The rock dared me to trust it. “I’ll be a good handhold,” it seemed to whisper. “I promise!” Though it probably weighed as much as me, the rock seemed to have a tenuous connection to its neighbors on the side of the cliff. I studied the obstruction skeptically, then tried to work my way around it.

Once I had lifted myself up to eye-level with the questionable boulder, my curiosity got the better of me. I nudged it with a finger. The rock came loose immediately, and I had to jump aside before it crushed my legs or knocked me off the side of the mountain. My hands had been unprepared for the maneuver, and they scrambled for purchase on the steep slope. Mercifully, my grip stabilized, and I continued my shaky ascent as a plume of dust billowed up from the trail of the fallen boulder.

I gained the ridgeline, and as the summit came into view I noticed for the first time that the south slope of Mt. Chief Joseph possessed vibrant streaks of red and orange. The mountain that had appeared from the north to be dark and humorless as a drill sergeant turned out to have a sunburned backside. I had hoped from the summit to gain an unsurpassed view of the Wallowa Range, but even though I was only two hundred feet beneath the highest peaks in the area, one mountain to the south was hogging all the scenery, blocking views with its broad stance.

I sat next to a mountain goat jawbone and chewed on some granola, while above me, clouds billowed and swirled listlessly about, too lazy to develop into thunderheads. They were content to stay fluffy and mild, no matter what the forecast might have said.

The change in the weather outlook gave me time to contemplate my surroundings, although the vista was not the uplifting scene I had been expecting. The Wallowa Range of northeast Oregon was made up of gray, joyless mountains. They could have used some wildflowers to liven up their appearance, but heavy snows and cold spring temperatures had delayed the emergence of the floral groundcover. The same lingering snowpack had dissuaded me from exploring the interior of the range, limiting my explorations to this one crest on the outer edge of the ring of mountains.

These peaks stood like a circle of buffalo, protecting their flanks and hindquarters by presenting a formidable, unwelcoming face to the surrounding plains. I’d been forced to climb one vertical mile in order to be able to stand atop one of those buffalo heads and peer into the heart of the circular range. The strata of all the summits I saw made these mountains look like wrinkly, old elephants… proud creatures who don’t realize how ridiculous they look to the other beasts of the jungle. They seemed haughty, begrudgingly providing water and timber for the communities at their feet, but otherwise standing as tall and aloof as the fortress walls of a reclusive king.