Out under the overwhelming stars and relative silence of the Himalayan night, the words of Gaston Rebuffat echo through time and space:
In this modern age, very little remains that is real. Night has been banished, so have the cold, the wind and the stars. They have all been neutralized: the rhythm of life itself is obscured. Everything goes so fast and makes so much noise, and men hurry by without heeding the grass by the roadside, its colour, its smell and the way it shimmers when the wind caresses it. What a strange encounter then is that between man and the high places of his planet! Up there he is surrounded by the silence of forgetfulness…
- Gaston Rebuffat, Starlight and Storm
While it's always hard to be away, it's always good to be back.