“Where would you like to hike today?”

I was in Utah, visiting friends for a long weekend. On Saturday, we’d hiked about seven miles round trip up into the Wasatch mountains…. 2,000-foot elevation gain… and down again. On Sunday, we’d hiked up to the Primrose Overlook on Horse Flat Trail in American Fork Canyon… about 1,000 feet of elevation gain… and down. Spectacular views of the mountains and the bright yellow Aspen trees. And never mind the views: The Sunday hike was harder. My legs were fine, but I struggled more with altitude than I had on Saturday.

So, on Monday morning, my friends asked, “Where would you like to hike today?”

“Anywhere is fine,” I replied, “as long as I don’t have to climb anything.” So, we decided to drive to Rowley’s Red Barn and Orchard in Santaquin, Utah, to pick apples. Although quite late in the season, mid-October, Rowley’s said there were still apples to be picked as well as cider slush to enjoy afterward. And who would not enjoy a cider slush?

I came out of the Red Barn store with one bag for apples. “One bag???” , my friends inquired.

“Well, how many apples do you want?”, I asked.

“Twenty,” they said. Thinking, “What will you do with all of those?”, I returned from the store with more bags and we walked across the road to the center aisle of the apple orchard.

The first trees we reached, Red Delicious on the left and HoneyCrisp on the right, had been picked clean from the center aisle to the end of each row. Next up were the EverCrisp and the Cripps Pink. Also picked clean. “They said there were apples. Where are the apples?”, we wondered.

We walked another 30 yards to the Jonagold on the left and (my FAVORITE) Fuji on the right. Picked clean. We kept walking, maybe another 50 yards, all the way to the back of the U-Pick orchard, where we found (Surprise!!! Hooray!!!) several rows of Ambrosia apple trees LOADED with fruit – fully grown, deliciously red-ripened apples, apparently overlooked. In ten minutes, we picked and filled 2 bags. 16 apples.

We could have filled ALL of our bags with Ambrosia apples, but I was intent on finding a few Fuji apples. We retreated to the Fuji trees. We walked out and back down each row of trees (about 50 yards per row). Maybe 100 trees. On every tree, the remaining apples were high in the trees and either tiny or rotted. I began to gaze at the apples on the ground.

“We don’t want any of those,” cautioned my friends. “They’ve been on the ground. No telling what’s happened with them.” Nevertheless, when I spotted apparently good ground Fujis, I examined them. My haul for 20 minutes of ground gazing: Ten overlooked-and-otherwise-intact, worm-free, rot-free, insect-free Fuji apples. A full bag. Perfect.

Total haul for 90 minutes: 36 apples. [We made a VERY big pot of apple sauce that night and I stuffed several apples into my suitcase to bring home to Boston. I wonder what the TSA crews thought about those!]

Lessons learned:

• Thumbs up on walking tree (sorry…three) miles on flat ground after two days in the mountains.
• Best case, go early. If we want to bag the biggest, most sought-after apples, start the process before frenzied hordes pick trees clean.
• If we arrive late to the party and if we can’t pick (or sell, as it were) the fruit we were hoping to bag, adapt! Push deeper into the orchard (most people quit before they reach the end). Look for small opportunities others have left behind. And, if remaining apples aren’t good for one purpose, use them for another.

Nick Miller is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. He assists banks and credit unions to generate more and more profitable relationships, faster, with business clients, their owners, and their employees through better sales strategies and execution. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.