REMOTE LEARNING

I STUMBLED UPON the crowds during my third day on foot, halfway through a gentle, meandering, late-summer walk. I’d reached Guanella Pass on the edge of Colorado’s Mount Evans Wilderness. It is a beautiful spot – a broad bowl of shining pools and sweeping views – but it didn’t feel wild, or peaceful. Not even close. Instead, it was swimming with visitors. After three days of complete solitude, the melee was a shock to the senses.

I dropped my rucksack and paused to take it in. Most of the visitors had driven to the pass, and most were still in motion, milling about, holding up phones, talking and laughing. A large number were joining the conga line up Mount Bierstadt, the area’s main mountain attraction. Bierstadt is a ‘Fourteener’ – one of Colorado’s 58 14,000-foot peaks. Many ‘Fourteener-baggers’ start with Bierstadt, one the easiest to climb and one of the closest to Denver, Colorado’s rapidly expanding metropolis of almost three million people. Today, it looked as though most of those three million were here with me.

Staring at the crowds, I was reminded of the London Underground. Back when I lived in the capital, the simmering insanity of the daily commute used to fascinate and horrify me in equal measure. It fascinated me that so many people