In the spring of 1863 the landscape painter Albert Bierstadt began his second tour across the Rocky Mountains. Struck by the view of an enormous mountain, he made a sketch where a dark grey storm crosses an imaginary horizon of gigantic peaks blown out of proportion, and titled the painting 'A storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie', in honour of his travelling companion's wife. The mountain, unnamed until then, took the name of the woman Bierstadt secretly loved. Starting from this story, the book asks whether trying to reach a summit is both an audacity and a frustration, and answers that naming a mountain is an act charged with poetry: it speaks of the desire of possession and permanency, and reminds us, through creation, of the memory of those we have loved.