GHOST STORY
Nat Patridge greets the “mountain specter” on the summit ridge. In almost two decades of climbing the Grand, Patridge had only experienced this optic phenomenon twice before: a precise silhouette of his body cast on clouds boiling in the void below and encircled by a rainbow. A moment after this was taken, I stood beside Patridge, enlarging the scale of “our” ghostly presence, and it seemed to rush at us. We both startled, and then laughed at having been afraid of our own shadow.