I captured this photo on the banks of the Payette River, just behind Cougar Mountain Lodge on Highway 55. I was out taking photos alone that afternoon. I only ventured from my SUV for five minutes to compose and capture this image. There was no wind but the 15 degree temperatures still chilled me. 

I retreated to my SUV’s heated seats and drove on.

I wondered how cold a lone traveler on horseback in the 1800s would have been in this exact situation. It was snowing too hard to light a fire and it’s about 20 miles from here to Cascade, Idaho, the nearest town. That would take about 5 hours on horseback in these conditions. 

The heavy snowfall was busy obscuring the highway, making it easy for me to imagine a world without GPS, weather apps, or instant communication. In that era, the only sound would have been the Payette River roaring through the canyon, not my podcast.

I often leave work at 5:00 PM, head up the highway, shoot until dark, and return home in time for dinner—a reality our ancestors could never have imagined. Nature still humbles me though; my camera battery died immediately after this shot. The freezing air sucked the power right out of it. I was unable to continue.

That dead battery served as a tiny reminder of the relentless challenges humanity faced every day for centuries and yet, they survived.