Taken at Campamento Elefante, Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru on September 6th, 2014

I didn’t want to take this picture. I really didn’t. I had caught a cold and that, combined with hiking 10 miles a day at 15,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes, was taking its toll on my system. As we rolled into our camp on day 6 of this 10 day trek all I could think about was how much I wanted a piping hot cup of tea and then to curl up and go to sleep. But halfway through the tea I peered out of my tent flap and saw a slit in the clouds letting some sun peek through. SUNUVA!!! Sleep or shoot, sleep or shoot? Thankfully the photographer in me was stronger than the sloth and I wearily managed to plop my camera down by this stream just as a laser of sunlight struck the base of Cuyoc, a 18,000-ft mountain in the Cordillera Huayhuash.

Special note for climbers: you’re looking at about a 3,500 foot face composed almost entirely of columnar basalt.