The sky above the village was slowly changing from grey to the pale blue of dawn.

In the street below my apartment, the apprentice baker peddled by on his bicycle, dwarfed by his huge woven wicker basket full of delicious smelling rolls for the hotel down the street. 

I had already been up for 30 minutes packing all of my camera gear in yet another rucksack similar to the many that I have worn out during the last 25 years.

My appointment was to rendezvous at the helicopter pad at 7 a.m. with our guide, our three skiers from Idaho, and my cameraman.

As I climbed in and buckled up, there was anticipation in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. I was the last to arrive and handed my skis and tripod to Ricky Andenmatten. 

The pilot, who only spoke French, started throwing switches and doing things so that the turbine engine began to wind up and scream its high pitched whine. Now, the huge rotor blades above us began to bend upward from the center as the increasing r.p.m. told us we were going to be airborne any moment.

Then the normal shudder of the helicopter on takeoff began as if to signal that this incredible machine didn't really care too much about gravity when it was running at the right r.p.m.

The pilot now did whatever he was supposed to do with the controls, the tail lifted up, and we began to move forward and claw our way upward in the cold, thin, high mountain air.

Since I owned the film company and was paying for everyone's ride, I got to sit in the front seat to the left of the pilot and keep my movie camera running during most of the flight. That way, I would capture all of the necessary scenes for the editor to work with when we got back to my studio in southern California.

In the back seats were our Zermatt guide, Ricky Andenmatten, my other cameraman Don Brolin, and skiers, Bob Hamilton, Pat Bowman, and John Reveal.

As this magic machine climbed up towards the Theodal Pass that led from Zermatt to Italy, the sun was already etching beautiful, angular shadows across the untracked snow and the tumbling ice fields that in places had glacial ice over 1,000 feet deep.

To our right, the Matterhorn once again assumed its rightful role as the Altar in this vast Cathedral Of the Gods.

Barely 15 minutes after we left the village, we landed gently in deep powder snow on the northeast shoulder of Monte Rosa. The 15-minute flight would have taken us 24 hours if we had climbed it on our skis.  

Now it was time for Don Brolin and me to begin our filmmaking job. We did it with all of the skill and knowledge that had been honed and refined during thousands of descents on skis with camera in hand. Between us, we skied and filmed all over the world during the last 45 years. 

During the next six hours, under our direction, Bob, Pat, and John leaped over crevasses, rappelled down ice blocks, and carved endless turns in untracked powder snow.

Our guide, Ricky, kept us alive with his knowledge of where the ice bridges and crevasses would be, where we could ski and where we could die.

Gradually, we began to get the sequence "in the can." We would film them making a dozen or so turns and stop. We would then put our gear back in our rucksacks and ski down to somewhere below them and stop and set up our cameras for another angle, while they would wait for us to compose the shot. Then, following Ricky’s expert advice, I would tell them where to turn and where not to turn.

About 2 or 3 p.m., Ricky said, "I have a great surprise for you guys. Follow me. But be sure to stay in my tracks."

He then skied on down below us for three turns and disappeared down a slope that led right into a crevasse, hollering, "Follow me."

He was slowly and timidly followed by John, Pat, Bob and Don. I have always been suspicious of surprises on high mountain glaciers. Especially when people disappear into a crevasse. So, I took longer than usual to put my camera away and then I slowly sideslipped down to join them.

At the bottom of the powder snow slope that led down into the crevasse, everyone was standing in silent awe. Except for me; I was scared to death. As my eyes slowly got accustomed to the darkness, I became even more frightened. We were standing inside the beginning of a half mile long, 40-meter wide, 20-meter high, and tunnel of ice. At the far end, the sun was sending brilliant, beautiful slivers of fractured rainbows in every direction. Beside us, a ten-meter wide, one-meter deep river of pale grey-green, almost white, icy water was loudly tumbling its collection of rocks as it rushed noisily by.

Overhead, the massive ice blocks of the glacier were leaning together, forming a true "Cathedral of the Gods." The slanting ice walls were 40 or 50 feet high and had been undercut along their base by the swiftly flowing river.

Ricky was the only one who didn't appear to be scared when he said, "We can ski along this ice ledge by the river. It's only about a meter wide, so be careful. This black ice is a lot harder ice than you are used to skiing on. Be sure not to slip and fall into the river. If you do, you’ll get sucked under the ice and drown before I can rescue you."

This seemed like an appropriate time to ask Ricky what I thought was a very logical question.

"What makes you think this ice won't cave in on us while we're down here?"

He had a logical answer. "Warren, what makes you think it will?"

Ricky had probably been down here before, he knew what he was doing, and he wasn't going to risk his life just to show off for us.

As I inched slowly along on the black ice ledge, I was spellbound by the hanging icicles, the dripping water, the pale grey-green water rushing by, and the many different colors of the ice. I was really scared by the occasional rumble and thunderous explosion coming from the movement of some other block of ice somewhere else in the vast glacier. The noise of its movement was amplified and transmitted all the way to where I cowered.

About half a mile later, we emerged into the brilliant light at the end of this unbelievable Cathedral of the Gods. More beautiful and, for me, more religious than any of the many Cathedrals I have visited in my lifetime of world travel.  

When we finally began sidestepping to get up into the brilliant sunshine and powder snow on top of the glacier, it was a lot later than I thought. We had spent over an hour traversing only a half-mile under ice that was at least 400- or 500-feet thick.

Now, we would have to hurry so we could catch the last gondola before it left to take us down to the village at 6 p.m. Led by Ricky, everyone took off in a long, high-speed traverse for the last mile or two. 

Ahead of us and slightly off to the right, the Matterhorn showed us yet another of its many moods in the late afternoon sun. To the left of this incredible mountain was the Theodal Pass that leads to Italy, and a little farther to the left was Monte Rosa. I could still see our tracks etched by the late afternoon sun. Tracks that we had filmed ten hours and five or six miles ago.

Our skiers had left graceful turns, while Don and I had left long traverse and kick turn tracks as we moved a lot less skillfully from camera set-up to camera set-up.

Ricky, John, Pat, and Bob had very quickly skied away from Don and me. We were laden down with our rucksacks full of about 50 pounds of cameras and tripods. I also had an extra 20 birthdays to carry around, so that always adds a certain amount of weight to a day's work on a glacier. I was lurching along last in the wet tracks of slushy snow, when a flash of light caught my eye way off in the distance near the top of the Theodal Pass.

I stopped, and was barely able to make out two tiny dots carving figure eights in the late afternoon corn snow. They were headed for one of the high mountain huts to spend the night.

It was really a beautiful sight. So I took off my rucksack, unhitched my tripod, set it up, got out my camera, mounted it on the quick release, hooked up the battery belt, spun the prism so I could see through the view finder, focused the lens and then zoomed it to the maximum focal length telephoto available. Two hundred eight-five millimeters.

What I then saw close up was truly unbelievable.

The tracks they were leaving in the back lit corn snow were almost black. 

As I was reaching for the on switch on my camera, a thought occurred to me.

I've been recording scenes like this since 1949, so I could share them with millions of people.

So, I just watched these two skiers make 109 turns, while my own party of skiers traversed on ahead to the gondola. 

If I missed that last gondola, so be it.  

I saved that beautiful scene just for me. No one will ever see it. Nor will anyone ever see any pictures of the interior of my own private Cathedral of the Gods.

I never did turn my camera on.