Giggles echoed through the dark Wyoming night, the smooth swoosh of skins on refrozen snow lulling me into a sense of calm. The neon glow of stars scattered light across the jagged peaks as Laura, Sophia and I made our way into the alpine in Grand Teton National Park, WY.

“What kind of mischief are you guys up to?” my husband had joked on the phone the evening before, out of town for work. “We’re having girls’ night,” I told him while I filled my bag with snacks and crammed a fresh set of batteries into my headlamp.

I had ceremoniously set my alarm for 11:45 p.m., grabbing a few restless hours of sleep before our moonlit start, butterflies in my stomach as I prepared to walk into the night with two close friends.

We chatted about relationships and new jobs as the sky brightened, extinguishing our headlamps as we climbed above treeline and threw skis on our packs. A few hours of wallowy bootpacking later, the three of us topped out at a narrow notch 6,000 feet above the valley floor, congratulating ourselves for reaching the summit after slogging through a long, dark night.

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