My guide kneels down in front of me and pulls the webbing tight around my boots. My toes tingle a little bit. “Maybe not quite so much,” I say, and he eases them back. Now the crampon is close to the sole of my shoe, but no longer wobbly. Walking is easier, the little metal points grab the grainy white ice and my feet are sure, secure.
Earlier that day we’d flown over in a tiny six-seater plane. Far below us, groups of tiny black dots moved along the surface — early morning hikers. The glacier was a white freeway, a black stripe down the middle, piles of gray and black moraine at the terminus. Every now and then, a bright blue pool would punctuate the white, ice blue, like no other color.
Then, I was standing on the frozen surface, looking down into a swirling rush of bitter cold melt, a moulin, a seemingly bottomless hole, refrigerated air whooshing out towards my sun baked face. The guide anchored his axe then, leaned out over the edge. I declined the offer of a closer look.
Under my feet, the ice was grainy, crunchy, a snow cone deconstructed. I leaned back and slowly made my way down the short steep slope to the edge of the glacier. My thighs burned, my knees protested, but I was upright, solid, balanced. The light reflected back up behind my glasses, everywhere the sparkle of diamonds, of crushed glass, of centuries of frozen clean cold water.