Runner up in the 2025 Creatives Flash Fiction Contest, kindly supported by Fort William Mountain Festival and the Highland Bookshop.
Across I move, dutifully trying to stay upright. The snow below, the peak above, a traverse is the only way to make progress. I feel unbalanced, a little scared, and my foot slips; the snow falls far below from under my feet. This track will lead me to a gully that has been beckoning all year.
Weeks ago, I was on this same mountain, unthinkable that this terrain would welcome a being other than a mountain goat. Yet, there’s something about the crystals of snow, how they compact and cushion. They call.
The impassable can become a pilgrimage with only the change of a season. The previously inaccessible has become irresistible, almost as if a new dimension can be opened when the sleeping, white giants return.
I push forward, my skis gliding along the snow, off camber and off balance, but gleeful as my prize awaits.
Lead image: Along the cliffs of Cairn Lochain by Al Todd