Toni: Gora Mamay, Russia

I was following a Russian woman toward a couloir deep in the backcountry somewhere in the middle of her country. I barely knew her, but she seemed good-natured. Toni was a schoolteacher in her 30s from Irkutsk who spoke conversational English with a British accent. Midway into the two-hour, 2,000-foot climb, I paused and wiped sweat