You are standing at the edge of the forest.

The trees thin and then give way entirely to the broad apron of rock and debris at the mountain’s foot — the detritus of thousands of years of cliff erosion accumulated at the base of the walls.

You look up.

The cliffs rise.

They rise in the vertical, unchanging way that cliffs of this kind rise — not leaning, not tapering, simply going straight up, dark and wet and enormous.

The waterfalls descend in white threads against the dark face.