The Breath of Stone

The air at that height tastes of nothing and everything all at once. It is thin, sharp, and metallic, like licking a cold iron spoon left out in the frost. When you breathe it in, it doesn’t just fill your lungs; it scrapes against the back of your throat, a dry, scouring sensation that reminds you how small your own heat is against the vastness of the rock. There is a silence there that has a physical weight, a pressure against the eardrums that feels like being held underwater, though the water is only air. My skin remembers the sudden bite of the wind, the way it pulls the moisture from your lips and leaves them chapped and tight. We spend our lives seeking the low, warm places, yet the body keeps a secret hunger for the places where the earth meets the sky, where the cold is so absolute it feels like a clean slate. Does the mountain remember the touch of the clouds, or is it simply waiting for the next breath of winter to settle into its crevices?

Christine Sovig Gilbert has captured this quiet, biting altitude in her photograph titled Summit Lake. It carries the exact chill of that thin, high air, inviting you to stand still until your own pulse slows to match the stillness of the peaks. Can you feel the frost settling on your skin?