h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Day 8

Pato gets up early and makes the preparations like he has done many times before with his father. He tethers the horses with enough slack for them to feed and drink for a few days. The next stretch is definitely not suitable for horses. From the bags, he takes the special boots Uri made for him years ago. He inspects the sharp stones and metal structure embedded in the soles and is satisfied. He knows Bora has her own set. A large sack is filled with rope, some water skins, food, spare clothes and what gifts from the villagers fit in after that. One of the tents is strapped to the outside, his weapons he suspends from his many belts. The remaining things go in another sack, which he hides under a pile of rubble to be collected on the way back. Bora fills her own, somewhat smaller bag and takes the other tent plus her collection of stones. She doesn’t put anything in the return bag.

Once packed they hug the horses before marching up the valley. Bora has an empty feeling. She has reared her horse from when it was but a small foal. The inevitability of saying goodbye hits her.

After slowly ascending through the wider valley, they take a small path to the left. The gradient is picking up fast. They soon reach a huge moraine field which they cross, ever going up. Bora wonders if they will ever get off those loose rocks. It seems to take ages. Heading broadly left and then left again into a narrow gully, they encounter the first glaciated patches, which they try to circumvent wherever possible, for as long as it goes. Countless rocks further and way up higher, Pato decides it is time to take on the ice. They both put on the special boots studded with sharp stones and test for grip on the ice. When this seems to work, Pato hands Bora one of his axes. He keeps the rope ready for use. Sometime after a particularly difficult and steep bit of ice climbing, they traverse to the right in order to pick up a promising ridge that will take them along the edge of the main glacier. Pato would have normally opted for the glacier itself, but the black, steaming trails running down over it tell him to steer clear of it as long as possible. When the ridge runs into snow and ice again, Pato recognises a crag that Uri has pointed out to him time and again. According to his father, toward that crag was the only way not littered with dangerous crevasses, and after that, the way up was a straight line up to the saddle between the two peaks. At the bottom of the crag, Bora asks for a short break to get her breath, or what is left of it, back. Pato agrees heartily. He didn’t want to admit he needs a rest too.

While they sit and take in the scenery, a rumbling noise is followed by the passage of several large boulders rolling down the centre of the glacier at high velocity, bouncing this way and that. Before packing up a gain, they add what spare layers of clothing they have to ward off the cold.

Plodding across snow and ice, kicking the sharp stones under their boots in for grip, the two peaks finally materialise above them. The one on the left looks ominous, dark fumes and an orange glow emitting from it. Luckily, their itinerary takes them to the other peak. Otherwise it would have been quite problematic.

When they encounter some of the black trails, they quickly traverse to the Western side of the glacier to steer clear of that danger.

The sun has travelled very near to the horizon once they finally reach the saddle between the peaks and drop everything, tired to the bone and with no air to breathe.

There is nobody there.

After the sinking feeling has slightly ebbed away, Pato urges Bora to help him put up the tents to create some cover. Despite the lack of firewood, it is actually not that cold up here. The glow from the mountain is causing that. Pato thinks he would have preferred a normal fire any day over the heat of an active volcano.

Bora wonders if all this has been for nothing, before falling into a restless sleep.

Exciting!

I love this story! I do my best with keeping up what everyone writes and I find yours really fascinating.

The volcano is almost a character.

I can tell you know your mountain walking!

Hiking in the mountains can be very nice.