tenebrous skies

shrouding glacial capsules

biding mountain time

Lower Manang, a five-hut stop before the last climb to Thorong-La – La it must be said here, is the Tibetan word for a high altitude pass – filled to the last sleeping bag with trekkers waiting for a break in the skies, for the sun to give the flag-off, so five days of snow here and higher up, recalcitrant ice (and frozen shoelaces) melt, so visibility could break the two foot limitation, so the promised omnipresence of majestic mountains may deign to manifest. And they did. It took only a moment for the clouds to abracadabra the sun. The Annapurnas hung between earth and sky, their arms, in white vestements, inviting, for an eternal embrace, the entire universe. All we had known was grey. Now, a frosted window pane framed a sapphire blue glacial lake, another, a cabbage patch with cones…