Summer Mountain-Trip USA · 2025

Novemer 1, 2025

The smooth, blue-green lake lies in a rocky basin like a magical potion. Small white flowers struggle to bloom on the sparse, high alpine meadow on which I sit. Behind me, my husband rustles around in our small trekking tent. One of the tent pegs isn't put in perfectly yet. But it doesn't matter. Because there is so much perfection, so much beauty around us that I hardly dare move, fearing that it might all shatter into shards.

Here we are. In the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains above the tree line, where it's only warm enough and snow-free enough to hike for three months out of the year. Over 10000 feet high, no roads, no infrastructure, no electric lights, no buildings, no signal.

Only a few locals come here occasionally to climb and fish. It's wild wilderness outside of national parks, campgrounds, and civilization. Public land that is available to everyone, similar to the "Allemannsretten" in Norway. Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photos is the guiding principle, which is actually well repsected out here. In paradise. Where carpets of flowers bloom, turquoise lakes glisten, a few remnants of snow lurk, and you are completely on your own. Wild.

September 6, 2025

Everything is covered in dust. Absolutely everything. And because I'm sweating like a horse, the dust sticks to me like a camouflage layer. My backpack: gray, my shoes: gray, my arms: gray, the mountain wall: gray. Or in other words: I'm dying while being literally invisible. But I'm also at the top. At one of the quiet, high alpine lakes in Grand Teton National Park in the USA. With my backpack, tent, and hubby. He's dusty too. And not because he's so old.

We have covered five miles and over 3000 feet of elevation gain on hot, sunny switchbacks to get to a green patch of water, round-shaped like a coin, nestled in a basin of glacial stones, the rugged peaks of the Teton Range as a backdrop. Or in other words: it's phantasmagorically awesome.
What I don't know at the time is that it gets even better. Behind the lake lurks the gaping “Nothing” from Michael Ende's “The Neverending Story,” and the next morning everything is made of gold. But the best thing: We see a very rare, endangered little animal that lives exclusively at altitudes between 8000 and 13000 feet. It is the ultimate embodiment of fluffiness, probably invented it, screwd it together, and had it listed as a UNESCO World Heritage. I never thought I would see it live and right in front of my me in my lifetime—in a place high up in the mountains at twilight and with a bouquet of flowers in its mouth. Come along and discover the magic!