We dine on a jumble of ice-crusted rocks. For the entire meal, none of us speaks a word. Like animals who have not forgotten how to sit quietly together, we listen to the stream, to the ridge, to the stillness of the lichened rocks. From our perch on top of the pass, it is easy to follow the sun's advance over land and sky. I turn back and forth from the sweeping pastels in the east to the deepening line of pink above the blue Earth shadow in the west.
Clouds metamorphose in color, while the mountains follow, one radiant step behind.
The luminous procession continues, moving over one ridge the next, one summit then another, until at last the entire world as far as we can see is bathed in new morning light. The breeze blows crisply, tousling our sleeping bags. Passing through a long alleyway of bluebells, we drop over East Avalanche Pass. Stark towers of stone, etched against the rich blue sky, line the ridge. Westward we can see dozens of drainages, contorted and wild, as rugged as any in the Brooks Range of Alaska.