High Places

The ant climbed out of the basin and up onto the formation’s peak. It felt no sense of towering above its surroundings, because it had no fear of falling. It had been blown off of places higher than this many times without any injury. Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.

— Liu Cixin, The Dark Forest

Mankind has always sought out peaks, and vistas. To some degree this obsession is tactical — to plot a course, or spot an approaching enemy. But it is certainly also irrational. We have a deep, almost instinctive appreciation for high places. Our obsession with these vantages is driven in part by our fear of succumbing to them, and in this lies an opportunity.

I’ve been driven by this irrational pursuit of high places myself, seeking out and pursuing them almost subconsciously. Several have offered profound moments of reflection, brought on by the combination of exposure, and an unprecedented sense of scale.

In this photo collection, I have brought together photographs I captured in these moments, and the reflections I had while taking them.

High Places

In the Shadow of Mt. Shasta

As I clung to the ice-encrusted face of Mount Shasta, I watched daylight slowly begin to sear the California landscape. I had been awake and climbing for hours, and yet I could see day just beginning all around me. But what made me stop, and dig my ice axe into the crust to steady myself against the wind, was the silhouette of Mount Shasta itself, in relief against the golden morning light and laid out across a canvas of lakes and roads and towns. And the sight was almost incomprehensible.

When we look at a mountain from afar, to take it in as a singular unit, we see it relative to the sky, or perhaps other mountains. The human mind relies on relativity to make sense of the world, and for this reason, as you stand on the side of the mountain, you can’t comprehend the mountain itself, only the piece of it you are standing on. We have no sense of scale for the mountain, and so we abstract it away. When the entirety of what you are attempting to summit is laid out before you, against terrain for which you have scale — the sheer mass of the mountain suddenly makes sense. It’s like discovering a new form of measurement. And as the brain comprehends this for the first, as it forms new edges and nodes deep inside the neural network of the mind, the hubris of man to summit mountains at all becomes apparent.

Approaching Gran Paradiso

I could feel the steel of the ice axe in my hand acting as a radiator, sucking any remaining warmth in my fingers out through my gloves, and dissipating it into the thin atmosphere around me. And yet this tool turning my fingers purple was the key anchor keeping me locked into the track that wound up the face of Gran Paradiso, Italy’s tallest peak. I looked down below me and saw the Europeans Alps laid out into the distance, and a line of climbing crews snaking their way up the face towards me.

I had taken on this climb with a guide, but otherwise alone — and so we worked as a pair making our way to this peak. I typically make ascents like this with a group of friends, and so in this moment, I felt alone. There was no one to motivate, to lighten the mood, or share in the pain and beauty of the moment. These were elements of an ascent I had learned to take for granted, and now in their absence my inner monologue was louder than ever — screaming that my fingers were dying, my lungs suffocating, and my brain starving. These pains and doubts echoing through my head I would need to manage myself. And this was made all the more apparent by the sheer emptiness surrounding me. Sometimes the only thing around you is nothing, and the only place to look from there for the strength to push through, is inside.

The Peak of Aiguille du Midi

It was a moment of contrast. The sheer cliffs of the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix — seemingly impervious to human intrusion — threaded with steel cables, anchors, and engines. It was as if we were trying to mock the mountain, making the the ascent to its top as simple as riding an elevator. Something formed over tens of millions of years, carved away by glaciers and wind and ice, traversed in a matter of minutes. The ability of mankind to twist nature to our will was on full display as a cable car pulled into the station.

And as I stood there and watched this hanging wagon intersect with the mountain, I considered the millions of hours of human ingenuity and innovation I had relied upon to perch myself on this ancient mountain side. The strength of the steel, the power of the hydraulics, the precision of the measurements — all built upon millennia of iteration, experimentation, and dedication. All brought together in the most inhospitable of climates and terrains, so that we may look out over the world from a vantage we were never meant to see. When we use technology to reduce these dramatic environments to an afternoon excursion it’s easy to lose perspective not only for the power of nature, but also for the ability of humans to tame it.

Moon Rise Over Half Dome

I awoke under a blanket of stars in a cold sweat from the fever dreams of a Covid infection I did not yet know that I had (but which would later explain why this trip had proved so miserably difficult). And as I considered whether I was hot, cold, or some third temperature that only a fever can create, I looked over to see a glow of light begin to form on the horizon, at the base of the gaping mouth made by Half Dome’s sheer face. I had gone to sleep without a tent, on the top of Quarter Dome with a commanding view of Yosemite’s most iconic feature, and some combination of fever and fate had brought me awake just as the moon began to rise. It slowly, and meticulously followed an arc through the sky that intersected perfectly with the tip of Half Dome, as if it was trying to trace the outline of the granite that had shorn off and been swept away in the ancient past to leave behind this remaining hulking half.

I wondered to myself, what were the impossibly small odds that I should observe this exact astronomical and geological alignment? No more, and no less likely than seeing any other specific phenomena, and yet it was so apparent how special this specific one was. It made me consider all the other moments I had let slip by, as if they were less unique. Perhaps it was the fever talking, but in that specific moment, it felt so clear how important it is to appreciate the uniqueness of any given moment, and to sit with those moments in full, take them in, and give them life.