Climbing Chevran

In school, physical education always was a dreaded moment. I wasn't good at anything and was repeatedly told about it. I was clumsy, couldn't run fast, couldn't jump high and couldn't climb the rope. For the most part, my physical ed teachers made fun of me and predicted that I would become a big, fat, go-nowhere boy.

Even tough I had continually told my classmates that I was a pretty good skier (which wasn't even true,) I had a hard time fitting into that performance-obsessed boy world. That was until I was in my last year of high school that things turned around. Monsieur Deruaz, our teacher that year, took our group for a fast hike up to Mont Chevran, a small peak , elevation 3,849 feet, towering over the small industrial city of Cluses, France.

It normally took a couple of hours to climb the 2,300 feet vertical and pretty soon I grew wings and was in the head group, finding myself in the mountain environment I had been brought up in and was so found of. Eventually as the summit approached and the group was stretched far apart, I went up faster and faster, took the lead and before the teacher, became the first to reach the top. I had made my point and in the process showed myself that everything was indeed possible.