Summit Up

Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column that doesn’t know where to start.

We’re just in such a tizzy over all this fresh powder that our little heads are spinning. All we can think about is finally getting our ski groove on for the season by finding some soft snow, flopping down and making the first snow angel of the winter. That, of course, would be after we shred the gnar, or schralp the steeps, or schuss the piste — or whatever the lingo du jour calls for.

We’re thinking we might go feel the love at Loveland, where about four feet of snow has piled up in the last few days, which makes us feel all wintry and downright giddy, and have only one thing to say: Face shots!

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But first we have a super-important message relating to the holidays, and especially holiday shopping. We know we’re supposed to be really funny and light-hearted and everything, but every now and then we get info that makes it hard to just go about our daily routine, and this e-mail fell into that category.

We have learned that there are 49 nations (out of more than 200 total) that fall into a category known as “least develop countries.” Thirty-three are in Africa, 10 in Asia, five in Oceania and one (Haiti) in the Americas.

See the full list at http://geocities.com/sapphire2029/sei.html.

We’re not going to go on and on about this. We just want to tell you that the per-capita gross national income for these places is less than $750 per year. So as we go about our Christmas shopping this year, we are going to keep this in mind, which helps us keep in perspective the economic problems closer to home.

We’re thinking that we’re going to set aside some of the money we had earmarked for eggnog and video games and maybe send a check to to some international relief organization.

We reckon the big gulf between the haves and the have-not of the world is one of the biggest reasons for all sorts of problems, and we aim to take this matter into our own hands, at least in some small way.

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Now then, moving on to more inane things, we see that iPhones can be loaded up with some fancy software that can be used on the slopes to find the nearest $10 burger barn.

We have nothing against phones per se, and we love Apple’s i-stuff, but we are so NOT down with using electronic gizmos on the mountain.

Isn’t it bad enough that people are on the phone the whole time they’re driving?

Isn’t it a shame that you can’t go to the grocery store these days with seeing half a dozen people on their phones: “Should I buy four or six pomengranates, honey?”

What gives? Whatever happened to thinking for yourself? We say ban the iPhone from the slopes. Give us a good, old-fashioned trail map any day, or just let us wipe away our snotcicles, and we can sniff out the nearest on-mountain emporium from a mile away.

We just don’t want people staring down at their little bitty LCD screen while they’re screamin’ down the mountain, thank you very much! So keep those iPhones stashed, people, or deal with the wrath of Ullr.

We out, makin’ tracks.