I've been on another planet.

The alarm was set to 4am pacific standard earth time. We were both awake--fully conscious and communicating--by 4:15am pacific standard earth time. It was dark and cold, the thermometer said 5 degrees inside the tent and we would soon learn it was below zero outside. The sun had yet to even cast a glow on the horizon. We had filled steel thermos bottles with boiling hot coffee the night before and stuffed them to the feet of our sleeping bags where we fished them from that morning. Coffee too hot to drink was poured into thermos tops as we both sat up in the tent and watched an episode of our favorite tv show play on the small screen of the iPhone for a half an hour or so while we let the coffee warm us from the stomach out to our feet, toes, hands, and fingers. A little movement necessary to finish preparing to leave the tent got the blood pumping, further warming us.

We were at 12,000 feet in the middle of winter. Our small tent was surrounded by an expanse of snow that only occasionally was interrupted by some granite but only because the granite face was too steep to hold snow.

It was still completely dark when we left the tent. With no moon in the sky the only lights besides the stars above us were the lights attached to our heads, casting two cones of light a short distance in front of us. Besides that it was completely dark, and cold, the thermometer said -5 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cold but I was warm, every inch of my skin was covered with some sort of insulating clothing.

As I slowly made my way from the tent upwards and onwards into the cold dark landscape in front of us I realized I was on another planet. There was no light and no heat here, no signs of life except for the two of us. We were separated by 50 feet or so, leaving us to trudge through the snow quietly on our own. It was quiet, there was no wind, and the only sounds I could hear were the crunching of snow under our feet and my own breathing made louder by the face mask that I was covering my mouth with to warm the thin air coming into my lungs at each audible breath. It struck me then and is still a constantly recurring thought that the experience must be exactly what it's like to be on another planet. I legitimately feel as though I have been on another planet. Check that off the list.