It's hard not to fall in love with a place like this. The treeline extends to over 11000 feet, forests of spruce and fir shrouding the hillsides, cliffs and waterfalls from view, snow hangs in the branches, the clearings lie covered with a thick accent of white. Bright blue skies hang overhead, individual clouds competing for your attention with the snow-covered pockets of the valley floor below. Trails weave their way down the mountainside, skiers congregate in the clearings deciding where to go next before disappearing into the woods, sets of entry and exit tracks their only marks visible from the lifts.

Heading up the timberline chair things begin to change, the spruce forests replaced by windswept tundra, plants struggling to survive, the tallest barely rising above the snow pack.