Summit sunrises
It’s admittedly a cliché to rhapsodize about watching the sun rise from the top of a mountain. But there’s something about it. Something to do with the hours of plodding slowly upward while the world shrinks to what lies in the beam of your headlamp. Step, lock. Step, lock. Step, lock. Pressure breath. Another one. Step, lock. Maybe it was hours, or maybe it was only minutes? Time takes on a surreal elasticity.
After all that time in the headlamp tunnel, looking around and suddenly realizing that the summit is not only visible, revealed by dawn’s early light, but also within reach unleashes a wave of euphoria that’s difficult to describe. Seeing those first rays touch a hard-earned summit - just as you reach it, no less - is meaningful in ways I’ll be contemplating for some time.
And when that summit landscape is bigger and more beautiful than you had imagined? That’s just gravy.