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“The contrast between the familiar and the exceptional was everywhere around me…the impression was of a plodding indefatigable and distant past that had crashed intact through barriers of time into its own future. I liked it.” – Gregory David Roberts

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It’s 10 am. There’s a box in the corner gathering dust. I haven’t opened it in about two years, but it’s the first thing I would grab in the event of a fire. In it I find an old notebook I had with me on a few expeditions, and proceed to play that time travel game of journal roulette when you randomly flip to a page and drop in on an earlier version of yourself:

Kashmir- 9/8/11. Motion. It’s been a non-stop travel sequence since I met up with climbers Stephan Siegrist, Denis Burdet, David Lama. and photographer Stefan Schlumpf in New Delhi a few days ago. We have been careening down endless bumpy roads, through dust, smoke and constant horns on our way towards Atoli, a village in the Jammu Kishtwar region of Kashmir. On the first day we drove 16 hours, and 12 more yesterday. At any point I could’ve reached out and touched another bus or truck with my hand- either with the grain or against it.