This is the closest I got to the actual mountain; as you see, it’s actually starting just across this lake. The last “From the Air” claimed I was posting all the remaining gondola-ride photos from the trip up to the “Little Matterhorn,” which may be technically true, but then there was also the ride back down, from which you’ll see one shot below and likely more in future iterations of “From the Air.” In any case: during that ride up, I stood just next to a rather strikingly red-headed chap with whom I struck up a conversation and turned out he lives in San Diego, a city I know fairly well. Since we were both solo travelers, he and I then shared our explorations up top, and then decided we’d jointly wander over to this lake just downhill from the bottom of the first transfer station going down. He’d packed beer and snacks with the hope of having his photo taken drinking beer in the snow, but up top there weren’t good spots so we found a suitable spot with just enough snow here, lower down. You’ll see the pics he took of me enjoying one of his beers lower down, as well as a gallery of air bubbles trapped in ice around the lake as well.