The alarm goes off at 5am. Not because I have to be anywhere. Because this is the best hour of the day and I refuse to sleep through it.

The coffee is ground the night before — a medium roast from a small operation in Missoula that sources from a single farm in Ethiopia. I make it in a Moka pot on the wood stove. It takes longer than a drip machine. That's the point.

By the time the coffee is ready, the sky is starting to lighten over the eastern range. The mountains go from black to purple to pink to gold in about forty minutes. I sit on the porch with the mug and watch it happen.

This photo is from Two Medicine Lake in Glacier. I'd camped there the night before, woke up before sunrise, and made coffee on the camp stove while the lake was still mirror-flat. The reflection of the mountains in the water was so perfect it looked like a painting.

Some mornings remind you that the world is very large and very beautiful and you are very lucky to be in it.