K.M. Kostyal
Wind River Range, Wyoming

For me, just the thought of the Winds—Wyoming’s Wind River Range—keeps me sane. Immovable, timeless, absolutely silent in their graniteness, they’re an unchanging haven in an otherwise wildly skittering and teetering world.

You can only get there by walking in, a little pilgrimage they require, but once there, the peaks close around you and become the whole world. Even the weather—crazy, tempestuous storms that echo and crash and turn gorges into instant rivers—seems barely there, momentary light shows against those dauntless mountains.

K.M. Kostyal is author of Stonewall Jackson: A Life Portrait.