Bible school. Cathy is a registration helper, and I have already done most of my work for the day on the Tech Team. We set up the ad hoc computer networks in two rooms and scrambled at the last minute to resolve a problem that kept the Finance team from working. Stuff like that. But things are running smoothly now, so I have a few minutes to post this.

Compared to the relative calm of the last three weeks, I think it will be a lot busier here for the rest of the summer.

The line of people waiting to register
goes around the building

Update: Why not 800? It turns out that about 200 people incorrectly indicated their arrival on this date! They must have clicked on “21″ thinking it was July 21, the time when most people will arrive for the main conference. Instead they were actually clicking on June 21.

CCC’s Conference Team getting
instructions – photo by David Nagy

This is the first time Cathy and I have joined CCC’s U.S. Staff Conference Team, but it’s about 30th year Campus Crusade has held our biennial U.S. Staff Conference here in Fort Collins, CO. But on Thursday we all did something for the first time, even the other long-time veterans of this staff conference team. We did a community service project.

The work was weeding and mulching in the Fort Collins City Park. You can see in the picture that our group is fairly large, so we managed to make a significant difference in the park’s landscape.

And compared to working with people and computers, working outside on landscaping is a downright pleasure!

Hail Storm, Ft. Collins

It’s been hailing for the last 30 minutes here. Never seen a hail storm last this long with as much accumulation, about 0.25″. Cathy and Audrey are driving into town today, but they won’t arrive until this afternoon. So they missed the excitement.

Update: The piles of hail didn’t melt until later in the evening, and the next morning there were still piles of hail/snow in the shady corners! That’s more winter in June than we have ever had in Orlando!

Setting Up

It’s been ten years since I setup computer network cabling, but I ran enough in the last few days to make up for it. Andrew and I arrived in Fort Collins, Colorado on the Campus Crusade U.S. Staff Conference Advanced Team earlier this week to help unload trailers and build an operations office. The work is a nice diversion from my normal job.

I’ve always said, “When you work with computers, nothing is ever easy. When you work with people, computers are easy.” So I’m back to working with computers, and they’re easy.