And then the snowdrift tried to eat me!

THE EVENING IN CAMP at 11,600 feet was undeniably peaceful, and deeply, deeply soothing.

From the shoulder of the mountain, I watched day transition into night. It was a gentle ‘letting go’ of brightness and urgency, almost like a sigh, or a long-held breath being released, and it was made all the more peaceful by the fierce wind that I could still hear roaring across open slopes a mere thirty feet away. I’d pushed through the wind during my approach to camp, and it had felt unpleasant and num...