It had been too long since I last picked up my camera—or so it felt. When this happens, a sense of emptiness engulfs me: I feel purposeless, unable to express myself, as if the world loses its edges and beauty. For me, photography isn’t just an art—it’s a way to see, to feel, to exist. So, after a sleepless night, with the darkness still thick, I got out of bed at an hour most would find unthinkable. I packed my gear and set off.
My destination? The Simplon Pass, a place that holds an almost magical aura for me. Lately, I’ve been heading up there often, skiing down its slopes, carving tracks in the fresh snow of its peaks. But that day, I had a different goal. On the way, just before the village of Gabi, the valley opens for a few fleeting seconds, revealing the Tälligletscher. It’s not a grand glacier like the Aletsch or Gorner, but it has an intimate, almost hidden beauty that has drawn me in for years. From afar, its slopes look perfect—a skier’s dream. I’ve often pictured myself gliding down those pristine lines, the icy wind brushing my face.
Photographing it, however, is a challenge. The surrounding mountain ridge and near-constant low clouds often shroud it from view. The vantage point, just before a small tunnel, doesn’t help: a narrow layby on the roadside, where the risk of a speeding lorry is real. You can’t park nearby, and a relentless, freezing breeze forces me to huddle in my jacket. It’s easy to feel discouraged and seek out more convenient scenes. But if it were easy, it wouldn’t be for me.
This time, though, everything aligned. Recent snowfall, followed by a high-pressure system and strong winds aloft, had cleared the basin. The Tälligletscher, with its peaks—Tällihorn and Tossenhorn—stood in all its glory. I set up a telephoto lens with a polarising filter, capturing a panoramic sequence of five images to cut through any haze and achieve maximum clarity. My plan was to focus on the blue hour, that magical twilight before dawn when the world takes on a single, deep blue hue. But then, an airliner crossed the sky above, its orange and pink reflections a clear sign: a stunning sunrise was coming.
I chose to wait, standing still in the biting cold, the silence broken only by my breath condensing in the air. After half an hour, the sun peeked over the horizon, bathing the snow in a soft pink glow, as if the mountain were awakening. It felt like watching a performance scripted by an invisible director.
One dream—the photographic one—I’ve fulfilled. Now, the skiing dream remains: to carve down those perfect slopes. Perhaps one day.
