High Points: The friendly skies

As I write this, I am seated in a center seat in row 22 on board a United Airlines flight bound for … well, let’s just say it’s bound for somewhere less interesting than Aspen. I have a bead of sweat on my brow, and my blood pressure is slightly elevated, as I have had what has become the standard for Aspen travelers on United Airlines: a 25-minute trot to my connecting flight with a 20-minute connection.

The trek from Gate B66 to A19 is about as far and long as walking Main Street from the Hotel Jerome to the Hickory House with a subterranean train ride in the middle. When I got to my gate, truth be told with a final sprint, there was the captain of the flight to greet me. “You must be from Aspen,” he said. “We always wait for you guys.” Truth be told, once again, they don’t always wait for “us guys.” But I was glad this plane and this captain did.

Truth be told (for the third time), I love travel as much as the next Aspenite, but I can do without the travails and the drama that come from having to connect through Denver International Airport. Over the years since it opened in 1995, I have spent days, no weeks, alright, months, of my life suspended in the Teflon-tented terminals of DEN, as it is coded, waiting for cancelled or delayed flights. It may not be as bad as a maximum security prison — at least it has cocktails — but when I look at the big board of flights or my phone app and see the word “DELAYED” next to the word “ASPEN,” I always feel like I have been sentenced to the hoosegow.

I am old enough (truth be … oh, never mind) to remember the days when travel through Denver meant connecting via a prop plane at an airport called Stapleton, which sat hard by the outskirts of Denver proper. I don’t remember having as much trouble getting to or from said Stapleton, even in bad weather. Oh sure, the occasional snowstorm might shut things down for a few days (Remember the Christmas blizzard of 1982? I do!), but on a regular basis, it seemed the airport functioned pretty well. Now, since DEN is out in the cornfields of Kansas, every little hint of lightning or clap of thunder is grounds for a ground stop.

Oops, the guy next to me just pointed out that this is supposed to be a High Point. My bad.

If there is one thing I like about flying, it is getting back to Sardy Field, or ASE as it is coded. To this day — and believe me, there have been many, many arrival days in my past — I still get a buzz of excitement every time we are on approach and pass the canyon where Snowmass sits. I am a window guy, and I almost always sit, shade up, gazing out and down at the beauty of what is by now a familiar ride. Winter, spring, summer, or fall, the topography of the hills and mountains below is forever changing, and yes, there are times, like now when the colors are glorious, when it is so beautiful that I just feel a sense of wonder and awe that I get to live here.

There was a time when everyone reconnected with their loved ones in the terminal at Sardy Field, much like the closing scene in “Love Actually,” where Hugh Grant, who plays the part of the British Prime Minister, waxes poetically about the joys of homecoming as the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” plays on and the homecomings are multiplied and pixilated. Makes me tear up every time.

But now we head through automated gates, traipse past the baggage claim and rental car lines to get outside and wait on the sidewalk as the cars circle the drive and the security folks shoo them into one more trip around the drive. True, it’s lost a little luster, but I’ll take a return trip to Sardy Field every time.

Thanks for reading my little rant. I feel better after writing it.