There’s something profoundly satisfying about arriving back at your vehicle with you leg smoked after a hard charging backcountry mission and realizing that the breakfast menu is still available at McDonalds (dos egg burrito por favor). These are the actions of a dawn patroller. Cheers to early risers:
“The alarm goes off. It would be so easy to bail. You could hit the snooze and crawl back into the warmth of your bed and slip into another dream. But that fantasy ends as the aspiration of the morning’s reality slowly builds. Your feet touch the cold floor, and the ritual begins. Coffee brews, gear is packed, and you step into the dark. The cold catches your breath. You slide into the skin track and the world comes alive. We all have rituals that define who we are. At Black Diamond, the Dawn Patrol is ours. To live is to rise.”
