Sunrise on the mountain
We start long before dawn, in deep frost and darkness, driving up the winding track towards the mountain. At the snowline we stop and put on climbing gear, harnesses, packs, axes, and we trudge up the hill as the eastern sky begins to lighten. The air is still bitterly cold but we are warmed by the climb, our exhalations clouding as we breathe heavily in the thinning air.
We crest the last ridge before the icefall we are to climb and in front of us lies a frozen lake, smooth, silent, impossibly flat in a land otherwise without horizontality. The ice is thick and we start to walk across, westwards, booted feet crunching as we stride. And just as we reach the middle of the lake, the sun rises behind us, and the surface all around lights up with a million tiny diamonds, a million ice crystals glistening, reflecting the rising sun. I have never seen anything so beautiful.