Things fall apart on a mountainside, and low-cost choices begin to have their consequences. Three years ago I wanted to set up an alpine plant demography study, but had no external funding available – I had finished my PhD and was working on a part-time basis for Sky School, focusing on science education. I decided…

I was looking forward to my last day of fieldwork this season. No heavy gear to carry, no plants to collect. I had a simple job: climb a mountain and download the summer’s data from my weather station before the snows buried it for the winter. The first snow came by early September but melted…