Breach Pass

Mathis saw it before he even read the paper label tied to the wire gate. A broad orange HMS carabiner, the anodizing worn away along the edge, its screw sleeve seized with whitish dust. He had known it for six years. Léon called it “the lock,” because it took two hands to close it in freezing weather. It had never belonged to Noé Perrin.

The avalanche’s sole survivor remembers an ascent in which everyone lived.