Shortcuts

I was recently talking with a friend who does a lot of flying. He works in another city and typically takes the same flight out on Monday of each week. He told me about a woman who tries and very often succeeds in cutting in the line at the check-in counter. This is not middle school, mind you. This is Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and these are grown men and women. Apparently, the woman has a clever shtick in which she sort of moves up near the front and strikes up a conversation about the weather or the commute or whatever and then just sort of works her way into the line.

At one point, she tried this with my friend. He stopped her con mid-sentence and said to her, "Look, I know what you're doing. I see you do it every week. If you want to cut in front of me, that's o.k. but you gotta ask every one of those people behind me first." My friend still sees this woman on Mondays and she still very often works her dark magic--just not directly in front of him.

I enjoy hiking in the mountains of the West. The Rockies are steep. So in order to cover the elevation, trails often work back and forth up the front face of the mountain. These are aptly called "switchbacks." Switchbacks work well but they can become pretty monotonous. After a while, hikers sort of anticipate what's coming. They know the trail will switch-back and continue directly above them so it is tempting to just cut the corners and scramble up the side of the mountain in one place or the next.

Once a few people start doing this, it kills whatever vegetation might have been living there, creates a scar on the side of the mountain and initiates the process of erosion. The rangers put up signs to this effect but there are always people who just can't resist the allure of a shortcut. Of course, scrambling up or down a mountain can sometimes hurt more than the vegetation and scenery.

The Grand Canyon is an incredible place to hike but it does not lend well to shortcuts. Since 1870, roughly 600 people have died in the Grand Canyon. Some of these people have fallen; others have given way to the harsh climate; others have merely wandered off the trail. The danger is real and you need to pay attention but if you do, it is a very rewarding place to hike. You can even hike all the way down and out of the canyon in one day, although it is quite a challenge. If you do this, you will be walking on trails that have been around for hundreds--maybe thousands--of years, established by people that are long gone. These are people who had to regularly hike into the canyon for things like food and water. They had plenty of time to learn what works and what doesn't and why it is sometimes better to take a little more time.