WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.779
The air tasted of crushed stone and ancient

00:00:02.779 --> 00:00:03.240
ice.

00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:05.900
Elina adjusted the strap of her heavy pack,

00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:09.019
her boots crunching over the uneven, slate -gray

00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:09.560
shoreline

00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:11.480
as she rounded the final rise of the

00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:11.759
ridge.

00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:15.419
Before her, the world simply opened up, breathless

00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:16.039
and vast.

00:00:16.899 --> 00:00:18.920
Nested deep within the untouched wilderness

00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:21.260
lay a body of water so intensely colored

00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:23.100
it seemed almost unnatural.

00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:25.539
The lake caught the harsh noon daylight

00:00:25.539 --> 00:00:28.640
and refracted it into a striking, luminous glacial

00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:29.000
blue,

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.800
glowing like a sapphire dropped among the giants.

00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:35.100
Looming all around it were rugged, weather -scarred

00:00:35.100 --> 00:00:35.539
peaks,

00:00:35.979 --> 00:00:38.420
their upper reaches dusted with perennial snow,

00:00:38.820 --> 00:00:40.979
standing as silent sentinels over the valley.

00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:42.659
There was no wind.

00:00:43.219 --> 00:00:44.880
The surface of the water was a sheet

00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:46.060
of flawless glass,

00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:48.979
creating a mirror so precise that the jagged

00:00:48.979 --> 00:00:49.820
mountain ridges

00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:53.640
overhead were duplicated in absolute, upside -down perfection

00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:54.659
beneath the surface.

00:00:55.420 --> 00:00:57.000
Elina felt a strange vertigo,

00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:58.719
as if she were standing on the edge

00:00:58.719 --> 00:00:59.740
of the sky itself,

00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:03.159
suspended between two identical worlds of rock and

00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:03.479
light.

00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:05.700
She knelt by the water's edge,

00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:07.980
scooping a handful of the crystal -clear liquid

00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:08.579
to her lips.

00:01:09.099 --> 00:01:10.920
It was icy, sharp, and pure,

00:01:11.299 --> 00:01:13.420
a taste of the high mountains untouched by

00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:13.739
time.

00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:16.079
For a long while, she sat in the

00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:17.640
absolute silence of the wilderness,

00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:20.319
letting the dramatic scenery wash away the noise

00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:20.799
of the life

00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:21.819
she had left behind.

00:01:22.379 --> 00:01:24.760
In that quiet basin of stone and glacial

00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:25.060
blue,

00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.120
she wasn't just observing the landscape.

00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:29.219
She had finally become a part of it.