The Mountains that Matter Most

Erling Haaland, the cool Norwegian soccer player, has a pretty fun and slightly unhinged social media presence. During the World Cup, a clip from his Instagram account resurfaced where he claimed, “Just raw dogged a 7 hour flight. No phone, no sleep, no water, no food. Only map. #easy” I have a confession: I, too, fly like this. Not for 7 hours, because I do sleep or watch a movie on a transatlantic flight, and yes I drink water, because hydration is important, ok? But I love the airplane map, and I always start and end with it on my screen, if the plane seat back has a screen. On my most recent flight, I noticed something on the map that I see every time, which confuses me and slightly irritates me. The thing I noticed on the map, just west of Denver, is a place called “Porcupine Hill.” I grew up in Denver. I spent a lot of my youth going into and around and back out of the mountains west of the city. Until its appearance on the map, I had never heard of this Porcupine Hill. Surely…