RKMP 2008 Winter Newsletter

Last June

marked the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Ritt Kellogg ’85 on the eastern slope of Mt. Foraker in Alaska, seven years after he graduated from Berkshire. The Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program has since become a vital part of Berkshire life. This Centennial edition of the RKMP newsletter is dedicated in his memory. — Frank Barros, Director of RKMP and science teacher

Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program WINTER 2008 NEWSLETTER

Ritt and Me

Wilderness Fit

By Joe Cohen ’08

By Colby Coombs

Joe Cohen ’08, a fouryear student from Darien, Connecticut, wrote a college essay, inspired by Ritt Kellogg.

It is reprinted here as it appeared in the Summer/Fall 2007 issue of the Berkshire Bulletin.

Colby Coombs met Ritt during his first year at Colorado College in 1986. Their friendship grew out of a common interest in “anything new to do outdoors”. Weekends often found the roommates improving their technical climbing skills if Ritt wasn’t sailing or skiing. “Ritt was “an incredible athlete with treetrunks for legs, a low-maintenance best friend who loved the independence and solitude of a great climb.”

As I climb higher and higher on the slopes of Mt. Everett, the sweat starts to bead on my forehead and I wish my hair was a whole lot shorter and my pack much lighter—it never feels the same when it’s just dead weight. I push on, knowing that if I can’t motivate myself to get up this 3,000 foot hill then I’ll never make it up Mount Kilimanjaro. I only have two more weeks before I leave for the trip. I start to think, as I do when I hike, on a time in my life when I would have just given up.

The difference now is that I have a driving force behind me, and, despite never having known him, Ritt Kellogg is my spiritual guide. Ritt died when I was only two years old. But his legacy of leading by example and loving the outdoors lives on at Berkshire School through the RKMP. Like me, he enjoyed frolicking in the woods behind Berkshire School and sharing his love for Mt. Everett with others.

As a kid I tried the traditional sports for enjoyment, but football and basketball never seemed to fit. I always had a passion for the outdoors, but never had the opportunity to exercise that passion until I was introduced to Berkshire School. Searching for something more than the sprawl and continued on page 4

Executive Director, Alaska Mountaineering School

It has been over fifteen years now, and a day does not go by when I don’t think of what Ritt Kellogg would be doing. I know what he would be like—eternal dry humor and telling me not to sweat the small stuff. He would still be pulling pranks, too. Ritt died three years after graduation—no one was ready for that. We were twenty-five, trainedup, and knew time spent in wilderness was time well spent. Decisions made on a high alpine rock face were real, with immediate consequences, and we were on the hunt for realness. Climbing wasn’t everything: there were skiing, sailing, and girls, I guess. All we knew was that if we could get to Alaska once a year, that was progress.

Berkshire’s Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program is a great tribute to a young man who saw the importance of the back country in one’s life. Wilderness fit. Ritt sought unconventional challenges that required problem solving and physical fitness. He knew the mountains provided a classroom and an arena to test oneself and that the judges were honest. He loved fresh air and a good view. He would have wished the RKMP was in place when he was a student, but Ritt never looked back or dwelled for long. At the start of every trip he would always say, “Whatever we forgot, we might as well forget it because it is forgotten.” Except you, Ritt.

Ritt Kellogg on Kahitna glacier in Alaska, 1990

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Taking Every Opportunity I stepped off the plane into an unfamiliar place, a different world. It was hot, and I could already feel myself begin to sweat.

Then it hit me; my dream trip had begun.

I had just completed my first year of high school, and boys and homework were far from my mind.

I was extremely tired but couldn’t sleep on the car ride to our hotel. I gazed out the window, not able to make out every object, but imagining the outline and grasping the idea that this place was nothing like home.

The next day we would start our climb of the highest mountain in Africa—the great peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro rises 5,895 meters (19,341 ft.) out of the dry plains of Tanzania.

Mysterious and foreboding, it is called one of “The Seven Summits” of the world. As if this weren’t enough, while this mountain is considered to be an extinct volcano, the top of the mountain has been drastically changed by global warming, losing almost 80% of its glacial ice cap’s volume. For a fifteen-year-old girl from a small town in Massachusetts, it was overwhelming.

On the first day I was full of energy and eagerness, doing my best to show no sign of weakness, just making sure I kept up with the group. After all, I was the youngest and the only girl on the trip of four boys (Joe Cohen ’08, George Haydock ’09, Lars Nelson ’09, and alumnus Josh Brande ’07) and our instructor, Mr. Barros. By the end of the first day I was confident that I could do it easily, no problem. However, the days soon became a blur due to altitude sickness—headaches and vomiting—and annoyance with my fellow trekkers. But then came “summit day”—nothing could have prepared me for that!

Our tour guides, Emmanuel and Wilfred, said they would wake us up at 11:00 p.m., and though it was impossible to sleep being so excited, we did fall asleep to find tea and washing bowls outside our tents. After we had our “breakfast,” we put on our winter gear and headlamps and began the ascent into the darkness. Our guides kept repeating “pole” meaning “slow” in Swahili, so we would not tire ourselves out before the real hike began. We walked up sand and dirt for what seemed like forever. Every time we took a break my eyes would begin to shut and it felt like my brain was pounding in my skull. We continued on and on, until

By Sierra “Da Da” LaBonte ’10

the terrain changed to rock and ice. The group had split up at this point and I was no longer trying to stay in front, but rather willing myself to just keep moving. I walked alongside my friend Lars, and with every rest stop we told each other that we could do it and that it would all be worth it in the end. Each difficult step felt heavier than the last and then, suddenly, the light up ahead appeared closer instead of further out of reach. At long last we saw the mountain flattening in front of our eyes.

Victorious, we had achieved what we had set out to accomplish. Lars and I took the last steps to the summit where George, Joe, Josh and Mr. Barros, all looking fully burned out, welcomed us with pride. We stood there for a while, contemplating our next move, but in the end we decided to begin our climb down, maybe even getting back in time to have a nap.

Our decent of the summit was something unreal. We passed the snow and rock onto what is called scree, a term given to broken rock that appears at the bottom of mountain crags or cliffs. We could see the sun beginning to come up over one of the neighboring peaks and sat down together to admire the sunrise; we took pictures so the moment would be with us forever. We “skied” down the rest of the peak, sometimes pausing for an occasional vomit, but then returning to our pleasant feeling of accomplishment. That very day, after we got back to our campsite, we hung around for awhile, and then began our way down the rest of the mountain. This was where it finally kicked in; we all began to realize what we had attained. We passed people –2–

from Ireland, England and Australia on their way up the mountain. They all asked us the same thing: “Did you guys make it to the top?” We smiled and answered affirmatively, taking joy in seeing the looks of amazement in their faces.

After making our final descent and signing our certificates (proof of our feat), we said goodbye to the guides who had helped us every step of the way. Our hike was done, but another adventure was about to start: The group was to go on a safari into the Serengeti Plain (5,678 square miles) and the Ngorongoro Crater. Words cannot describe the amazing things we witnessed.

Standing in our roofless jeep, we saw confused zebras, lazy, mating lions, timid giraffes, sleepy hedgehogs, goofy but terrifying hippos and majestically beautiful leopards and cheetahs. Each night we would stop at lodges, nestled on the Plain, that seemed to appear out of nowhere. One night, as we drove in the dark along the road, we saw a big rock clump far ahead of us which seemed to get larger and larger as we got closer. We thought we saw lights but we couldn’t be sure. As we came upon it we realized the “rock clump” was a group of boulders that was surrounded by tents.

Sleeping there that night can only be described as something out of a book— something surreal you read about happening to other people, but never you. From the first day of enthusiastically walking through farmland and forests to the last day of pain and tiring, trudging steps, this trip never disappointed me.

In June 2008, I will be taking yet another trip into a different world. This time it will not be the plains and high altitudes of Africa, but it will be just as physically and mentally challenging to complete. The RKMP is sponsoring a trip to Peru. This expedition will be all about mountain biking through the Andes and visiting Machu Pichu. As my mom put it, “You’ve got the bug.”

I am sixteen now, with everything ahead of me, and I intend to take every opportunity in life. Yes, getting positive reactions from everyone when they exclaim “YOU CLIMBED KILIMANJARO!” is great recognition but, in the end, I am in it for the experience, for the memories and for the end of my years when I can look back and confidently say, “I have no regrets.”

Climbers from left, Josh Brande ’07, Joe Cohen ’08, George Haydock ’09, Sierra LaBonte ’10 and Lara Nelson ’08

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Ritt and Me continued from page 1

conformity of my suburban town, I was immediately drawn to the School’s setting at the foot of Mt. Everett. I first heard Ritt’s name uttered on my tour in a brief mention of the RKMP, but when I arrived as a student I realized that Ritt himself would mean much more to me than just the name of a program. I quickly found that Ritt, although no longer alive, was someone with whom I could relate. I read In the Zone by Colby Coombs, the lone survivor of the avalanche that killed Ritt; I surfed the Web for any information I could find; and I asked the older teachers for anecdotes of his time at Berkshire. Even so, I felt I only had a limited sense of who he was. It was the mountain behind the School and my connection to it that really gave me insight into Ritt Kellogg.

As I participated more and more in the RKMP it gave back to me equally. Winter Mountaineering and Backcountry Skills taught me teamwork, leadership, and basic survival and outdoor skills. I became more confident, outgoing, and sure of my place in everyday life. Just as the mountain might have changed Ritt twenty years before, it was doing the same to me. What meant even more to me than the outdoor instruction was the time I spent alone on the mountain: hiking, swimming at Guilder Pond, climbing at the Oil Fields, or reflecting as I enjoyed the views from Black Rock, South Pinnacle, or Mt. Everett’s glorious summit. I was able to center myself in a way that I never had been able to before, and this ability to think about what was on my mind without the distractions of everyday life helped me mature by leaps and bounds.

I know Ritt would understand it. Like me, he was able to find what he was looking for in the outdoors. On the mountain he matured into someone described to me by those who knew him during his time at Berkshire as “confident, someone who had a love for the environment (he did an independent study on Acid Rain and I did one on Emissions Trading) quiet, someone who led by example, modest, laid-back, determined, someone who didn’t just live life — he devoured it. For him, life was a spectacular journey, never a destination.” There is a picture of him in the Mountain Room where we store all of our gear and meet for practice and underneath the picture is an excerpt from an essay Ritt once wrote:

“In conquering a problem…clear your mind, get determined, carry through. When you are sixty or so feet in the air, your problem of getting to the top of the cliff becomes much larger in your head. You begin to panic, clench the rock and waste all of your energy in panicking. If you stop and take a long, deep breath and realize actually what you are faced with you may start to climb slowly, one step at a time, eventually reaching the top.” _________________________________ (Ritt Kellogg, Outward Bound - A Personal Essay)

The natural environment obviously challenged Ritt, and it challenges me in the same way.

As my love of the outdoors increases, Ritt Kellogg continues to direct me. I realize that if I enjoy the natural world so much, then I should devote my life to it. So I have fully immersed myself in this new direction in which I am successful and happy. Now, my motto is W.W.R.K.D.: What Would Ritt Kellogg Do? Now, almost all of my time—from rock climbing and mountain biking, to making maple syrup to participating in the Conservation Committee to spending summers in Alaska and Ecuador—is devoted to the outdoors. I even devote my summers to teaching kids how to kayak and mountain bike at a camp in Maine.

But it’s more than that. I’m teaching them about character and how to love the outdoors. Thankfully, I am in a place where opportunities exist and I can take advantage of them.

I now know something that many people my age do not: I know what I want to do with my life. Thanks, Ritt.

Ritt Kellogg ’85

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Michelle Helderman ’08 and Luke Johnson ’11 practicing a mock rescue session with “vicitim” Joe Cohen ’08

Learning Wilderness First Aid

By Michelle Helderman ’08 In December 2007, the RKMP sponsored a sixteen hour Wilderness First Aid certification course offered by Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO). The course allowed the RKMP staff and all students in Berkshire’s Winter Mountaineering Program to become more aware of the risks that are involved with mountaineering activities. We discussed possible situations that could occur while in the mountains, then tested what we had just learned by participating in hands-on activities.

We learned the Patient Assessment System, a series of routine questions and procedures that must be carried out when conducting a rescue. We were taught how to treat soft tissue injuries and cold weather injuries, how to splint fractured bones, and how to recognize the symptoms of shock and what to do if a mountaineer succumbs.

The most enjoyable part of the course was hearing stories about the past experiences of our instructor, Robert Wiley (former history teacher at Berkshire), which reiterated to us how important wilderness first aid really is. The situations he described were often horrific, but, because of his quick and careful actions, he has been able to save many lives. By the end of the course, everyone was much more aware and prepared for the dangers of mountaineering.

This February, Winter Mountaineering Program participants are hiking up Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and camping out for two nights. Just knowing that we are ready for any situation that could occur is a very reassuring feeling and will make all our mountaineering experiences much safer.

Let’s go green!

By Melissa Fogarty ’08

Berkshire School is participating in the Green Cup Challenge during the 2007-08 academic year. The Green Cup Challenge (GCC) competition began at Philips Exeter Academy in 2003 as a campuswide competition to conserve electricity and evolved into an interschool challenge by 2006. The school with the greatest electricity reduction wins the competition. The GCC lasts a full month, but activities are incorporated before and during the competition to spread and maintain awareness of energy conservation. The goal of the GCC is to educate students about conserving energy, thus reducing the impact our campus has on the environment and global warming. In order to participate in the competition, every boarding school has to register, attend the GCC conference at Philips Exeter Academy, create a student-made video, and have a way of recording electrical consumption.

There were many GCC-related events and activities at Berkshire that were sponsored by the RKMP and backed by the administration to meet the registration requirements. The following events and activities began in mid-November and continued through the month of February:

CFL Bulb Replacement – November 12 through 17 500 incandescent bulbs were replaced with compact florescent lamp bulbs.

Green Cup Challenge leaders Dan Licker ’08 and Melissa Fogarty ’08

Focus the Nation – January 30 and 31 There was a showing of the movie 2% Solution and the following day teachers conducted classes involving environmental issues and topics.

Partnership with Clean Air Cool Planet – November 30 Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP) is a science-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming by partnering with companies, campuses, communities and science centers throughout the Northeast.

Month of February: Lightless Lunches & Candlelit Dinners Environmental Sustainability Songs Each day, everyone in the school received an e-mail containing lyrics that had to do with energy conservation and the corresponding songs were played by the radio station.

To sustain the GCC, Berkshire will use the emissions trading scheme after the competition is over as a motivation to continue to conserve energy on campus. The GCC will benefit the Berkshire community because a full 50% of our electricity comes from the burning of natural gas at the Ocean State Power Plant in Rhode Island. By using less electricity we are reducing our dependency on natural gas, leading to less carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately decreasing our carbon footprint. It is our hope that through these efforts the GCC will better inform the community of the dangers of global warming, thus giving students, faculty and staff an opportunity to reduce their impact and be more cautious in regards to energy conservation both at Berkshire and at home.

Third-Form Experience – January 16 Groups of third-formers checked every building on campus, counted the number of computers, and made calculations of energy use and what could be done to reduce consumption.

Green Cup Challenge Presentation – January 23 Melissa Fogarty ’08 and Danny Licker ’08 introduced the GCC at an all school meeting and Tucker Walsh ’08 and Clay Cohen ’08 presented their video (which was later submitted to the competition). Then Joe Cohen ’08 took the lectern and explained his independent study on emissions trading between dorms. Briefly, the emissions trading scheme is a way of introducing flexibility into a system where dormitories have to meet emissions targets and those successful dorms will realize the dollar savings in their budgets. The emissions trading scheme will continue for years to come, eventually including heat and transportation use to help determine emissions targets. The system will be regulated by the RKMP’s Conservation Committee.

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New Faculty Mountains Talk and People Listen

By Dan Yaverbaum, Science Teacher, Director of the Dixon Observatory Strictly speaking, “fourteener” is no more a noun than “party” is a verb. For those who groove on scrambling, belaying or repelling along the purple mountain majesties of the continental U.S., however, “fourteener” is a very real word. The term refers to any mountain whose peak exceeds an altitude of fourteen thousand feet— almost three miles—above sea level. Within the Colorado borders there are fifty-three.

I spent the summers of 1994 through 2000 living in the Estes Park Campground and co-leading “Colorado Alpine Adventures”—off-season arm of the outdoors club for an independent day school in New Orleans. We would return from a day’s venture, pack pop-tart breakfasts and sandwich lunches in the same brown bag, arrange our day-packs and prepare to wake up at increasingly early hours—culminating at 2:30 am. Rising to Coleman-stove instant coffees, we’d then hit the trail and approach the peak of the day. Each successive ascent was chosen so as to increase our confidence and skill until we were ready for the club’s signature fourteener: Longs Peak. Our favored non-technical route up Longs was not uniquely difficult, but it taught me how much personality a seemingly inanimate object could have. We could be moon-light marching up the trail by 3:15 am, make it almost to the top of the famed “Trough” before the inevitable mid-day storms, sense the summit less than a thousand vertical feet away, but still have to concede defeat to, for example, excessive ice on the “Narrows”. Or we could take a different route on a different year, and spend half the morning climb seriously believing we were on the moon.

In February of 2007, I interviewed at Berkshire School. Summoning deep and precise powers of acute observation, I noticed that it sat under a mountain. I was aesthetically and symbolically moved. If a mountain can have a personality, I calculated, then surely a school under a mountain will be preposterously alive: Will it sing while it breathes? Gesticulate while it speaks? Snore and dream while it sleeps? I wanted to explore immediately. The air

Dan Yaverbaum and son Jesse

was cold and I was just in Sheffield for the day. Naturally, therefore, instead of lacing up my boots, I booted up my web-browser and learned of the Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program. I began to grow moved in a more practical way. I moved, in fact, to Sheffield—thrilled to be invited by a palpably passionate administration and faculty.

During the summer of that move, I was informed that my autumn coaching responsibility would involve the “Backcountry Skills” sub-group of the RKMP. Bring it!

‘Twas brought. True: It had been seven years since mountains and woods had played a significant role in my life. True also: I had spent most of those seven years living in Brooklyn, New York—a grayer shade of green than that found in Rocky Mountain National Park. True finally: What had gotten me up all those glorious crags and crevasses had evidently been some blessed blend of stamina, will and recklessness (a blend called youth), but not so much skill. This last truth I had not really processed until I had the honor and delight to meet Michael Dalton (Head Coach) and Mount Everett itself (“The Mountain”).

Mike’s detailed knowledge and love of the scene was infectious. Being a part of his crew, I came to recognize one distinction between a walk and a hike: A hike, even when gentle, is a class. To those who could not wait to graduate from school, it may sound as though I have just insulted hikes.

On the contrary: I love class. And I am quite certain that even to the most cynical anti-student, the experience of Mr. Dalton’s class feels as exhilarating as, say, a nice hike.

Out there on The Elbow Trail with the

Backcountry Skills group, there were no quizzes, no reading assignments, no bells.

But everything meant something and would be on tomorrow’s test. The test could be as simple as “How do we get back to the Elbow Trail?” or it could be as intimidating as “How are we going to build an adequate shelter from nothing but trees and twine?”

Our head coach was a Sherlock Holmes with no crimes—just puzzles and plants— upon which to muse.

I feel quite fortunate to be back in a place where mountains talk and people listen.

Here, the medium for communication appears to be the RKMP. Tons of people officially participate, but it often makes little difference who is or is not on the roster.

The RKMP matters. And it rocks.

Kate Garbutt

Far Away From My Comfort Zone

By Kate Garbutt, Math Teacher My experience in the outdoors began when I started attending an all-girls sleepover camp in Ontario. After thirteen years of canoe trips, windsurfing, archery, swimming and all of the other activities that make summer camp so much fun, I left my summers in Ontario for a summer in Alaska.

As a student at the University of British Columbia I participated in the National Outdoor Leadership School for a semester in Alaska. The summer comprised a fifty-twoday hiking and mountaineering traverse of the Wrangell Mountains followed by twentyone days sea kayaking in Prince William Sound. The semester brought me far away from my comfort zone and allowed me to learn things I may never have otherwise had the opportunity to learn. continued on next page

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Emissions Trading

By Joe Cohen ’08 Through my independent study in Emissions Trading, Berkshire School has put into place an emissions trading scheme between dorms to help reduce our CO2 emissions and educate the student body. An emissions trading scheme is a way of introducing flexibility into a system where participants have to meet emissions targets. It is used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

In our circumstance, each dorm has a budget and a set amount of kg of CO2 that they can emit in a month. If a dorm goes over their amount then they buy CO2 credits from other dorms that have a surplus. This rewards the dorms who conserve CO2 with extra money that they use for dorm events, etc. If a dorm is able to stay under their standards then a percentage of their budgets are released for spending as well. Trading auctions occur at the end of each month. Although there is an auction every month, money is released

While studying at UBC I was active in the outdoors club. I enjoyed many rock climbing and mountaineering trips in the Pacific Northwest area. I also spent my junior and senior winters working as a part-time ski patroller on Whistler Mountain. The winter after I graduated I moved to Whistler to enjoy the mountain full time.

I have spent three summers as a whitewater raft guide; guiding for one summer on the Ocoee River in Tennessee and for two summers on the Penobscot River in Maine.

Last March I had the great privilege to join thirteen of my colleagues from those summer excursions for a twenty-five-day private trip down the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon was one of the most amazing places I have traveled and the trip was life changing. We enjoyed Class X waters and gorgeous hikes on a daily basis.

When I began my search for a teaching position, I had in mind an academically rigorous school that also embraced the outdoors. Berkshire has suited the bill very well, and I am excited to be a part of the RKMP this year as a faculty member in rock climbing and winter mountaineering.

only at the end of every season to prevent a dorm from spending all of their funds.

The conservation representative from each dorm is in charge of this money and uses it along with the supervision of dorm parents. This project was funded thanks to the RKMP and other endowments.

At first the basis for the measurements of carbon emission was based solely on electricity for which the meters were already installed and standards set thanks to an electricity conservation competition last year. In the future, we will include standards for oil usage and transportation. Data is being collected this year so that there is an accurate standard for comparison. While this project is currently being undertaken and led by me and Frank Barros, it will be continued in future years by the science department’s conservation studies elective. This is the first year that this project is being implemented, but we expect to use 32777.65 kWh less of electricity from January to May. This will decrease our kg of CO2 by 14094 and save $1,550.34.

This project is primarily a way to educate and involve the entire school on

energy usage and, of course, reduce our emissions. What is so unique about the initiatives at Berkshire is that many are run and facilitated by students as opposed to physical plant personnel.

Many systems such as this that try to decrease energy consumption over a period of time or attempt to educate a community are either on too small of a scale or can get monotonous over time and the students lose interest. The cap and trade system is always changing and gives each dorm an opportunity to succeed or fail every step of the way. This keeps the competitive spirit and excitement going month after month. With the addition of transportation and oil/heat consumption figures this system has the potential to be the main authority of students and teachers energy usage. Another possible future plan is to expand this program to have an emissions trading scheme between other independent boarding schools. This project is another example of Berkshire School’s continual commitment to environmental sustainability.

We wish to thank all the donors to the RKMP endowment on behalf of the students who have bene fited and those who will bene fit by participating in the RKMP, due to your generosity.

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A Lazy Kid Who Thought He Was A Climber

By Gus Gardner ’09

From left, Caleb Booth ’09, Gus Gardner ’09, and mountain bike team captain George Haydock ’09

I had never been very interested in physical activity or team athletics. I was the kid who was always picked last and never asked to play soccer at recess. I was not open to trying any other sport because I thought I knew what would happen—more of the same. However, what I could do was climb, and I identified myself as a climber.

When I came to Berkshire, I could no longer climb competitively, so I had to choose a new sport: crew. But I was not very good at that, either. In my next year I signed up for rock climbing with the RKMP and for the first time I used a weight room. I started to like the feeling of being in shape. I became hooked.

Everyone started to notice a major change in my personality—a new-found optimism. The fall came and went and I continued to use the gym six days a

week even after an interesting winter mountaineering experience.

I then decided to try mountain biking.

I was in the best shape of my life from all the lifting and working out that I was doing so I was able to pick up biking fairly easily, even though my previous experience was just a few outings with my mother when I was a child.

I liked the people and the atmosphere of biking, and I began to look forward to my first race. My competitive spirit kicked in, and I trained extremely hard, riding extra laps on the course after practice to improve. With my first race, I had no expectation of what was to come; when I got in the start gate and they said go, I pedaled. I was passing people steadily throughout the race, but started thinking I was in last place because suddenly there was no one

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around me. But then, as I was approaching the last hill of the course, I saw someone ahead who I thought was in my category. He was unable to stay on his bike during the steep incline, so when he got off to walk, I passed him. I saw everyone cheering for me. I pedaled as hard as I could over the crest of the hill, and when I crossed the finish line, my friends shouted that I had won. I did not believe them at first, but then it sunk in; I had actually won my first race!

That summer, I started to compete in every race that I could find in Colorado, and I am now an avid biker.

The RKMP has changed my life.

Before I met Mr. Barros, I was a lazy kid who thought that he was a climber.

Now I am a biker and a climber.