The Whites are wet, boulder-strewn, rising and descending at gradients that make the Manitou incline say "yikes."

Where earth stretches towards sky in the form of mountain, sky sends rain as welcome and cloud as an embrace. A mountain is where Michelangelo saw the finger of man stretching up to meet the finger of God reaching down. We call this image Creation of Man. It feels perfectly plausible the primordial mist of a...