I approach a creek that emerges from the toe of a hanging glacier. I bend at the knees and put my hands on the ground, prostrating myself to the rocky landscape, and I push my mouth into the water. The cold water flows against my hot face. I take in the water and fill myself with it.

We are alone in the alpine. We scramble up across a slab of pink granite, exposure of a thousand meters to the valley bottom. I wait from below as he stems up a black, cool chimney. At the summit, he opens the steel canister and writes our names and the date in the log book.