Small black and grey mountain peak tattoo centred on the upper back of a person with curly auburn hair, with black bra straps visible.

Mountain peaks on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of a mountain range sits centred between the shoulder blades on the upper back. The peaks are drawn with dark outlines and filled with grey shading, with the highest summit in the middle and lower ridges extending to each side. The skin is pale and the background is a blurred green foliage, so the tattoo stands out clearly against the body.

Back Mountain Peak

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last train to Carrow Pass leaves at twenty past six, and you are the only one on the platform still checking the timetable against the sky. Snow has come down the valley since noon, and the clerk at the window has already sold you a ticket you may not use. You stand under the iron canopy counting the peaks you can still make out above the cloud: three, then two, then the one with the notch like a bitten biscuit that your grandfather used to point at from the carriage window.

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The bell rings twice. A porter called Mo Hadley wheels a trolley of parcels past you and asks whether you are going up or coming down. You tell him you have not decided. He says the line will hold until the signal drops, and that the mountain never minds who waits for it. You laugh, and the laugh leaves your mouth as a small cloud.

The train arrives with its lamps burning yellow through the snowfall. You take the seat by the window, where the glass has frosted in the shape of a ridgeline. You breathe on it and draw the summit with one finger, the middle peak tallest, the shoulders falling away on either side, the same crest the engraver in Carrow once cut into the station's brass plate.

As the train pulls out, the cloud tears open for a moment and the real summit stands there, dark rock under a grey wash of snow, exactly as you drew it. You press your palm to the glass until the warmth goes. Far below, Mo lifts his lamp once, and the valley folds the light away.