Step by step, the world lost its profusion. First, its forest disappeared into rock and snow, waterfalls daylighting around the edge of a creeping glacier. Then, the waterfalls were swallowed, and the mountains stood like knives and cudgels, buried from storms the week before, which dumped 47 inches of snow across south-central Alaska.
Kicking our way up slopes, we were the first of the season. If anyone had come before us, their tracks were obliterated. It was like entering a new world; like being born, or maybe like dying.
Our window to get onto an icefield in the rugged middle of the Kenai Peninsula was the end of May, beginning of June, the swing season. Too early and you might get pinned down by whiteouts. Too late and summer would turn the ice into a maze of blue-eyed lakes, meltwater roaring into crevasses. You want it just right, a good blanket of snow for skis and sleds, and clear, bluebird days over your head.
On the fourth day we finally reached the sloping edge of the
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