I had to excuse myself from a dinner party early. I had to limit myself to one glass of wine…well two. I had to sleep downstairs in the guest bed to not wake anyone up at the 3:15am alarm. I had to see Scout’s sad eyes as I told him he couldn’t go with me. I had to climb a mountain on skis in pitch black night by head lamp. I had to freeze my balls off putting my equipment on, only to shed it a half hour later as I heated up. I had to ski down on shitty ice snow that felt like skiing on river rocks. All for one photograph of a tree? I must admit I was thinking about it the day before, asking myself, “What the hell am I doing?” But experience told me I would regret not going and that the pain I was putting myself through to accomplish this would be worth it. I am constantly telling my son that anything worth anything, is hard. And I had to remind myself of this when I looked up at the clock at 3:15am. I don’t even know that I acknowledged the reward as I clicked the shutter on this sunrise. Maybe because I knew just how hard that snow was going to be on the way down! But as I walked up to the Jeep, and thanked my guide, an overwhelming sense of remorse came over me that my adventure was over, and it was only 9am. I went over to Dark Horse for a Cappuccino and whilst waiting, I began to contemplate my day. As I sipped my coffee, the pains I had incurred that day began to slip away, and the only thing left was a glowing sense of exuberance in the experience that can be obtained by only having two…well maybe it was three glasses of wine the night before.