Adam's Peak is a cone of 2,243 metres standing alone above the tea country of central Sri Lanka, and near its summit is a hollow in the rock the size and shape of a footprint. Four religions climb to it, and each gives the print to someone else. Buddhists say it is the Buddha's, Hindus Shiva's, and Muslims and Christians Adam's, left by the first step he took after Eden; in Sinhala the mountain is Sri Pada, the sacred footprint. All four walk up the same stairs on the same nights. The season runs from the December full moon to the one in May, when the trail is lit and the summit temple open. For the rest of the year the lights are off and the top sits in cloud. Long before it was Adam's Peak this was Samanalakanda, butterfly mountain, for the butterflies that come to it in numbers every year; an old belief says they come there to die.
Two in the morning is the usual start, from the village of Dalhousie: three or four hours up some 5,500 stone steps worn smooth by centuries of feet, steep and unbroken at the end. Ahead of you and below you the lanterns mark out the switchbacks all the way down the mountain. Small shrines and tea stalls stay open along the steps all night, and you stop to warm your hands on sweet black tea. At the top everyone works round to the western edge of the platform with the sun coming up behind them. The mountain throws its shadow out over the mist as a clean dark pyramid, although the peak itself is a rounded cone: the sides of the shadow run parallel and only appear to meet, the way rails do in the distance. It holds for a few minutes, then slides back and is gone. Beside the shrine hangs an old bell, and each pilgrim strikes it once for every time they have made the climb, so the summit rings all morning, first-timers with a single note and lifelong pilgrims going on and on.