At the top of Mt. Pilatus, someone placed a cross.

Not a grand monument. Not some towering structure meant to dominate the landscape. Just a small metal cross marking the highest point. A quiet statement that someone had been here before you, looked out at the same view, and felt compelled to leave something behind.

I shot this from the observation deck just below the summit. The clouds were moving fast that day, wrapping around the ridges, obscuring the valley below. The cross appeared and disappeared as the weather shifted. One moment visible, the next swallowed by white.

There's something about summit markers. They satisfy our need to name things, to claim territory, to prove we made it to the top. But they also feel temporary. The mountain doesn't care about the cross. It was here long before anyone thought to mark it, and it'll be here long after the metal corrodes and falls away.

I made this frame when the clouds cleared just enough to show the full ridge line. The cross tiny against all that stone and sky. A reminder of scale. Of permanence versus ambition.

The mountain always wins.