This February, I was hiking at 14,000 feet in the Chilean Altiplano in the northernmost Atacama Desert. From a distance, land seems to be a mirage, a blip between atmospheric skies and circular lagoons of the purest celadon, wrapped in boas of white salt. When I descend to the salt flats crunching over shards of salt and dried clay, my footfall breaks the silence. As I walk along a blue shore, my body, becomes an instrument snagged and played on by constant wind. The elements of air, salt, water, and molten red land made from fire, vibrate through to my bones. Tracing the edges of the saline lagoon I bend down to collect blazing pink flamingo feathers afloat in the pastel water; gifts of flight.

See Book Cover - Gretel Ehrlich's
"The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold"