It felt like snow. Snow all over the side of a high mountain. Cliffs that ran into the air so high they couldn’t be real. It looked like grey granite that no one had climbed up in a thousand years. It looked like a place where people would dig into the rockface to find warmth. Somewhere beyond where life should even think of going. Covering all of that gray and cold was the snow.

The snow was so clean and white that my eyes hurt from miles away. It blinded me, and at the same time i couldn’t look away. Have you ever heard of snowblindless? Where folks in the snow will lose their vision over time? I felt like that was happening to me from all this distance. The wind coming off the face of the mountain seemed to blow down cold and dry. Like a desert that had never seen water. I know that at some point, this mountain was wrapped in clouds and storms wracked the tops. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. Wind whipping snow down on the peaks. Nothing daring to move or come out of the holes they hide into.

But now the storm had passed. It seemed like it had passed so long ago. But nothing had changed the color of the snow. Or the smell of dry cold coming down to me. And the cliff sides. I can’t describe them well enough to do them any kind of justice. And why did my mind go to burrows so quickly. Somehow the thought of that mountain. Of the snow sitting on the granite. Something in that view made me think of miners. Folks digging whole mountainsides down. Digging through the rock, looking for something of value. In this place, would the value be the warmth? Is that mountain warm? Has the cold gone into the sides and carried any warmth away?

Isn’t it a fact that the further you go underground the warmer it becomes? Slowly of course, but the deeper you are the more regulated the temperature. How long would it take to reach the warmth from somewhere that looks so cold and frozen. Does anyone live up there? I don’t see roads. I haven’t seen smoke in days.

Have I been staring at this mountain for days? How long have i been here? When did i stop moving towards the slope? When did i start staring at the cliffs and thinking of digging inside? Where is the trail i was following before now. How did i lose a trail towards that mountain?

Should i just start up again towards the peak i see? I know standing here won’t get me closer to anything, and isn’t sending me back the way I came. Maybe a trail will show up as i walk. Maybe i will be the first one on this path. Or maybe some animal tracks will show up, and i can follow the way the world other than us goes up. Maybe the deer and bears know the right way to climb.