It was December 2014.

With K., a life companion, we had planned a circular trek — without a guide, navigation instruments, or a porter — in the Himalayas of northeastern Nepal. We started from Lukla, after flying there from Kathmandu on a 14-seat Tara Air plane (the riskiest thing we did on this expedition…). We walked for sixteen days and covered about 200 kilometers, climbing more than 15,000 vertical meters in total. It was a grueling route that brought us immense fatigue but also deep self-awareness and a profound sense of fulfillment. Endless ascents, passes above 5,000 meters, breathtaking landscapes, villages planted in the middle of nowhere and inhabited by the tireless Sherpa… (together with the Mongols of the steppe, the toughest people I’ve ever met).

Following the advice of an old friend — a connoisseur of the Himalayas — we made sure to be at the “Black Rock” just before sunset. “Only then will you see the Everest peak catch fire,” he had told me. From the ridge of Kala Patthar, at 5,644 meters that afternoon, we gazed upon the three towering summits and the Khumbu glacier lying at our feet.

It was from this very spot that the photo of the day was taken.

With our headlamps on, we descended toward the settlement of Gorakshep, on the periphery of a frozen lakebed blanketed with sand, to spend the night.