By the time we reached the ridge near Coffin Mountain, the air had gone thin with silence, the kind of silence that makes you wonder if you’ve crossed some invisible line between the real world and whatever lies beyond it. Quartzville Creek had already worked its madness into our boots and bones. Mud on the ankles, lungs full of pine and phantom echoes and there it was.

Mount Jefferson.

Goddamn monolithic. Like some ancient god clawed his way out of the Cascades and froze mid-roar.

I had taken this shot before, weeks ago maybe, but I butchered it. Oversaturated, overcooked… the kind of edit you make when your mind’s half chewed from caffeine and sleep debt. So I went back. Dug through the digital graveyard. This time I slowed it down. Let the shadows breathe. Pulled back the false fire and let the snow speak for itself.

This wasn’t just a peak. It was a confession written in stone and ice.

The trees in the foreground were like blackened matchsticks, scorched sentinels whispering secrets to each other. And Jefferson stood behind them, half-buried in a storm of memory and myth. I swear I could hear it humming. Low and guttural. The song of tectonic bones grinding beneath time.

Robert was somewhere behind me, probably fiddling with exposure settings or cursing his lens cap. Meanwhile, I stood there like some deranged prophet with a Nikon, trying to trap a mountain in a frame. Not for glory. Not for likes. Just to prove to myself maybe, that I was there. That I had seen it. That we had made it through the madness together.

So yes, I posted this before. But it wasn’t right. It was noise. This version? This is the truth in all its brutal, silent clarity.

The madness continues.