Most backpackers have felt it, that moment of quiet exultation when you’re sitting somewhere in the back country and you’re gifted with a moment of glorious wonder, of abject humility, at the display before you. In our case, it was an August evening in our camp next to Crabtree Meadow in the southern Sierra Nevada, looking east to the sun setting on Mount Whitney, 14,505 feet, and its companion spires.