A private edition

Chapter Three

Chamonix

the mountains

Chamonix · Haute-Savoie · 8–11 June 2026

The Aiguille du Midi, snow-fresh granite against blue sky

The Aiguille du Midi, fresh snow in June

North and up. The one chapter where the weather had an opinion of its own.

Setting out

Where it began

Opening paragraph, written once the photographs and the voice note land. Where the morning started, what the light was doing, the first coffee of the day.

The red train at Montenvers, the ice below
The heart of it

The middle of it

The main movement of this chapter: the journey, the meal, the crossing, the long afternoon, whatever carried it.

Cloud sitting low on the Mer de Glace
The tunnel cut into the glacier
A snowball in June, 3,842 metres up
An aside

A lighter human aside. The joke that kept coming back, the small disaster, the thing nobody planned.

In their words

What people said

The best of what was said at the time, tidied only enough to read.

“A line somebody actually said goes here.”
Name
Golden hour

Where it ended

Closing prose. Where the day landed, what the sky did, dinner, the sound of the place at night.

The grill box, loaded
Escargots, by now a habit
Blue hour on the snow, from the square

A short italic envoi, the feeling to leave on.