I enjoyed hiking across the face of the Franz Joseph glacier, but as soon as I saw the guide pull out the tramp-ons and demonstrate how to attach them to our boots, I knew I was in trouble.

Tramp-ons are important; they provide sharp metal tongues underneath your boots that allow them to connect to the icy surface.  But putting them on involved a complicated lacing pattern.  The laces had to be looped a particular way, anchored by the ring in the back ("One ring to rule them all,” the guide said).  I knew I’d have trouble with it.  I can’t follow those kinds of visual instructions, given at a rapid clip.  I was suddenly back in junior high, trying to make an elephant in woodshop and having it come out looking more like an aardvark.

Sure enough, after about ten minutes of struggling with the tramp-ons, one of them was hanging around my neck and the other one was dangling off my ear.  “You can’t go up the glacier like that mate,” the guide said.  I was all, sure I can.  I’m an American, dammit, and if there’s one thing we know, it’s invading countries and hiking across glaciers.