By the time we'd reached the ridge, the late afternoon sky was a palette of reds and oranges and deep azure.
Once the soldiers reached the ridge's crest, almost 6,000 feet above sea level on the side of a peak called Sautalu Sar, they found fresh footprints on the trails, and parapets of rock from where Taliban fighters often fire rifles and rocket-propelled grenades down onto this outpost.
After commencing the attack early in the morning of 15 July, the battalion reached the ridge and began digging in.
When we reached the ridge, the narrow path, a section of the Appalachian Trail, became a wide swath of churned-up mud.
Lead elements of the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions had reached the ridge just minutes before, having travelled 9 km in less time.
As the 6th Battalion reached the ridge, the companies carried on towards Gun Ridge, while Lieutenant-Colonel Walter McNicoll established the battalion headquarters below Bolton's Ridge.
The brigade was ordered to occupy a position on the Aleppo-Alexandretta roandand to clear Turkish trenches on the ridge to the west of Aleppo, but when they reached the ridge line on 26 October, the position had been evacuated.
This route heads up steadily, the final ascent is very steep, well worth the effort to reach the ridge.
After the fire crossed the river, all the other smoke jumpers were fixated on reaching the ridge.
And as you reach the ridge, it's laid out before you: glittering fabric turrets, like some Bedouin encampment - and looming over it, the poised glory of Uluru.
