North end of Death Canyon Shelf, Grand Teton National Park, Aug. 2022

This awareness had been re-occurring, over three days acclimatizing, not altogether successfully, to elevations above 9,000 feet. My companion and I reflected on the fact that we had set out to hike whatever paths presented themselves, without worrying too much about how long it would take or how we would feel afterwards. Much like a business or technology consultant parachutes into a program or project midway through delivery, we found ourselves surveying our surroundings, looking for signs that we had previously succeeded at similar self-selected challenges. In this instance, instead of looking to the top of the ridgeline, my attention and mood was lifted by the ‘petrified Pacman’ in the foreground.

Can you see it? Perhaps I was already dehydrated?

With semi-serious interest in distracting myself from the lung-busting effort that was about to consume my physical attentions, I followed a stream of consciousness about ‘walking the walk in front of me,’ and noticing aspects of my depth of field that could reframe my sense of dismay at the big picture and instead find satisfaction, wonder, humor or mere curiosity in ‘the little things’ around me. So I hiked on, thinking about the not-so-little neighbor we had encountered blocking a different trail only two days prior.

Excuse the lack of focus; it wasn’t yet clear how settled he felt by our arrival.

Have you ever, early in a consulting engagement, wondered, ‘what are my stakeholders like?’ Are they calm, curious, collaborative, quick to action, passion, debate, dispute or quietly, dispassionately, financially astutely, prone to prioritize, negotiate and risk mitigate? Perhaps you share some of my prior experiences, finding ways to gently persuade the settled ‘road blockers’ to either make way for or ignore (at their own peril), and as opposed to obstructing, the changes going on around them?

This trip to the Grand Tetons was an exercise in backcountry base-camping and felt, in several ways, like program managing a portfolio of related, loosely coupled, projects. Our resources were centralized, but our critical paths (literally, but not on a GANTT chart) branched variously, day by day, down different paths with unique challenges, objectives, risks, outcomes, and consequences.

Earning the right to define our choices among many trail adventures mostly entailed the small task of crossing a valley called Death Canyon, ascending the Death Canyon Shelf, and crossing over Mount Meek Pass.

Fortunately, there were no obvious signs of death in Death Canyon.

After ascending the Devil’s Staircase, we savored the prospect of breezes and sunny skies along the Death Canyon Shelf, while trekking with intention to stay ahead of the weather following us.

Death Canyon Shelf, looking Southwest.

Death Canyon Shelf, looking Northeast.

Returning to our base camp at the end of each day rewarded us with the ability to compare planned to actual progress and assess our likely velocity through the next day’s sprint’ activities. All after a sunset like this one…

As soon as sunrise was upon us (see below), we could choose among several inspiring destinations, much like pursuing successful user acceptance testing at the end of translating user stories into sets of process steps, system features and other enabling tools for customers happy to benefit from our previously demonstrated resourceful professional aptitudes and accomplishments. In this vein, we thought we brought training, foreknowledge and aptitude to traversing passes, crossing cols and descending sketchy scree fields. Leaving the following gorgeous jump-in point, we’d find out if we were right.

Sunrise, at Sunset Lake, atop a ridge, where a copse of trees securely nestled the writer’s tent.

Ascent to Hurricane Pass.

Happily, our daily retrospectives confirmed we were sufficiently equipped to enjoy moments along ridgelines, at passes and back in camp.

Battleship Mountain enroute to Avalanche Divide.

Snowdrift Lake, below Avalanche Divide.

Dramatically, the circle of life is honored here, at 10,680 feet.

Sunset back at Sunset Lake, having returned from Avalanche Divide.

Rested and ready to return to civilization, it was hard to not get lost in the recent experience of doing the Cascade Canyon to Paintbrush Divide to South Fork Canyon loop. The following image is the trekking equivalent of being teased by a prospective client that they have unlimited budget, sufficient time and a low enough bar for acceptance criteria that the project ‘has to succeed.’

Ascending Paintbrush Divide, from Cascade Canyon to the South and East, headed West.

Standing still, bent backwards looking up at a ridgeline to be summited over a thousand more feet above, eyesight blurry with sweat and light-headed if not dizzy from the altitude, this writer thought, “why doesn’t this feel as fun as I thought it would?” Looking down toward the valley floor, and Lake Solitude, where we had come from, the question evaporated like the perspiration off the back of my neck as the breeze washed over me.

Atop Paintbrush Divide, Grand Teton National Park

Leaving the Alaska Basin, within the Targhee National Forest, and climbing up over Static Peak, via Buck Mountain Pass, definitely felt like a set of program ceremonies that fully acknowledged the hard work that had gone into completing all the major milestones we had commit to accomplish when we baselined this initiative’s scope.

Enroute to Buck Mountain Pass. Grand Teton National Park.

While the (very) loose comparisons to the effort it takes to justify, define, prioritize and deliver clients’ program/project scope and coordinate and complete long distance back country treks may be questionable, you’ve hopefully found visual if not substantive ways to consider seeing the world around you differently than through the usual habit-based ways of seeing we often rely on. If you, too, have occasions to let stream of consciousness distract you from tough physical tasks, let me know by reaching out to SClark@Logisolve.com or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/stephenclark2.

For any reader contemplating a future Westward adventure, put the Grand Teton National Park on your list and aim for the pair of lakes west of the Jenny Lake Loop trail called Surprise and Amphitheater Lakes. You won’t regret it and the depth of field’ centers of attention may make it hard to leave.