Winter!

Winter is here! It's clear and cold, for a week, and a few years back this is exactly the time that I would prepare my climbing gear for an ascent; only winter was of interest because it is in this season that everything is harder to do -- it's colder, the daylight hours are shorter, the ice remains unstable, you're burning more calories just to stay alive (much less, actually climb a mountain!)... I think the best expression of Winter that I've known -- other than my own avalanche escapes and many desperate nights in snow caves -- is in this wonderful piece by Vivaldi.