A new chapter in mountain climbing history was written when the speed bump outside the Donald Everett Axinn ’51 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library was finally ascended last week. The team, composed of members of the Middlebury Mountain Club as well as several Sherpa guides, reached the summit in an amazingly quick six hours.
The idea for the climb originated shortly after the creation of the speed bump. Though it had been installed in the hopes of slowing down vehicles on Old Chapel Road, the ‘bump’ was built so high that actually no one could even travel over it. Most students were frustrated by this mountain of concrete, but the Middlebury Mountain Club saw it differently. “I glanced up at the speed bump one cloudy day in September, and suddenly the clouds parted and I could see the top” said MMC member Joe Flannel in a telephoned interview, “And then it hit me. We could climb this baby. And we could climb it good.”
From there, the challenge was on. The MMC assembled a crack team of their best climbers, and used illicit funds to raise money for brand new equipment. Even so, they knew this would not be enough. These granola munchers would need help carrying their heavy North Face packs, and only one kind of people could do that at such high altitudes as the speed bump’s: Sherpas. “We received an electronic message in our town’s computing machine,” said Sherpa Kazoo Himalay in an interview via signal fire, “from this foolhardy bunch of kids wanting to climb some dumb speed bump. But once they offered us a genuine gold watch and some Keystone Light, we were in.”
The climb was one of the more treacherous the Sherpas had faced, even though Kazoo has ascended Mt. Everest six times. But they were up for any challenge for that watch, and so they left with the MMC team at the crack of noon. It was no easy trip. Heavy winds, snow, and that big history paper due Monday all stood in their way on the treacherous climb up. Ultimately, half of the MMC kids were lost; three to an avalanche, and one turned back to “finish the paper because, gosh, I still have ten pages to go.” One of the Sherpas was also torn apart by an Abominable Snowman. Despite this, the team reached the top of the speed bump around six in the evening, just in time to see the sunset. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen since I watched Into the Wild,” said Joe Flannel. “Now if we could only get down.”
At press time, the team was still stuck at the top.