Quandary Peak

Author's Comments

I have climbed Quandary in July when the alpenglow hit the upper ridge at five-thirty in the morning, and I have climbed it in late September when the willows in the basin had gone gold and the air was already thinking about winter. Both were worth the early alarm. Neither produced the photograph I was hoping for. This is an honest mountain. The trail is straightforward, the elevation is real, and the summit gives you what summits give you - a full rotation of ranges, the Gores to the north, the Mosquitos to the west, the Tenmile spreading out below your boots. It is a view that humbles you in person and flattens almost completely in a photograph. I have made my peace with this. The wide panorama from 14,265 feet is something you earn and remember rather than something you bring home in a frame. What does photograph well is the ridge itself in the hour before you reach the top. The light at that altitude in early morning has a clarity I have not found anywhere lower, and a hiker on the spine of the ridge with the basin falling away on both sides is a portrait worth making. Mountain goats sometimes appear in the upper third of the climb and they do not particularly care about you. Get low. Let the ridge do the work. Start at five. Be off the summit by noon. The afternoon storms here are not a suggestion, and the upper mountain has nowhere to hide. Reserve your parking spot weeks ahead in summer. And do not climb this peak for the photograph. Climb it for the morning, and let whatever the camera catches be a bonus.

Gallery