Such Great Heights

casually suggested. Normally I’m not one to decline food, but the locale, a fist of granite 8,000 feet in the sky, with vertiginous drops in every direction, had subdued my appetite. The helicopter that brought us here had barely disappeared back into the clouds. Wind whipped around my hiking poles, causing me to stumble to the ground in a pathetic crouch. A squirrel poked its head out and regarded me mockingly. But my 10 fellow hikers seemed less bothered by the surrounding abyss, so we settled down to enjoy