I wanted to write that a glacier is like a living thing, because of the noise it makes, that jarring, creaking sound of ice grinding against ice. But living is the wrong word because any given glacier today is dying. This was only a small one, but once it was bigger, and there is no going back.
The snow blew into my face as I climbed up alongside it, stopped, and listened. The echo of ice falling into deep cracks was frightening, but only to listen to. Just a few meters away, perched on a wet boulder, we were perfectly safe. There we were, looking at something beautiful yet tragic; a glacier which could kill you with one slip but wouldn’t know it, nor know that it was dying because of us.
It’s a strange relationship, that one between mountain and human. We project so much of ourselves onto it – yearning for something bigger and more beautiful than ourselves, desiring sometimes to “conquer” in pursuit of our self-worth and other times to imagine a two-way spiritual connection to support our emotional needs when really the mountain neither knows nor cares what we think or feel or tell others. It is just there, and it just endures. And anything that can endure geological time can surely endure us.
From the tiny shared hut at the outlet of Tarfala’s glacial lake, we set out to climb the pass towards another lake. “The Black Lake”, the Italian guy called it. He arrived by helicopter the next day with a huge backpack full of ropes and climbing gear, skipping the 26km walk in. I’d carried a nearly-as-huge backpack full of a three year old the whole way.
For a few days since arriving late in the evening in the teeth of a very strong wind, we’d watched the weather come down this pass and hit the hut. The time lapse below gives a pretty accurate sense of what it looked like. When the wind finally relented, we took the chance.
Our daughter didn’t feel like walking that day – fair enough, even the most dedicated hikers have off days – so I bundled her up warmly and put her in the child carrier wrapped carefully in a tarp for wind protection. We headed across the lake’s foreshore, around the side and up towards the glacier. The first part of the climb is easy and offers incredible views in every direction – including over your shoulder if you remember to turn around.
 Tarfala |
 Western Mongolia |
 Karakol, Kyrgyzstan |
And then, after an hour or so slowly climbing in glorious sun and still air, we reached the boulder field by the glacier. The wind picked up as it came down over the ridge, tickling our faces with spindrift that almost tinkled in our ears, too, like tiny crystals falling in some old fairy tale when the magic fairy shows up to rescue the poor princess. Here we listened to and looked at the glacier, with the sun bouncing off its wet icy surface into our squinted eyes. The child slept in her portable tent, travelling like children might once have done in landscapes like this, bundled warmly on a parent’s back, swaying gently as father or mother picked a safe route among the rocks.
Story continues after images
I caught up to Yon at the top of a scramble over large red rocks and we stood quietly together, taking it in. Far below was the hut, beyond the lake. On one side, the glacier reached up to embrace the edge of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest mountain. Down the other side, pristine and silent, lay the Black Lake. And beyond it, the Gaskavaggi valley.
I’d dreamed of Gaskavaggi valley before we came. A remote back route connecting the Kungsleden trail to Tarfala, it appealed to everything I love about the mountains. Being there, first and foremost; testing my skills of navigation and survival in – not against – a windswept, wet, cold environment that neither knew nor cared I was there.
Story continues after images
People talk about respecting the mountains, and I agree, we should. But whether we survive in them and enjoy it is not because of some homage or honour we pay to the mountains or their spirits. Not if we’re white westerners, anyway. It’s because of how we respect ourselves in their presence – do we care enough for our world and the children who follow us that we “leave no trace”? Watch our footing for vulnerable plants? Keep an eye on the sun and the clouds and know when enough is enough, when to turn around, when to say “farewell, until next time”? Do we appreciate the beauty as we see it, sunny or cloudy, wet or dry, warm, cold, windy, green with grass or blackened by fire?
For all those reasons we turned back when we did, and for all those reasons I saved the Gaskavaggi route for another day. Yon and I got each other home safely and bundled our sleeping child into her bed.
And I kept that spindrifty, crystalline wind in my heart; those enduring, steady, solid mountains in my soul. Because one day, maybe soon, we may have to explain to our child what a glacier was.
