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Leaving Behind
The Garden Wall, Glacier National Park, Montana, United States
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My hands were shaking.
The tripod had started to tip, slowly at first, then all at once, falling headfirst into the gully below. For a second, my mind went completely blank. I just stood there, watching it happen, unable to believe that after all the effort it had taken to get there, everything might be over in an instant.
Getting to that spot had already felt questionable. It was pitch black, the slopes were steep, and the canyon was covered in fresh snow. I had lost count of how many times I asked myself, “What am I doing here?” One bad step, one patch of unstable snow, and I could have slipped into one of the open trenches below. In a place like that, it might take days for anyone to find me.
The tripod didn’t make much noise as it fell. No dramatic crash, no echoing bang. But in my head, it felt like a disaster. All that work, all that risk, and now the one thing holding the whole setup together was gone.
I had some of the best camera equipment in the world with me, but in that moment, it did not matter. Without a solid support system, even the most powerful camera and lenses are just expensive weight on your back.
It took me about 15 minutes to put together what may have been both the best and worst tripod a landscape photographer has ever used.
The rocks around the glacier had a strange layered structure, almost like thin slabs, so I was able to find enough flat pieces to stack into a reasonably stable platform. It was far from ideal, but it was good enough to keep shooting.
After everything that had happened, and after trying to solve the problem with whatever I had around me, I was still able to get maybe 80 to 90 percent of what I could have captured with a proper tripod. That gave me a brief sense of relief, but I was nowhere near ready to relax.
The experience had shaken me badly. The trip was supposed to last three days, but I had to end it after the first day. And even then, I was still far from safe. I had a long climb and a difficult hike ahead of me before I could truly let my guard down.
Wind on the Hill
Assiniboine Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada
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The scramble itself was not too bad. At least, in my own slightly twisted scale of outdoor suffering, it was far from the worst thing I had done.
Nature can be rough. It is not always beautiful views and easy moments. Sometimes bad weather is exactly what creates the kind of drama you are looking for. But this time, there was one problem: I was not alone.
I had brought a group of people with me. They had taken a full week out of their extremely busy schedules and trusted me to give them a meaningful experience outdoors, thousands of miles from home. They were business partners, but more than that, they were close friends.
The wind kept knocking us off balance. On the narrow ledge leading up to the peak, we were getting pushed around like fallen leaves, trying to stay upright with every step.
