Ominous Tordrillos

On a blustery late summer day, I flew with some friends into the Tordrillo Mountains about 80 miles west of Anchorage. We landed on a raw, rocky ridge only recently exposed by retreating glaciers. The site, just shy of 4000 feet in elevation, was laced with banks of last winter’s unmelted snow. Tucked between the enormous Triumvirate and Capps Glaciers with a view of icebound peaks that seemed to reach forever, the place felt precarious, like new land. We watched in silence as strong winds and mountain waves roiled clouds into ominous shapes, as though warning us that humans did not yet belong here.