I know i’ve shared this photo before, but after a little tweaking and more thinking about it, I had to share it again.

It was late August, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at menagerie of snow and ice that surrounded me. The temperature was in the high twenties, and the winds, light and variable. I was sitting atop the Columbia Crest at 14,411 feet, the highest point in the state of Washington, and the true summit of the Cascade volcano, Mount Rainier. The sun had just rose about the horizon, and we had just completed a six hour summit bid that led us up steep mountain slopes and across unfathomably deep crevasses. As I sat there, resting and packing more calories into my body for the descent, I watched another group of climbers cross the crater toward Columbia Crest, and right there it registered in my brain how truly massive this place was. Mount Adams can be seen on the horizon.

2011 Patrick Gensel