The ground spilled out far before me a deepening blue. Over the horizon hung a pale and hallowed moon casting a shimmering luminescence onto edges of objects within view. Slender blades curling softly into spirals grew before me, surrounding me. The night sky was black, and there was only silence. I was alone, and I did not move…“Open your eyes,” I heard her say…“Open your eyes.” Slowly, softly, steadily…“Open your eyes.”

I couldn’t shake the memory of this dream, but kept it to myself as we went through our morning routine: breakfast, washing, water, packing…ready.

Before hitting the trail we made fragmented conversation with a local who climbs the pass everyday to construct walls like the one we camped behind. We assumed he did this for cattle, but they were so irregular they could have functioned to control drifting snow, water runoff, or other falling rocks. We awed at the scene. Just one man, day after day, collecting and carefully stacking thousands of stones into short walls that roughly lined the perimeter of the vast plateau.

As we left we consulted a large trail marker that warned of Ukumari (Andean bears) beyond “the seven serpents,” a notorious set of switchbacks that marked the beginning of the ascent to Salkantay Pass; the highest point of our journey. From our camp to the top of the slithering siete the weather changed at least seven times. Stifling sun, biting wind, frigid rain, sleet, dense fog, repeat. After we scaled the serpents we reached a clearing about the size of a football field where round pockets of tall brown grass freckled the hillsides leading up to large snowcapped domes, and little turf islands floated above a thick bed of mud. Suddenly, we were kids again in a game of Mario, jumping around on the green parapets as we made our way to another stone ruin.

There was word of a second glacial lake in the area, and I was convinced it was just over a steep escarpment of granite which Mel had no desire to scale, so we split up. Mel followed the trail as I started up the wall with the intention of meeting somewhere in the middle near the fabled lake.

The parallax motion between the surface I was climbing and the next ridge was so dynamic I started to suspect my instincts were wrong again. The jagged peaks of Nevado Salkantay disappeared into the clouds immediately overhead, its massive blue shelf hovering in mid-air and releasing falls of meltwater into the colossal crevasse once scoured from the mountain by megatons of slowly moving ice. Even on the razor edge of the dusty thalus which lined the interior of the rift, the water at its base could not be seen indicating that incredibly steep or concave walls of the brittle material were just underfoot. A huge rush of energy washed over me as I stood on the precipice staring into the abyss.

Looking around, I noticed Mel was a tiny speck in the distance, so I scrambled down and made double time to catch up. When we finally met I was so exhausted Mel took pity and withheld the “I told you so’s,” as we slowly climbed the rest of the way to Abra Salkantay.

At the top a ghostly, but beautiful environment unfolded in front of us as thick clouds slowly overtook the surrounding field of boulders and seemingly thousands of cairns stacked by others to express gratitude and commemorate their presence in the pass.

We explored the area for over an hour, going far off trail to a lookout point further down the rift, and climbing a granite slab that towered over a reflective pond in the distance.

The landscape changed in this magical place just as the weather had earlier. Every few hundred yards the scenery morphed into something out of a Lord of the Rings / StarWars mashup.

We made our way under unimaginably large boulders balancing above the trail, over areas blanketed with thick beds of green and black moss, down steep hillsides of orange and red rock, and through narrow passages paved with fine sand, to cliffs that overlooked what we came to affectionately call “The Great Valley.” Yes, like the one from The Land Before Time.

An expanse of cloud and sky opened before us beaming light onto shimmering veins of platinum that fell from the surrounding peaks, creating a masterwork of shadows and highlights in the valley below. Small trees grew among and above megalithic boulders which hovered over threads of river lacing the dark green floor. “That’s it,” we thought. “That will be our resting place for the night.”

As we climbed down a wet and rocky path we noticed that the streams running from the surrounding mountains completely filled the valley turning what we assumed was dense grass into wet bog. Cattle trudged along, sinking deep into the mud with every step. Where there was dry land there were also rocks or thick brambles. Mel spotted a small bluff a couple hundred yards from the trail just as the sun was beginning to tuck behind the mountains so we gave it a shot, knowing that we would be forced to make our way through darkness if it didn’t work out. The usable area turned out to be about six inches larger than our tent in each direction, soft and dry to the touch, hidden from any passersby; and positioned above, but within easy access to the water. Mel’s intuition paid off again, this time with a secure and comfortable night’s rest.