Matthew and Alison heal from a good Himalayan climb gone bad in the high-mountain Colorado residence of Matthew’s former professor and his wife, Basil and Nora.  Their new summer-season neighbors, Lisa and Murray—unequipped for air higher than the New Jersey shore—disrupt Matthew’s near monastic recovery, forcing him to confront what he and Alison sought to escape, a fame that Matthew’s recent climb demands.  Suddenly snow-bound by an early fall storm while Lisa’s altitude-induced cerebral edema worsens, the three couples find themselves wrestling with conflicting, deeply personal needs, as physical states transition from solid, to liquid, to air.