Adam’s Peak is one of the most remarkable pilgrimage mountains in the world, venerated simultaneously by four of Sri Lanka’s major religions: Buddhists believe the footprint-shaped impression at the 2,243-metre summit was left by the Lord Buddha; Hindus attribute it to Lord Shiva; Muslims to Adam; and Christians to St. Thomas. For pilgrims and adventurers alike, the nighttime ascent is transformative. Beginning at midnight in Dalhousie, the trail, illuminated along its entire length by strings of coloured lights during the season (December to May), climbs steadily through dense forest, past chai stalls dispensing steaming sweet tea, through a pilgrim community of warmth and determination. The trail narrows and steepens as you approach the summit, and the final staircase feels nearly vertical. Then comes the reward: a dawn that colours the sky in shades of tangerine and rose, and the peak’s perfect triangular shadow, a meteorological phenomenon of astonishing geometry, cast westward across the misty lowlands below.