The Hour Before the World

I remember a night in the high country when the air grew so thin it felt like breathing cold water. My friend Elias and I had hiked up until our legs burned, setting up camp on a ridge that seemed to hang off the edge of the map. We didn’t talk much. There is a specific kind of silence that descends when you are far above the tree line, a quiet so heavy it feels like the earth is holding its breath. We sat there in the dark, waiting for the sun to decide it was time to return. It is a strange, vulnerable thing to be awake while the rest of the world is still dreaming, to witness the slow, bruised purple of the horizon turning into something gold. In those moments, you realize how small your own worries are compared to the slow, steady turning of the planet. Do you ever feel more like yourself when you are completely alone in the wild?

Karin Eibenberger has captured this exact feeling of suspended time in her beautiful image titled Salfeins Alm. It perfectly mirrors that quiet, pre-dawn solitude I remember from the ridge. Does this view make you want to pack a bag and head for the peaks?