Can I find enough in a winter sunrise to replace the joy mountains give to those who approach on snowshoes? There is much joy in this sunrise that pales the deep blue of the night sky. It lights the highest mountain ridges as I sit at the computer listening to Hendrix, waiting for Susan’s croissants to cool.

Thirty years ago I would have been breaking camp on a morning like this; our eight honest dogs watching with anticipation the loading of the sled. It would have been Beethoven’s Sixth, not Hendrix playing on my walkman as the dogs pulled me down the Kuskokwim River ice toward home. Hoar frost greased the trail.

Today Aki and I will ski on ten inches of fresh snow. If God wills we’ll be doing the same in thirty years.