At 69, a hiker with no prior experience in backpacking or knowledge of land art joined a hiking trip to Refuges d’Art in the mountainous region of Haute-Provence, France. She was invited by her friend Jackie, a nature documentary filmmaker, along with friends Wendy and Sasha. The journey included sleeping in sculptures created by renowned land artist Andy Goldsworthy, who is known for crafting temporary artworks using natural materials like ice, stones, and wood. The group met in Digne-les-Bains, a mountain town in the UNESCO geopark of Haute-Provence, which serves as the starting point for a 10-day, 150-kilometer (93-mile) hiking route. Along the way, they could stay in seven off-grid, free sleeping cabins, each transformed by Goldsworthy into unique pieces of land art. Over four days, they hiked about 45 kilometers (28 miles) and visited three of these refuges. Their first stop was the Maison Alexandra David-Neél, a museum dedicated to the adventurous life of Alexandra David-Neél, a French woman who became the first Western woman to enter the Forbidden City of Lhasa in Tibet in 1924. The keys to the refuges were kept there. On the first day, they encountered one of three sentinels—2 to 3-meter-tall cairns made by Goldsworthy without mortar or cement. Jackie used a satnav to find a goat path, but they instead followed a marked trail for long-distance hikers. They hiked through areas filled with colorful wildflowers, orange moths on purple brush, and the scent of Spanish broom. They imagined ice-age ancestors walking the same trails and reached the first refuge, La Forest, as the sun set. Inside, they found a cylindrical obelisk made of light grey stone, ending in a porthole to the sky, illuminated by natural light. That evening, they ate freeze-dried mushroom risotto, played cards, and shared stories. Sasha taught them two German words, neither of which were relevant to the group. They slept on sturdy mats, but Wendy and Sasha’s mats made loud noises when they rolled over. The next day, they picnicked by a river and climbed again. Sasha and the hiker agreed that it was psychologically better to be told something is hard and then find it easier. They continued to the second refuge, Le Vieil Esclangon, in a mountain-top meadow. They lit a fire and saw a serpentine sculpture made of dried mud. They ate freeze-dried pad thai and slept to the sound of wind and rain, waking to the sound of a mouse scurrying around. They arrived at the third refuge, La Ferme Belon, in time for a late lunch. In the basement, they saw interlinked semicircular stone arches resembling a dragon’s body. Upstairs, they found sleeping platforms with a colony of bats above. They had pizza and cold rosé, confessing to Jackie that they would have preferred to know how challenging the hikes were. Jackie responded that they wouldn’t have come if she had told them. Andy Goldsworthy once said: "To me there is a tremendous difference between works of art that we observe in a museum just for a few minutes and works of art in which we live for a short while, in which we sleep. To sleep in a sculpture is a wonderful idea." They returned the keys in Digne-les-Bains and soaked in the town’s hot springs, already planning Jackie’s next adventure.