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face
and began ascending a couloir. These couloir, as they were called, were like
divots in the mountain, allowing the climber to press himself against the
sidewalls as he worked his way up.
    Brenden breathed like a bellows
when he reached the top of the couloir. But he gathered his strength while
crossing a flat ledge that took him to a second couloir and a final ascent to
the north base, bringing him to the summit.
    So, here he was with his chin
tilted up to the warmth of the noonday sun, believing that Robert Burns was
right: all has to be in its heaven. All has to be right with the world, or at
least that's how God designed it. Brenden was comfortable in the thought that
there were screwups in the environment. But these were all on man's shoulders.
God had nothing to do with them.
    Brenden felt a lump in his throat
as his eyes swept over the panorama that surrounded him. The combination of
toylike forms and colors as seen from this mountaintop delighted him, giving
rise to feelings of joy, appreciation, and sheer awe in the vivid majesty
before him.
    He was two thousand feet above
timberline, and the scrubbed pine below looked like miniature Christmas trees
decorated with the sunlit yellow-gold of thousands of aspens reaching hungrily
skyward.
    Brenden reluctantly remembered that
he had not yet honored the climber's tradition. Moving a few feet to his left,
he reached the summit block, a stick in the ground with a two-foot-long piece
of PVC pipe wedged tightly between two rocks at its base. Unscrewing one of the
ends, he removed a folded parchment, a document on which all climbers logged
their dates and times of arrival.
    These scrolls were kept by the
Colorado Mountain Club and published in various climbing publications. Climbers
didn't sign for glory. They respectfully stated their achievement of the summit
with gratitude to the mountain for allowing them to succeed.
    He sat down on a rock outcropping
and began to wolf down his lunch.
    Boy, am I
hungry, he thought. I missed breakfast, and this tastes delicious. Something
about altitude air, I guess.
    In the distance he noticed the
white contrails of a jet leaving the Aspen airport as it cut its way through
the crystal blue sky. Between bites, he let his eyes wander back to the valley
below.
    He noted the minimansions across
from downtown Aspen looking like dollhouses built by the hands of
miniarchitects. There
is civilization , he thought, interacting fairly well with the natural order of
things in these mountains.
    Still looking east but above and
beyond the town, he could see Mount Massive and Mount Albert, the highest of
the Colorado fourteeners. Turning slightly to the north and shading his eyes,
he could make out the outline of Mount Holy Cross, though the cross itself was
hidden from view on the east face. A little more to the northwest, he traced
the slender outline of Snowmass and Maroon Peak, the second and third of the
Bells.
    He brought his eyes back south and
took in the vista of Pyramid Peak, looming so close he felt he could almost
touch it. This was a mountain he loved to climb. Beyond he could also see
Castle Peak. And because the day was so clear, in the far distance he could
make out the outlines of the mountains that made up the San Juan Range.
    Never, he realized, would he ever
take any of this for granted. He was at the top of the world, relishing one of
the best moments of his life.
    And now he wasn't alone. He heard
her cry before he saw her: a golden eagle, diving for a pika and getting it.
There was now one less rodent on the mountain and an eagle to share lunch with.
He watched as the bird chewed its prey, sitting motionless on the thermals.
    Now there's
something I wish I could do , he thought, sit up there all day and not have
to work hard. "You're beautiful," he called to the
eagle. "Beautiful."
    The bird moved her wings slightly,
like a princess acknowledging the presence of a commoner.
    Okay, bird, he
thought. I get
it. It's your sky, but