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We hiked for nearly an hour through a forest that looked just like the forest around the lodge. Then the snow cover grew sparser, and the ground rockier. The trees were further and further apart, and the hills were ever steeper.
By the end of the second hour we had left the forest behind and were navigating through a rocky landscape that was all jutting prominences thrust up from the earth like enormous, fearsome sundials.
We definitely weren't in Minnesota anymore.
The wind was stronger here and hide an icy bite to it, but there was very little snow to be seen on the ground.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're nearly there," he said. "Beyond those rocks on the horizon there is the start of a canyon that will take us to the very foot of that mountain. But if this place has a name, I'v
