Last week, while gearing up for my trip to the Wind River Range, I wrote about the burden that accompanies preparing for time spent away from the office. Now that I’m back, I remember another cost associated with being gone for extended periods of time: namely, that for every four days you spend away from the office, you spend at least one full day digging out! I had so many email and voice messages waiting for me upon my return that I wondered why in the heck I’d even left in the first place.

And speaking of digging out, due to an approaching winter storm, our six-day trip got cut short by two full days. At 10,000 feet above sea level–which I know, is nothing compared to Everest, K2, or Kilimanjaro–there’s little room for forgiveness, especially when it comes to weather. As someone much smarter than me once said, there’s no such thing as good weather or bad weather; there’s just weather!