from high altitude.

Anyone in search of an example of modern evolutionary pressure look no further than the common fly. 

Back in the city, like up high in the mountains, flies are ubiquitous.

But unlike the mountains, the cities are filled streets, buildings, parks and coffee shops full of people. City flies need to be smart and fast.  Any fly that is not keenly aware of its surroundings and has not the instinctual inclination to leap into the air and off into the safety of flight is doomed to be swatted by any of a million people. Flies are not be dullards, and any fly born without the inbuilt drive to flee is unlikely to survive long enough to pass on its disadvantageous genome to a future generation.

We have spent nearly three days up high in the backcountry camping in the mountains where a million variety of insects thrive. In fact even high up above the tree line where even in mid-August patches of snow remain in the share of large rocks, there are so many flies that an adventure-seeker is bound to spend as much time swatting away bugs as admiring the views. And it struck me as curious—though probably less so for the fly which I smacked dead upon my bare forearm—that there must be significantly less pressure, evolutionarily speaking of course, for mountaintop flies to carry a genome that knows better than to get smacked by a human—which a fly may rarely, if ever, see in is short life on the side of a mountain—than for one of its city cousins who encounter humans as a matter of course and have no such luxury as to leisurely investigate a bare forearm on a Friday afternoon.

inhospitable conditons

There were insects of all variety everywhere, swarming and buzzing in my ears, tickling my nose and even swooping with indifference into my mouth (which admittedly I didn’t realize was so regularly slack jawed) but even that wasn’t the biggest barrier to success atop a mountain. I had brought along a minimal watercolour set: every gram of weight mattered when you need to lug everything required to survive for three days in the backcountry up a literal cliff face. Seven pans squeezed into an altoids tin, a self-watering brush, a single black pen, and a thin watercolour notebook, all of it sealed into a zipper bag. Three of my hiking companions were lingering nearby as I tried to capture *something* and there was not a moment to spare in this absolute paradise atop a mountain. Amazing views. Unbeatable scenery. Not an art studio. I often art under non-ideal conditions, but occasionally I art at the borders of impossible. But apparently it was not.

Nearly every fly I encountered up on that mountain was indifferent to the risk of sudden death carried by my swiftly moving hand.

Nearly every fly sat patiently and still as I reached over and snuffed it away.

Smacking a city fly requires speed and agility on the part of a human, but one feels superhuman atop a mountain as the dull flies understand too little what awaits the looming shape and shadow of a hand moving towards them.

Evolution at work.