This transformation sweeps through forests in days, transforming mountain slopes into a silent wildfire of breathtaking beauty. It’s a final surge of color between snow-dusted mountain peaks and ink black lakes — life’s last defiance before winter erases every hue. For centuries, this spectual has captivated mountaineers, artists and philosophers alike: Faced with an unstoppable cycle, repeating since the dawn of time, the human figure shrinks to its true scale. When the first alpine travellers arrived in the 18th century, seeking the thrill of the sublime, they were awed by the scale of the scenery — and reminded of their very own mortality. Today, we’ve perfected distraction from our universal insignificance. Yet faced with this high-alpine transformation, even the most eloquent self-entertainer falls silent.
In its eternal silence and artful play of colors, this landscape could be a painting by Ferdinand Hodler — if not for the lone rower tracing a line across the mirror surface of Lake St. Moritz. In one fluid movement, he becomes one with his skiff and the water below. Muscles tense as he pulls the oars, cold air fills his lungs, blood pumps through his veins, and his mind clears of all thoughts and desires. In a few months, this natural amphitheatre will echo with the engines of The I.C.E., but for now, the silence is broken only by the oar cutting through the waves.
Then it begins to snow. At first, just a few lost flakes drift through the crystal-clear autumn air, landing on pine branches and quietly extinguishing the fires of Indian Summer. One season ends, another begins. Soon, the valley will change once more: thick layers of snow will blanket forests, peaks, and villages under steel-blue skies. The edges of Lake St. Moritz will freeze, theliquid motion hardening into glass, molecules locking in slow, glittering devotion. On a fine January day, the same lonesome rower will stand atop thefrozen lake, puffer jacket and gloves on, breathing plumes of fog into the crisp mountain air, opening the door of his trusted car — ready for his first drive on the ice.
