The first of many climbs

began at the Rocky Mountains National Park in Colorado. Curving in round the tallest mountains, their austere statures softened by forest green, we spent the night nearly 9000 feet above ground. The next morning found us scaling a trail that led past this and two other ponds before losing itself to the everpresent snow. At one point I took advice from a one-armed woman on how to inch down a slope narrow and icy without slipping. For consolation I considered that no skeletons were visible, at least, from any vantage point, only the giants and the shadows they cast.