The sun is scorching. All around there’s a blinding whiteness of snow and the dark blue of the sky. Only in high mountains the sky can have such a color. I walk slowly, step by step, from time to time controlling the tension of the rope with which we are tied together, and I wonder how long it will take us to get to the summit.

Step. Step. Step. Step. Walking like this gets in you in a weird state of mind. Thoughts jump freely from topic to topic, from the important to the abstract ones, and the former, in the mountains, often turn out to be not so significant. You can really catch some distance here. I often think about what I will eat first when I get home. But this time I contemplate the problem of a mountain tan, remembering the sight of a tube of UV cream sliding faster and faster down the snowy slope. A cream that I did not manage to apply. My skin starts to smell funny. Like something was burning.