I’ve posted tons of hiking and climbing trip reports over the years.  Of course, like most folks, the majority of my trip reports have been repeats of climbs or hikes.  No shame in that.  But, I’ve put up a few originals as well.  The one I’m most proud is, of course, the North to South traverse of the Picket Range, while climbing the major routes on Fury and Terror along the way.  That is still the best climbing trip I’ve ever done and I don’t expect to ever surpass it.

But, another one, much more mellow, and far more popular, is the Gore Lake – Deluge Lake loop hike in the Gore Range, near Vail, Colorado.  My sister, my now-brother-in-law, and I did this way back in 2001.  I published it on my site right away and folks seemed to be drawn to it.  Of all the hiking and climbing emails I’ve received, this hike receives the most attention.  I’ve seen many folks write up trip reports on the loop.  It’s been adopted by the Colorado Mountain Club.  And now, in the March 2001 issue of Backpacker Magazine, it’s hit the big time.

(above) Hanging out at Snow Pass after summiting Snow Peak, visible in the background.

My friend Nathan, the American who runs a little English school down the street, wanted to know if I wanted to join in a kid’s TV show.  He didn’t know the details of the show, but was told to invite a few foreigners to support another guy from Canada who would be appearing on the show with his son.  Thinking this would be another fun China experience, I said, “Sure” right away.  I was hoping that we’d have some part in the show, but upon arriving, we found out that we just were going to be Jason’s (the Canadian who would be appearing in the show) support crew and cheerleading squad.  Oh well, it’s still worthwhile.  I’ve never sat in at a TV show.

The Shenzhen TV station is located in a skyscraper in the Fu Tian district near Xiang Mi Hu, an area I lived in for about a month when I came back to China in October of 2007.  We walked by several large studios until we arrived at the kids studio.  Apparently, Jason simply had to do a dance based on a dance by a popular Taiwanese singer named Ding Dang (who, coincidentally, performed the night before us at the Flipflops event in Malaysia).

We got a few stares as we took our seats in the audience.  Much like the little tiny tables and chairs that you find along the streets in China, all of the stools on the floor were these tiny little plastic stools.  Certainly not comfortable and ergonomic by American standards.  The set was pretty large.  To the left were six throne-like chairs which six kids would eventually sit in.  There was a staircase running up behind them to some music and sound effects people.  The sound effects guy would frequently use a drumstick to strike an electronic drum pad which produced obnoxious kids sound effects.  They weren’t so obnoxious other than he just did it continuously.

The cameras were naturally on us quite a bit and I made a point to smile and stick up my hand in the “peace” or “victory” symbol, which is popular in Asia.  The show itself started with a singing and dance number.  A little girl dressed up like a doll sang and danced with two adult girls and two adult guys.  Actually, she didn’t sing.  Much in the tradition of the Beijing Olympics, she lip sync’ed.  It was beyond obvious.  The rest of the show was dedicated to two kids – one was the son of Jason, the Canadian.  Basically, they just chatted with the host of the show for several minutes.  Then, they had Jason come out and perform some funny dance so folks would laugh.  That’s about it, really.  Have a look at the pics.