On a narrow ledge six pitches up on Sendero Tower, the night stretches like a cathedral above me. My hands raw, my body aching, the valley glows below while distant turmoil touches Guadalajara. Here, suspended between stone and sky, I find perspective, reflection, and the rare grace of being fully present in the vertical world.

As we rounded the bend of switchbacks comprising the last kilometre from the Kain Hut up to Applebee, the coliseum of spires—Snowpatch, Bugaboo, Crescent, and East Post—rose into view like stone sentinels, carved by time and crowned by sky, their jagged silhouettes etched against the thinning veil of cloud. After two days of torrential rain drumming on the hut roof and pooling along the path, the storm finally broke, and with it, so did we—spilling out into the alpine.