There is no way to quietly open the packaging of a Snickers bar.

It's even harder when your hands are cold and somehow harder still when you're trying

desperately not to wake your tent mates in the middle of the night.

I unzip the chest pocket of my puffy jacket.

Serpitiously removed the candy bar I'd been warming there all night and did my best not

to fumble with the wrapper.

Finally, feeling utterly pleased with myself, I'd opened it enough to take a bite.

I nod through the partially frozen candy without making a peep, then cozyed up in my

zero-degree sleeping bag and listened to the creaking, groaning glacier as I waited for

my shivering to subside.

What the hell am I doing here I wondered as I drifted in and out of sleep?

What am I doing, perched at the edge of planet hot, stuffed in a tent between two virtual

strangers, miles from the nearest road, and farther from anyone I know.

I didn't have an answer the next morning, but I did have chocolate all over my face.

I didn't realize it until my tent mate, Gill, asked how my candy bar supply was.

I shrugged non-committally, hoping not to share.

I think there's some in your hair, he laughed.

Everyone was feeling chipper that morning.

We'd spent a miserable afternoon fearing loads of supplies at a steep, alder-choked hillside,

then another few days crossing the Kenae National Wildlife Refuge to get to the base of the

ski-lack glacier.

Here, we set up our tents and were promptly caught in a four-day storm.

...