#off the wall death in yosemite | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sionisjaune · 11 months ago

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5. lewis + nico!!!

5. "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?" From the dialogue prompts. You get the next installment of problematic sebcedes polyamory:

“I just don’t think that Yosemite will be very picturesque this time of year, what with the snow melting and all that,” Nico says, waving one hand vaguely in the air, the other cupped around a steaming mug of tea. “I would wait until later in the season, is all.”

Lewis squints at him. Nico stares back impassively. “It’s snowing right now,” Lewis says. Outside the wall of windows behind the sofa Nico is curled up on, fluffy clumps of snow tumble down from the sky and land in a white blanket on the forest floor. The sun is setting beyond the trees, casting a rosy light inside the cozy cabin Nico booked for their anniversary.

“It’s just,” says Nico. “You’re always camping with him, and, roughing it in the mountains. It doesn’t sound very appealing.” He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it off of his face. “There aren’t any spas in American national parks, you know.”

“Fuck you, first of all,” says Lewis. “Second of all, I like camping. And I like roughing it sometimes.” He sets his mug down on the coffee table between his sofa and Nico’s sofa. “It’s not all—heated towels and prosecco and facials. There are other things I like.”

“Sure,” says Nico, his mouth twisting. “But what if you run out of kombucha? Or what if you can’t have your fucking smoothie bowl because you’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, and there aren’t any fucking acai berries in Yosemite fucking National Park! Fuck!” Nico blows out a messy breath, shifting underneath his mound of blankets. Lewis doesn’t miss the way his shoulders have gone tight, the way a furrow has formed between his eyebrows. “I’m just looking out for you.”

“Wow,” says Lewis, running a hand over his own brow. He leans forward, almost over the coffee table. “Are you jealous?”

Nico frowns, deep, unhappy creases forming on either side of his nose.

“I thought this wasn’t going to be a problem,” says Lewis.

“Well,” says Nico, darkly.

“I thought we were an unshakeable foundation. We’ve been together, fuck, how long?” Lewis massages his temple with two fingers, trying to remember. It’s been so long. He almost can’t remember a time before Nico. He’s like—the start of civilization, practically.

Nico’s eyebrows tilt downwards. Lewis always thought they were so handsome—those thick, stormy eyebrows on his cherubic face. “Fourteen years,” says Nico. “Give or take, depending whether you count the start as the first time we met or the first time we actually fucked about it.”

“Yeah,” says Lewis, blinking. “That long. It’s just, you said he wouldn’t be a problem.”

Nico leans back on his sofa, adopting an arrogant and defensive sprawl. “Well maybe he is. Maybe I’m tired of the Lewis timeshare.”

Lewis grips the arm of the sofa, orienting himself. He blinks again, trying not to look so dumb about it. Nico is the type to pick up on those small things when he’s angry and peck Lewis to death about them like a vulture. “Well, the deal is the same on your end. You can… go out, if you want.”

“I’m done fucking other people,” says Nico. “And so is Sebastian, in case you haven’t been paying attention. He ended things with his little boyfriend months ago. That’s why he wants you all the time.”

“I’m—” Lewis says. “I’m not a game of tug and war.”

“And I’m not a fucking co-parent,” says Nico, coldly. Lewis watches him shove the blankets off of himself and stand up angrily, knocking cushions to the floor. “What an awful anniversary trip. I thought you would like it here.”

“Wait,” Lewis says, slipping off the sofa and following Nico towards the bedroom. “I do. I do like it here—”

Nico slams the door to the bedroom.

“Nico,” says Lewis, facing the door.

He receives no answer.

#dialogue prompts #problematic sebcedes polyamory

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mood2you · 7 months ago

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Top 5 Coolest, most tempting things in Yosemite

4. Deer (source) (source)

3. Taking a selfie of yourself falling over a waterfall (source: Off The Wall: Death in Yosemite, book)

2. Climbing

The fast and invisible undercurrents of the Merced River

#I made this post about the idea of putting a sign at every part of the river that you should not swim in #I would follow it. Until I got confidence in river swimming. Then? Well let's just say employees ignore Do Not Enter signs!#And other people would specifically only swim in forbidden zones AND it moght not even be easy to demarcate #The whole river. Except surely the five beaches advertised to guests #Number 5? Hunta virsus probably. Or COVID. Actually heat related illness like heat stroke

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eregyrn-falls · 8 months ago

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Anyone who would like to have these points emphasized to them should look up a couple of books that I read cover to cover and really enjoyed* (for certain definitions of "enjoyed"):

"Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite"

and

"Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon"

Both are by Michael P. Ghiglieri, along with others more specialized in those parks. They are both just basically "here is every single death (and quite a few disappearances) recorded in the park, and a sometimes brief, sometimes longer write-up about the circumstances of each". They're hefty books, but still, in the 100+ years that these parks have existed, it's a finite number, you know? And they're both VERY readable.

I happened to read them both after visiting Yosemite, but before going to the Grand Canyon; so that when I took a trip to the latter, I made sure to drill into my friends' heads "DO NOT EVER leave one person out of your sight", because the main takeaway from those books is, "And they were never seen again, and their body was never found." One of your hiking companions might sit down on a trailside rock to rest for a little bit and tell you to go on, they'll catch up, it's only a half a mile to the end of the trail... do not fall for this. It won't hurt you to sit or stand with them for a while until they're ready to go again.

But mostly the phrase that I made sure stuck in everyone's head was, "Do you have enough water? No, you don't -- here, take some more." Especially in the desert southwest parks (where we went during summer), but this goes for most parks if you're hiking in warm weather.

Because another salient example was that when we arrived at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and were walking into the visitor center, there was a big sign on a stand right beside the door, and it said (to paraphrase), "Are you in good enough shape to run a marathon?" It went on to report that, not that long before, a woman who had run the Boston Marathon was visiting the GC and went for a hike with a friend. Like MANY PEOPLE, they underestimated the distances (especially common in the desert parks, where you can see for a long way and you are bad at estimating how far away some of the things you can see actually are), and underestimated how much water to take with them, and underestimated how warm out it really was. They hiked for too long and didn't drink enough, and started to experience heat exhaustion. The marathon runner went into heat stroke sooner, IIRC. She sat down in the shade, while her friend tried to hike out to find help. The friend did make it out and survived. The marathon runner died.

The point being: even if you are young and very in shape and athletic, you can still make some very unwise decisions when you head out on a hike into the wilderness. Most people who visit the parks are NOT nearly that in shape or athletic, and they are often making bad decisions, too. Bright Angel trail is the most well-known trail from the South Rim of the GC down to the river. It's 7.8 miles down. (Another sign we saw frequently in GC: "Down is Optional; Up is Mandatory".) There is a park ranger who is stationed to hang around the first few hundred feet of the trail, where it finally just goes below the rim, and their sole purpose is to stop tourists who are descending the trail wearing flip-flops and carrying one (1) 12 oz. bottle of water.

Another anecdote: on the same trip, at the end, two of us went to Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. When we arrived, there were signs posted on basically every building door with a photo of an older man, who had gone missing only the week before. Obviously, the signs were to alert people to watch for anything unusual that might help find the guy (who by that point was probably no longer alive; and in fact it would turn out, he definitely wasn't).

This was Dave Stehling, who was 51. He was there with his wife and elderly parents. They all stayed around the visitor center, while he decided to go on a short, paved quarter-mile hike to a look-out. (Mesa Verde mostly consists of the mesa top, and most trails to see the cliff dwellings and other sights drop down into the canyons. The park is a maze of deep canyons and steep drops from the mesa.) He did not take water with him, although the temps were 90-100 F that day. His wife described him as a little directionally challenged sometimes; but he was on a very short and clear path near the visitor center. An extremely easy hike. Witnesses placed him as having diverted onto the longer (2.8 mile) Petroglyph trail; either he took a wrong turn, or he decided he wanted to see the petroglyphs. Even that longer trail should only have taken a hour to walk.

He disappeared. Despite a massive search (made difficult by the terrain), his body was not discovered for 6 more years. He was the subject of theories about paranormal activity by David Paulides (the guy behind Missing411, who is the source of a LOT of conspiracy theories about people going missing/dying in the national parks/public lands and the NPS covering it up; most of his theories involve Bigfoot, and/or portals to other dimensions, sometimes both). And yes, Stehling's disappearance seems to defy logic. How could you go missing on a short trail, where there is a very finite area into which you might have fallen, and not be discovered by a huge search and rescue effort?

But I've read enough about this kind of thing by now to have read statements by people who work in SAR. And one of the take-aways is that until you experience it firsthand, it's hard to appreciate how difficult it actually is to locate a person who is lost in the wilderness. There are multiple stories about volunteers who played the role of the victim in SAR training -- who would just go out and lay down in the woods and be still and quiet, while a search team tries to find them. And they consistently report the searchers walking past them within touching distance, but not seeing them. (Usually, that has to do with underbrush, but it's also just a testament to how much a body can blend in with its surroundings even if you would *think* it would not; even if you'd think the clothes or something would stand out.)

Stehling's body was found a little over 4 miles away from where he'd disappeared. It seems like he had fallen, probably sustained injuries, but tried to hike out of the canyon he'd fallen into by following it downwards. (I'm not sure that an autopsy was ever released, which is why I don't know if he sustained injuries or not; but in a fall like that, it does seem very likely.) He might have been unconscious during the height of the searching, hidden in dense, scrubby vegetation. In June, he would have had to hike further to finally hit running water. But in the temperatures they were getting at that time, he almost certainly succumbed to hyperthermia.

All of this is just to emphasize what's said in the posts above and in the replies or other posts. A lot of tourists visit the national parks, and they think the word "park" means that it's a tame, safe environment. So many people express shock at the idea that the environment and landscape can hurt them, even though the NPS does post warnings all over the place. They don't take the idea of hiking seriously, and often don't have the right supplies or equipment. They don't realize that even the shortest, friendliest-looking trail can have hazards. They think a running stream looks inviting and they'll just dip their feet in to cool off, and don't realize how fast the current is running or how slippery the rocks are. One of the shortest, flattest, best-paved trails in Yosemite (from the ring road to Mirror Lake) has a sign right by the road warning people that there may be mountain lions around, and not to allow children to run ahead, or trail behind.

And yeah: BISON. And bears. Just yesterday I opened my weather.com app on my phone and on the front page is a video story about some tourists who dragged two black bear cubs out of a tree so they could pose with them to take photos. (This was NOT in a national or state park, but is still an example of people being idiots about interacting with wildlife.) The cubs got away quickly, and authorities "decided not to press charges because the cubs were released quickly". (They should have pressed charged, ffs.) These people will likely never appreciate how lucky they were that the mother bear did not show up.

You really don't need Bigfoot to explain weird disappearances, or paradoxical undressing (something that regularly happens as hypothermia sets in). You don't need holes between dimensions to explain how someone wasn't found by SAR, but their body was later discovered in an area that had been searched previously.

All you need to know is that in 2023, across all of the properties in the national park system, there were 325.5 million visits; an increase of 13 million over 2022 alone. The total population of the United States is 333.3 million. I wish we had a way to estimate how many of those millions were unprepared for the wilderness, but who took risks they shouldn't have anyway. I'd be willing to bet that number is pretty high.

You can't have *nearly the population of the U.S.* venturing out into the wilderness and not expect some of them to die or go missing. Honestly, the surprisingly thing is that it's as relatively rare an occurrence as it is -- deaths and disappearances in the parks still make national headlines.

Any conspiracy theory about people going missing in National Parks is automatically silly to me. Like "Why are National Parks such a hotbed of disappearances???" because they're full of idiots. You've got thousands of people who've never pissed outdoors in their life wandering around the woods/desert/mountain with zero experience and zero gear and zero understanding that this place can kill them. You don't see as many disappearances in wild areas because people don't go to them unless they have some background knowledge. Whereas you get tour buses full of old folks and suburban families shuttling people into National Parks 365 days a year. If you took the same amount of buffoons and dropped them in the actual wilderness the disappearances would be significantly higher than at the parks. Use your brain.

#national parks #(whoops sorry; pressed the 'special-interest' button there and i became an unskippable cut-scene #although thankfully folks CAN skip since you can just scroll on past)#long post

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remembertheplunge · 1 year ago

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3 generations of journalers

5/22/1999

Mom gave me a journal Dad kept in 1970.

Incredible.

I want to include some of his thoughts here.

(I wrote the following about journaling:)

The indelible ink of our lives, of our present, will leave entries across time’s natural folds.

The journal is our paper memory. Our paper mind. Little chunks of energy, words, just waiting for an open mind to pass through and breath life into them. Words make life’s tumbler’s turn.

The following are entries taken from my father’s 1970 journal and my great grandfather G.H. Wentz’s 1889 journal:

Tuesday June 27, 1970

(My father was a reading teacher at Atwater High School in 1970.)

A journal note to his students :

“What can you expect? For one thing, I only recognize passing grades as being A and B. You can have a test average for reading level 4 and still get an “A” or “B” in reading.

I grade on hustle and interest.”

February 13, 1889 G. H. Wentz

I went to church this evening. Several were admitted for baptism.

February 13, 19970

Movies of Holland 1967 and of the Riviera 1953

February 28, 1970

Jim, Joy Walls and their son who was 11 were killed at noon at Inspiration Point (Yosemite) Their daughter Sue is ok.

February 28, 1889

The last day of February and a not very pleasant day. There was no rifle practice this evening. I stayed at home.

End of entry

Notes:

My great grand father G.H. Wentz lived in Lincoln, Nebraska. He died in 1953.

My father spent the year 1953 touring Europe. He, my mother and his parents visited Europe, including Holland, in 1967.

The Walls family lived near where my family lived in Atwater California. Sue Walls and I were 15. We were both members of the Mountain Monster’s ski club. Every Saturday during the snow season, we took a bus from Merced, California

To Badger Pass in Yosemite for ski lessons. On February 28, 1970, Mr and Mrs walls and their son were on the way to meet with Sue at Badger Pass.

They stopped to admire the view of the Yosemite Valley on the way at Inspiration Point.. A car lost control, hit them, and pushed them off the cliff to their deaths .My father recorded it in his journal.

#5/22/1999 #journaling #3 generations of journalers

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paperpocalypse · 4 years ago

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polk salad annie.

50 Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”: 49. Giving them a tight hug that makes them lose their breath.

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 1,282 words

Warnings: Swearing

[A/N: This fic has spoilers from season 2, episodes 6-7 below the cut, so if you haven’t watched them yet and don’t want to be spoiled, make sure to catch up before reading! Requested by @waterlily502 and anon :D]

Five had botched the equations somehow.

You tug your suit jacket more tightly around yourself, peering into the flurry of snow as your muscles scream in protest against the sudden cold. This is really bad. You’re definitely nowhere near the academy where Five said he had grown up; in fact, from what you can see through the white haze of winter, you’re not even in a city. There’s just a lonely stretch of road flanked by snowbanks on either side.

“Sh-Sh-Shit,” you hiss, a shiver wracking your body. Your body – oh, for the love of time, don’t even mention the de-aging. This is really, really bad.

Hypothermia on the forefront of your mind, you tug the collar of your dress shirt up to your nose and stumble onto the empty highway, walking as quickly as you can. You use your other hand to wipe the snowflakes from your eyelashes and then look up at the sky. At the very least, it’s not the middle of the night. There’s got to be some traffic coming back and forth.

You start losing hope after ten minutes. Not long after, you start to feel a little dizzy. You press two fingers over your carotid, but they’re too numb to feel a pulse. Your lungs feel stiff.

But just when you’ve resigned yourself to freezing to death, the sound of tires over snow reaches your ears.

Twin headlights of a vehicle shine through the blizzard and onto you like two, warm suns. Finally. With a thankful sigh, you stagger towards the bumper as the pick-up honks and slows to a stop.

A big, burly man steps out. “God’s sake, kiddo, what are you doing out here?”

—

What happens next rivals that of the thrillers you used to read. The guy that picks you up is loud and friendly. He brings you to the nearest town, but the Temps drop by and he gets caught in the crossfire. After taking care of the agents (and flushing the newly discovered tracker from your arm down the toilet) you swap some licenses and take your late rescuer’s truck – something necessary but also something you’ll always regret – and spend the first half of 1982 driving across New England and the Midwest in search of a briefcase, laying as low as you can. It’s something you’re certainly used to; at the Commission, while Five was good at getting out of situations, you had a talent for avoiding them in the first place. It was why you were partners.

(Five. You know he has an uncanny knack for staying alive, but not a day goes by where you don’t hope he’s okay.)

In July, you get a lead in Oshkosh and find yourself at some Wisconsin Polka Association festival.

“Oh, aren’t you a killer in those clothes! You really should check out the ballroom, sweetheart. They’re teaching people your age how to polka dance.”

“No, thank you,” you decline, smiling politely and extracting yourself from the grip of the couple that had whisked you away for a costume change. (It really is weird and mildly off-putting, being coddled by people only a few years older than you.) “I have to go find my mom.”

“Are you sure? Our grandkids are in there.”

After a minute or so of assuring the two members that yes, you’ll check out the polka dancing later, and no, they don’t have to help you find your (non-existent) mom, you check your pamphlet and head toward the next place on your search list: the Muskellunge Banquet Room. Better check it out as quickly as possible.

Turning a corner, you spot the entrance at the end of the hall.

However, you also see a boy attacking a vending machine and swearing his mouth off.

“Stupid mother Fudge Nutter! Fuckin’ Fudge Nutter –”

Okay, maybe you have a little time.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you call out, jogging over. You pull him back before he can kick the glass.

The kid immediately yanks his arm away, sneering at you. You stifle a snort. A quick glance has you wondering why he has a schoolboy uniform on – you don’t see that every day in America, especially during summer break. Weird.

“Calm down, Yosemite.” You smile. “Did something get stuck in there?”

“What the hell do you think?” he snaps, eyes wild as he turns to stomp away. “God, I ask for one thing –”

“Wait.” You grab his arm again and dig some coins out of your pocket. Good thing you have quarters left over from gas. “Here, I have some extra change. Fudge Nutter, right?”

While the boy glares, straightening his jacket, you stick the coins into the vending machine and enter the code for the Fudge Nutter bars. F-6. The action feels nostalgic – you remember when Five had bailed you out of a stuck vending machine snack once, during an assignment in 1999 Seattle. He had finally begun warming up to you by then. You still owe him money for that.

The coils whir, and two chocolate bars drop into the pick-up box. You bend down and collect the treasure, holding one out towards the boy.

“One for you, one for me.”

Considerably calmer, he only looks at you suspiciously before slowly taking the Fudge Nutter from your hand. The expression is screamingly familiar. You find yourself wondering; it could be completely possible, perhaps, that –

The boy stalks off. Rude little brat.

“Holy shit, kid, a thank you is in order,” you exclaim, running after him. Coincidentally, he’s heading toward the banquet hall, and you hope you won’t have to worry about him while you’re skulking around in there for an agent. “I didn’t have to bail you out.”

“I am decades older than you, so don’t call me kid.” When you reach the end of the hallway, he stops and scowls at you. “Now stop following me. I have something I need to do.”

“Sorry to break it to you, kid, but so do I,” you snap, any goodwill you had scrounged out of respect for Five quickly fading away. Now a little pissed, you hold the boy’s gaze with equal vitriol. “So you better –”

And just like that, it clicks.

Your eyes widen as you cut yourself off.

“… Five?”

Recognition fills the boy’s face. “[Y/n]?”

“Holy shit.”

You drop your candy bar, throwing your arms around him and crushing him against you. It’s him. Holy shit. Five stiffens as you bury your face into his shoulder with a half-crazed laugh, then tentatively hugs you back. His grip tightens within seconds of doing so.

Finally, you let go. “How’d you find me?” you murmur after regaining your breath, searching his gaze. How did you not notice it was him sooner? His eyes are exactly the same.

“Honestly, I had no idea you were here,” he replies. (... Ah, so it was luck. You’ll take it any time.) Looking past you, Five walks toward the fire axe mounted on the wall and takes it down. “I’m here on business.”

At the mention of business, your smile fades into a bewildered frown. “Five. Are you – are you working for the Commission again?”

“No.” He positions the axe over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “Quite the opposite, actually. The board of directors is meeting here.”

Ah. That kind of business.

Picking your Fudge Nutter back up, you tuck it into your pocket. “Well, in that case – mind if I join?” you ask.

A brief smirk forms on Five’s face to match yours. He gestures his head toward the banquet hall, and you fall into step with him like you had so many times before.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

#wordless ways to say i love you #source: @50-item-writing-prompts #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy five #the umbrella academy #tua #five x reader #five imagine #tua fanfic #fanfic #reader insert #fluff #look at these two idiots #this was fun to write lol #enjoy some unhinged five #honestly one of my favorite scenes

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doctorcolubra · 5 years ago

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How about Eleanora or the Fall of the House of Usher for Jarrich? (Fluffy or no, I'm interested in what you do with these!!)

I say that I want to write drabbles or ficlets and then end up with almost 3K, typical. I really want to get better at short-form stuff (still taking prompts if anyone wants to send more).

I’m in a haunted house mood for fall so here’s Fall of the House of Usher!

_____________

Richard doesn’t like driving, or at least he doesn’t like traffic. The hostility, the birds flipped, the goddamn honking. He’s doing okay out here in the country, on empty roads where no one can take offense at his speed, his signalling, his sloppy lane changes or his occasional hasty U-turns. Jared’s in the passenger’s seat, asleep. Collar askew, hair windblown, lips parted—keep your eyes on the road, Hendricks.They’re driving back to Palo Alto from the Central Sierra Audobon Society Birders’ Convention. “I was going to be Muriel’s plus-one,” Jared had said one day last week. “But I suppose I can go alone. I have my safety whistle.”“For what, bears?”

“Of course. With black bears, your best strategy is to stand your ground, if you’ll forgive an expression sadly tainted by the legal system. You make yourself look as big as you can.” Jared held his arms out wide, hands in his raincoat pockets to make his skinny frame broader. “And that’s where the whistle comes in. Noise frightens the bear off. Those same tactics would probably get you killed if you ever met a grizzly, though,” he added. “But you won’t. In spite of what the state flag would have you believe, the last grizzly bear in California was shot in the ‘20s.”

“Where is this place?” Richard said, and then: “Don’t go alone, for fuck’s sake. Can I go? With you, I mean?”

“Richard…” Jared lit up. “Oh, I would love to take you. But I couldn’t possibly take you away from—you have so many things to think of…”Even Jared couldn’t quite pretend that Richard is still a busy CEO.So they did BirdCon. Richard was wondering if he needed glasses or whether he was just bad at this hobby, because Jared and the other birders kept losing their minds over woodpeckers, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, raptors and vireos. Richard, once, correctly identified a squirrel. Jared drove here, anyway, so Richard’s returning the favour on the way home.And he’s not lost. He’s not. He’s supposed to be in some town called Confidence on the edge of Yosemite Park, and follow the highway from there to Modesto, and from there he can figure his business out.The Google Maps lady has been giving suspicious instructions for awhile now, though, and Richard doesn’t think he’s anywhere close to Confidence. Which, ha ha, super funny. He’s on a stretch of road that’s…well, not desolate. It’s pretty. Hills, grass, trees. Whatever. But he’s trying to figure out if Google Maps Lady is on the level, and the land around them doesn’t hold any clues.When a cop car rolls up behind him, he’s almost relieved. (Almost. He’s sweating a lot.) Jared jerks awake while Richard fumbles with the window switch.The stocky, brown-skinned cop bends to the window. “You boys looking for the casino?”“Wh—no,” Richard says. They couldn’t have blundered into Nevada somehow. Right? No, absolutely not. “We’re…are we near Confidence? The town, I mean?”“You’re on Miwok tribal land,” says the cop. “Tuolumne Rancheria.”“Oh.” Richard has no clue where that is in relation to Confidence, Yosemite, Modesto, or Palo Alto. Fucking Google. “Um, sorry. Are we allowed to—we shouldn’t be here, right?”The cop avoids a complicated question of colonialism. “You’re not in trouble, just thought you might be lost. Casino’s down that way. Where you coming from, Jamestown?”“We were up in Yosemite, for—for BirdCon—and we were supposed to pass through Sugarpine and then Confidence,” Richard says, disconnecting his phone from the cord and showing the officer the screen. “The GPS voice kept saying to stay on 108, and I was doing that, and then the road turned into the E17…”The cop looks at Richard’s phone and chuckles. “You’re real lost, wow. I don’t even know how you did that.”Between the two of them, they determine that Richard had made some catastrophic error while typing the address into GPS, and Maps is now trying to send them to Confidence, New Mexico. Richard is indignant—the one thing he wouldn’t fuck up is data entry—and blames Google’s shoddy user interface and aggressive auto-correct.“Yeah, maybe,” says the cop with a shrug. “But you’re still going the wrong way.”“Oh,” Jared says suddenly, softly, looking ahead. He’s been quiet and bleary from taking an extra allergy pill, but now the haze has lifted. “Oh, no, I know just where we are.”Richard turns back to look at him. “You do?”“I used to live near here. For awhile. Not on the reservation, naturally. But I know this road. Thank you, officer, we’ll be fine from here,” says Jared to the tribal cop, who wishes them goodnight and heads back to his truck.“You don’t have to drive,” Richard says, plugging his phone back in. “My fuck-up, I got it taken care of.”“No, not at all—I’m so sorry I fell asleep on you, Richard.” Jared is straightening his collar, brushing his dark hair back into place with his fingers. “I should have stayed awake to navigate—”“Come on. It’s the end of the day, it’s my turn.”“Okay. But could we…no, that’s self-indulgent of me…”“What?”“I think—I think I might like to drive past the house. If it wouldn’t take us too far out of our way. We don’t have to stop, even, but…” Jared trails off, looking out the window at the hills. “Only if there’s time. I’m sure there’s not.”“There’s lots of time, now that we’re not…going to fuckin’ New Mexico. Just—point me where we’re going, it’s okay,” Richard says. Muriel would have stopped for Jared. “We’ll take a look.”The house is low and white and dead, like a broken eggshell lying amid the trees. Peeling paint, windows boarded, a child’s plastic car lying sun-bleached on its side, no cars in the gravel driveway. Jared doesn’t seem disappointed—in fact, he’s quietly elated. “It’s empty,” he says in wonder, staring out the window. “It’s all empty.”“That’s…too bad,” Richard says, but he’s guessing. “Is it? Did you like this place?”“No,” Jared says, the way he always says these things. Light, soft, without rancour. He hasn’t looked away from the shabby house in the trees. “I didn’t at all. Could we—no, I’ve already taken us out of our way…”“You want to get a closer look?”“Maybe. Yes. For a minute or two, Richard, not long.”The grass is knee-high around the front yard, where the trees clear, and Richard can see glimpses of weeds out back that would come up to his shoulders. He’s picking his way carefully toward the door, convinced that he’ll step on a snake at any minute. Poisonous snakes. He’ll get bitten. Richard is not mentally or spiritually equipped to be bitten by a snake, it’s haunted his nightmares ever since he was a reluctant Boy Scout in Tulsa. He’ll end up in the hospital being laughed at by that goddamn doctor. Then a painful death, then—“The door’s off its hinges,” Jared says. “We could go inside.”“Is that safe?” Part of Richard wants to shake Jared out of this reverie: don’t look at this, don’t remember, don’t get lost. But he knows that if he did, Jared would apologise profusely and never mention the house again. And that’s bad, Richard knows. Because something bad must have happened here. “Are you okay with this, man? We don’t have to go in. I mean, I will. I know you came to check out Peter Gregory’s stuff with me, so. Fair’s fair. But…I’m not trying to—to talk you out of it, unless…like, unless you want me to talk you out of it?”Jared has opened his backpack (practical, pristine, everything tucked in orderly pockets) to get out his flashlight. But he looks back at Richard and smiles. “It’s funny,” he says. “I barely remember the year I lived here. The brain is an amazing organ—there we are…” The flashlight’s blue-white glow shivers over the front hall of the house. “Hello? Anyone here?”Silence. The flashlight’s a necessity, but there’s still some sunlight streaming in from outside, and that’s all that’s holding Richard together. It’s not dark yet, but as Bob Dylan said, it’s getting there. Everything’s dusty. Good thing Jared’s already popped an allergy pill.Richard follows Jared, using his phone for more light, looking at the time capsule of a house. Harvest gold and avocado kitchen, landline phone on the wall with its cord a cramped spiral tangle. Warped bookshelves disgorging hoarded piles of magazines. Someone must have tried to clean the place before giving up: there are garbage bags and boxes everywhere, Pine-Sol and Febreze bottles, mops and brooms at rest in the corners. The ceilings are water-stained and in places the paint has buckled away from the wall, bubbling outward in layers that Richard instinctively wants to peel away.“What are we looking for?” he asks Jared.“Nothing,” Jared says, tentatively pushing open a half-closed bedroom door. A teenage girl’s room, walls papered with Tiger Beat and Big Bopper pages. Jonathan Brandis, the Hanson boys, Leo in his salad days, young and green. (Richard knows too much about magazines from this era. But that’s another story.) “Nothing special—oh, Richard, don’t look so frightened, please. We can go back to the car.”“No,” Richard says, stubborn now. “Not until you’re done with…this. Closure. Right? That’s what this is. Isn’t it?”“Maybe part of the process of closure, yes.” Jared moves to the next bedroom door. “This wasn’t the worst place I ever lived. I think I was relieved to get here. It felt safe, safer. Back then. The Alguires were strict, but they didn’t hurt me. Just…I’ve forgotten so much about living here. If you’d asked me yesterday to list all the homes I’ve ever had, I would’ve left this one off the list. But I was here for almost a year. Eleven months, I think.”“How old were you?”“Ten.”“I don’t remember ten either, really,” says Richard, staying in the teen girl’s room and raising his voice a little to be heard. “I mean I know where I was and what I was doing. We never moved, same house in Tulsa all my life. But I don’t remember being ten. It sucked, I know that.”“How come?”“School.” Richard used to rage over this, why did they do it, what was wrong with me, but in Palo Alto everyone else had a similar story, and he got over it. Kinda. “Everyone hated me.”“They just weren’t ready for you,” comes Jared’s voice from the other room, as inexplicably fond as always. “The solitary genius.”Sometimes Richard’s not sure if Jared’s making fun of him or not. Who could actually believe this stuff? What would it even be like to be so earnest? Terrifying, Richard thinks.He’s afraid that somewhere in this house they’ll find something really dark: chains and shackles on a radiator, or a potty chair in a locked closet. The house is depressing, but in an ordinary way. The former inhabitants must have verged on clinical hoarding, but the situation wasn’t bad enough to get on TLC. Just a particularly good archaeological record of the early ‘90s.Richard makes his way further down the hall, still on the lookout for snakes. It’s darker, and then, suddenly, brighter—the back door is gone, open to the audience of Sonora pines. Shafts of slow gold afternoon sunlight break through into the dark little house, nurturing a tidepool of vegetation. Moss is spreading across the rotting wooden floorboards, with leggy weeds crowding in the brightest spots. Tiny green tendrils trace paths from the shadows into the light, breaking into full leaf where the sun hits. The air smells damp, fresh, alive when everything else in this house seems dead. Flourishing.He wanders back to find Jared in the other bedroom. Jared’s poking through a big Rubbermaid tub that seems to be full of toys: headless Barbies and uncanny baby dolls, loose Lego, die-cast cars, green plastic army men, neon water pistols empty of their charges.But then a look of recognition breaks over his face and he reaches in to pull out a recorder, still in its blue plastic sleeve, a sheet of music folded inside.“Mrs. Alguire hated noise,” Jared says. “This was her house, the year I lived here. She used to confiscate inappropriate toys. I don’t mean to say she was unkind—she was a step up from my aunt’s place. But she did like silence. And I…” He slides the recorder out of its plastic sleeve. “I always wanted to play an instrument, or—when I got to Vassar I was allowed to sing. I liked that. But one day I found this in the inappropriate toys box. Even if I couldn’t make music, I thought…I thought I could make noise. Maybe somebody would notice if I was loud. I don’t know what I wanted them to notice. I was already getting as much help as anyone could give me.”“Not enough.” Richard is beside him, digging through the Rubbermaid tub too, examining the Barbies and the Hot Wheels and all the other miscellanea in the pile. “I had one of those plastic recorders for about three days,” he says. “My parents took it away too. Not that—I mean, it’s not the same as your thing.”“Well, some adult reactions become more sympathetic as we get older.” Jared polishes the dust off the recorder with a clean tissue from his pocket. “But the recorder was a very important part of early music, you know. Some beautiful airs were written for it. No instrument sounds very pleasant when it’s made of plastic and costs a dollar.”“Yeah, true.” Richard fishes the sheet music out of the recorder’s sleeve and unfurls it, skimming the notes. He has no talent himself, something he discovered from the childhood piano lessons that he got and Jared didn’t. “‘Early One Morning’—oh, I remember this from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…”Jared laughs. “You’re so cultured, Richard.”“Okay, that, right there, that was making fun of me,” Richard says—he’s grinning, not even mad, just relieved that he finally caught Jared just teasing him for being an idiot, the way a normal person would. “You know goddamn well that’s not cultured.”“I would never judge you for—”“You should, though, Jared. You should judge the hell out of me. For everything.” Richard bumps his arm gently against Jared’s, one of the few tactile gestures of friendliness that he’s learned how to use properly. “You’re gonna blast some ‘Early One Morning’ right now, aren’t you?”“I shouldn’t.”“It’s your moment, c’mon.” Richard likes to tempt Jared—sometimes to make him do things he needs to do for his own good, sometimes for more selfish reasons. To enjoy Jared’s purity, and to feel it crumble. “We’re a million miles away from anything. You’re not gonna bother anybody.”“Well…” Jared looks down at the recorder in his hands and smiles. “A little bit. Okay.”They walk out into the sprouting back hall, over the crumbling floors, where the weeds are winning in the sun. Richard gets his phone earbuds out of his pocket and puts them in as makeshift earplugs.Jared takes a deep breath and blows the recorder like a shofar, a raucous high-pitched whistle. Not playing any note in particular, just blasting it as loud as he possibly can, with all the air in his lungs. Not music, only noise. Serious noise. Richard can hear it even through his earbuds. It echoes through the pines, loud enough to frighten off a black bear.It’s a silly, childish sound—it brings back memories for Richard too. He used to annoy his parents with plastic recorders and cheap harmonicas and the repetitive sounds of Bach’s French Suite No. 3 by way of Tetris on his GameBoy. He’d had the freedom to bug people without having to worry about whether he might lose the roof over his head for it.When Jared stops, he looks satisfied for a brief moment, then guilty. “I feel so foolish,” he says. “I don’t know what I was expecting. We came so far out of our way just for that.”“You were trying to remember and you did. And we’d already gone out of our way, right?” Richard smiles at him. “I was trying to take us to Confidence, New Mexico. I’m the foolish one here, I’m Boo Boo the Fool.”“Never.” Jared reaches out for Richard, almost aimless: straightening one of the strings on his hoodie, fingers brushing over Richard’s shoulder.Jared starts to say something, and Richard is afraid that it’s thank you, which is bullshit—I’ve given him nothing, I’ve done nothing but take—so he leans in to wrap an arm awkwardly around Jared’s waist. “Let’s go home.

#fic prompts #silicon valley #sv fic #jarrich #my writing #allthefilmsiveseenforfree #I figure this is after Muriel’s funeral but before PiperNet gets kicking again

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stella-maria7 · 5 years ago

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THE UNTAMED FAN FIC: DARKNESS & LIGHT

1: LAN JINGYI

I open my eyes and is greeted by the ray of sun shining through the gap of my glass window. The very thing that I hate. I hold out my palm and make a slight swift movement at the windows. Big black curtains drop down and cover the entire room with darkness. Why am I even bother to lift it up last night? To admire the moon? Funny, I am not that kind of romantic man. Oops. Let me rectify. Romantic vampire.

I almost spit at the word. Although this so called vampire status make me able to maneuver things without having to move my body, I still hate it to the very core. Regardless of the supernatural benefits it gives me: eternal youth, superpower, compellation, and so on, it has turned me into a cold-blooded murderer. I can only survive by drinking blood. Human blood. Not that I can’t survive on animals blood but I need to hunt human. First, I need to be in my full strength so I can kill those high-levelled vampires that inflicted this pain on me. Second, I need to search for the one in my prophecy. It states that a boy with sapphire-blue blood will be able to cure me of this curse. So ever since that time, I only hunt down the males.

It has been five hundred years but not one of my purposes can be achieved. I haven’t found that so-called weapon that is able to kill those high-levelled vampires. And I can’t even find those vampires. They are the nomads that never stay in the same place twice. I have been tracking them for hundred of years but always a step behind them. It irritates me somehow because I really hate admitting defeat, and yet, I have never won over them. Not back then, not even now.

As for the boy? I also haven’t found him. Does that boy even existed? I asked myself. What if that vampire lie to me? It’s not everyday you run into someone with blue blood. However, I see no reason for her to lie to me. She seemed to be the gentlest one amongst those group. They gain nothing for feeding me lie anyway.

I toss and turn on my enormous bed, staring at the black canopy that stirred because of the motion. Of course, my body don’t need sleep. But my mind does. This bed was so soft and comfy. So unlike the bed I slept on several centuries ago. Over the years, humans really evolves unbelievably. They are able to invent a machine that ran as fast as me. They can also beat me to invent a big iron bird that can fly so high in the sky. And that really helps a lot. I don’t have to spend so much strength when I need to travel. I just buy that kind of paper they call it plane ticket, and sit comfortably in that big bird. Though the smell of humans’ blood overwhelmed my nerve somehow, I am still able to control it as time goes by. It isn’t that difficult actually. Vampires don’t need to breathe. Though there is still air going in and out through our nostrils, our lungs don’t generated air anymore. The muscle of the diaphragm that tightens and flattens are no longer working that way. But I still have to fake this movement anyway especially when I am surrounding by humans or else they will freak out.

The quest to search for the sacred object has brought me to a lot of countries across all the continents. And now, I am stuck in The United States. But don’t jump to conclusion that I am living in a nice, fabulous city known as New York. I don’t like crowded place. I am residing in one of my prey’s mansion inside the national park named Yosemite. It has a really nice view. The valleys and the trees on those mountains are the perfect sight to see the sun set and sun rise. You can stand on the one of the tallest mountains’ top and you’ll see many more around you. It is like having the whole world under your feet. I like this place. I wonder how my prey is able to find a place to build his mansion on such a beautiful scenery like this. Oh right, I remember now. My prey is –was– a lonesome millionaire. So why can’t he? To just build something like this shouldn’t be a big deal.

I was quite lucky to come across him while he was away on his vacation. I would never forget the look on his eyes when he’d learnt of my identity. How he begged for his life. But it was too late. He happened to cut his leg while running away from me. A drop of blood dripped to the floor, and I licked it clean. Once I got a taste of someone’s blood, I wouldn’t be able to stop hunting that prey down. That was the vampire’s lust. It was uncontrollable.

As he was begging, he spilled all the important information to me like his bank account, his secret code, how to contact his secretary and whatever more they were, in the hope that I would spare his life. I had no idea what those things were. Not until his secretary came to find him at this mansion.

She was one beautiful woman, I had to say. Too bad she was not my type. She was so shocked to see me walking around the house as if I owned the place. I tried to come up with the best lie to convince her but she didn’t seem to buy it and threatened to call the police. She left me no choice. I used my vampire’s stride (meaning it took only one step to reach the destination I wanted whereas It would take hundreds or millions of human steps to reach) and stood before her. Grabbing her chin tightly, I removed my sunglasses to reveal my silver pupils and compelled her.

Now, everything is perfect. I live a life convincing everyone that I am the millionaire’s long lost son that he found when he went hiking. At the reunion, the man and the son continued their hiking when the the man was attacked by a bear at his neck causing immediate death. Afterwards, I compelled his personal lawyer to create a fake will stating that he had transferred all of his wealth to a long lost son if he happened to be discovered. And that son was me. But the human world nowadays was so complicated. They didn’t believe that legal paper at all. During the meeting, those people known as board of directors kept on shouting that I was a fraud and I should get a DNA test. As if I knew what that meant. No one expected a stranger to pop out of nowhere and claimed the share. But who were they to stand against me? Well, what happened after that was a drag. It was a pain in the neck to use my compellation to everyone presented in the room. As I leave the room, no one utter a single protest.

Done. I came back to my peaceful home and enjoyed the life as a millionaire’s son who did nothing but stayed hidden somewhere in his vacation home. No one knew of this location. Not even the secretary woman because I compelled her to forget it.

Speaking of compellation, it is one nice power amongst all. But using it consumed so much of energy. I remembered the time when I used it on those directors, I had to hunt down three preys that night to quench my thirst. Thus, I try my best to avoid using it unless it is necessary.

My throat is getting dry that I start coughing. I know this sign. It is the sign of thirst. It’s time to hunt. I kick the blanket out of the way and jump off the bed. Draping a black robe over my naked body, I trudge to the bathroom and open the cabinet, revealing rows of black contact lens. I use them to cover the monster within me and shamelessly blend into the race of human when I am out of the house. I tilt my neck a little as I feel a little neck pain and something catches my attention.

Two black holes are visible on the side of my neck. Although it is no longer hurt, the scar was still there. It is permanently there as a reminder of how I become a thing I hate the most. Every time I see this scar, it remind me of that worst time when those creatures pass their disgusting venom to me and watch me turn into one of them with condescending smirks on their faces.

The sound of glass shattering reverberates in the bathroom bringing the sound wave echoing to the wall and back as I ball my hand into a fist and smash the glass cabinet in front of me. My silver blood drops to the sink slowly. One drop at a time.

“I will make sure to watch the life you are so proud of wither away in front of you before I die myself.” I growl and look at myself through that crack mirror. “I will do everything, no matter what, to make sure you vanish from this Earth. Mark my words.”

This is the only oath that keep my half dead body feels fully alive until now.

#my fanfiction #my writing #my fic #lan jingyi #lan wangji #lan sizhui #lan zhan #wei ying #wei wuxian #jin ling #lan xichen #jiang cheng #ao3 #achieve of our own #wattpad #vampire #urban fantasy #urban romance

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thisguyatthemovies · 5 years ago

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Go climb a rock

Title: “Free Solo”

Release date: In theaters Sept. 28, 2018; on disc/streaming Feb. 12, 2019

Starring: Alex Honnold, Jimmy Chin, Sanni McCandless, Tommy Caldwell, Mikey Schaefer

Directed by: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin

Run time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Rated: PG-13

What it’s about: In 2017, professional rock climber Alex Honnold attempts to become the first person to scale El Capitan, a 3,000-foot vertical rock in Yosemite National Park, free solo (by himself and without use of ropes or harnesses).

How I saw it: By now, there’s little mystery about the outcome in “Free Solo,” especially if you are watching it six months after it received the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Alex Honnold, a professional rock climber, attempts to become the first person to scale the 3,000-foot vertical rock known as El Capitan in Yosemite State Park without the use of ropes or harnesses. That’s right: Honnold wants to climb a rock wall that will put him more than a half-mile above the ground without any safety equipment and using just his hands and feet. And guess what? He makes it. Would they give an Oscar to a film about a young man falling to his death? Would that film even be released? Even knowing the outcome, “Free Solo” is a mesmerizing and breathtaking film, and it provides what insight it can into why Honnold, now 33, would attempt such a high-risk feat. “Free Solo” is beautiful throughout but is especially so in the final 15 minutes, when it follows Honnold up El Capitan (he started his ascent once previously but backed off before reaching the 500-foot mark). Even knowing Honnold will make it, the climatic scene is a little unnerving, especially if you have a fear of heights. Most of the rest of the film is about Honnold himself. We learn that, in addition to having supernatural physical skills, Honnold is shy, a bit of a loner and unusually unemotional (he’s even referred to as “Spock” by one of his friends). In one scene, Honnold has an MRI done of his brain, and the diagnosis indicates that the part of his brain that produces fear isn’t as active as in most other people. Honnold has spent most of his adult life living in a van despite having made a decent living by climbing. What makes “Free Solo” interesting, aside from the buildup to the climb, is the relationship between Honnold, who details his troubles with finding a romantic partner, and the woman who becomes his girlfriend, Sanni McCandless. She shows infinite patience with Honnold, a man who says he had to teach himself to hug because his family didn’t show outward affection. To Honnold’s fellow climbers, McCandless is seen as a potential distraction. The same can be said for the filmmakers following Honnold; the cameras seem to be the reason he backed off his first attempt. But after watching “Free Solo,” you’ll be glad Honnold’s one-of-a-kind climb was documented, and done so in such a thorough and beautiful way.

My score: 94 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes, if you don’t have a fear of heights.

#movies #movie review #movie recommendation #free solo #rock climbing #documentaries #oscars

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a-shepherd-blog · 5 years ago

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@audroux

She was not above climbing through a fire escape, you know. Or jimmy-ing open some window. Out of some strange impulse Andy found herself checking and discovered that he still left a key under the welcome mat - and what was equally strange (if not stranger) was the fact that he’d kept all the locks the same. Idiotic, if you asked her. Made it so much easier to break in. Which was precisely what she was doing right now. Or technically wasn’t, the door opened easy enough, making this whole thing very much not a break in. Even the little light on the alarm clicked from red to green after she punched in a set of familiar numbers.

Too easy? Andy’s paranoid mind certainly told her so. She was glad she’d brought the gun.

But she found the Harlem apartment she once shared with her ex-husband to be just about the way she’d left it. Andy had come to inherit her mother’s estate in Prospect Park during her time with Audric, but couldn’t get herself to move back into her childhood home until it absolutely became necessary. Too many ghosts, you know? For so long this had been her home. The Harlem apartment had the same problem as her mother’s estate now, just with a different breed of specters. On the surface it looked the same too though. Same curtains, same coffee table …. Even the same pictures. The two of them, their wedding, Zion rafting, Yellowstone camping, Yosemite hiking -

Goddamn it, Audric. Someone else would have looked at the scene and would have assigned sentimentality to every memento of their relationship that her ex had chosen to keep.

Not Andy. She knew Audric. This shit was laziness.

She tossed the small folio of papers on the dining table once it became evident that he wasn’t home. It was a weekday night, she was almost certain he’d be back soon and she didn’t mind waiting. Besides, there was no way in hell she was going through another three months thinking she was divorced when she actually wasn’t. Outside the large windows, New York’s heart continued to beat.

The scissors were in the same drawer in the kitchen too. Andy pulled a few frames off the wall, wandered the length of the space to collect a grand total of five photos while she waited. She remembered precisely where they were of course, she’d been the one to hang them up one halcyon summer, while he told her whether her alignment was level or not.

She dumped the small stack on the table, next to the scissors, and felt a bit like an animal then. In the wild, animals had different ways of defending themselves. There were animals who used tooth and claw; animals who ran away at the speed of light, propelled by sinewy muscles perfected by evolution for escape. Then you had animals who bunkered down. Armadillos, turtles, even opossums - these animals were hardly glamorous things as they decided their brand of defense would be, simply, not to move at all. They’d hide.

Or play dead.

With most people, Andy was a hyena - don’t get too close, she’d snap your bones with her teeth. With Audric, she took more after these non-glamorous creatures. When ex-husband entered the equation, to survive, Andy found herself growing quiet and still. She remembered when she’d learned about what he really was (Underboss. Shadow. F u c k t h a t.), and how that had been an immediate death knell for any modicum of a relationship they had. She remembered how her had blood turned thick, then froze like ice inside her at the discovery.

She couldn’t move on it, or act on it in the way that she itched to. All she could do was leave him. Had she allowed herself a little more truth to her actions, the second she’d found that she’d married some felon, she’d have stepped across some forbidden, dark threshold, and would have let all that anger that sat caged in her flimsy heart flow through her like rain. Andrea Shepherd, idiot turned common murderer, guilty for the death of the one person she let nestle in her life for a solid six years.

Ultimately, she’d decided to let the law handle him. Had somehow managed to contain all that anger. Let it be done the right way, the correct way, the way in which she wouldn’t stoop to his level. She’d found peace with that, somehow.

And how quickly that peace shattered.

She’d gotten that call today, that the divorce hadn’t gone through, that they were back to square fucking one because someone had conveniently forgotten to sign the papers and really, Audric should be so lucky that Andy breaking into his apartment was as dramatic as she was going to make this. ( Sure the night was still young but... strong start. They might even get through this without her shooting him. )

The front door finally swung open and Andy didn’t even look up from her current craft project. She was in the middle of severing a photo of their wedding toast. She just snipped the scissors in Audric’s direction as a greeting.

“Surprise Aud,” She said, her voice flat. “You have some papers to take care of.” Snip. Snip. “Seems like you forgot to sign them the first time.”

Andy focused on playing dead.

#( aduric roux ; andrea shepherd )#( para ; i'm going to fight 'em all )#( andrea shepherd ; seven nation army )

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topfygad · 5 years ago

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30 most beautiful mountains in the world

The most beautiful mountains in the world have captivated climbers for centuries. Here, we examine their lethal appeal.

“You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you,” said John Muir, the renowned naturalist, author and environmental philosopher.

If our resident seven-summit hopeful is an apt barometer, Muir makes a valid point. Those who spend time in the mountains seem to be driven by a deeper force. These brave men and women will face vertiginous vertical falls, sub-zero temperatures and 8,000m death zones in pursuit of their summit dreams. It’s in ode to them that we present this list.

Most beautiful mountains in the world

1. Cuernos del Paine

Height: 2,600m (8,530ft) Location: Andes, Chile

Emperorcosar/Shutterstock The stunning Cuernos del Paine

Los Cuernos del Paine or ‘Paine horns’ refer to a set of sharp granite peaks in Torres del Paine National Park, all of which rise above 2,000m.

The spiky peaks have delightfully fitting names – among them Aleta de Tiburón (Shark’s Fin), La Espada (The Sword) and La Hoja (The Blade) – and are located halfway along the W trek, one of the best hiking trails in Torres del Paine.

2. Mount Thor

Height: 1,675m (5,495ft) Location: Baffin Mountains, Canada

Ed Dods/Shutterstock Thor is home to the world’s greatest vertical drop

The hulking Mount Thor is simply extraordinarily. Located on Canada’s remote Baffin Island, Thor is home to the world’s greatest vertical drop. It would take a terrifying 36 seconds for a 170lb (77kg) person to fall the 1,250m from the cliff face below the summit all the way to the floor.

3. Alpamayo

Height: 5,947m (19,511ft) Location: Cordillera Blanca, Peru

Andre Gie/Shutterstock Alpamayo has often been named one of the most beautiful mountains in the world

Often referred to as the most beautiful mountain in the world, Alpamayo lies in the heart of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca. With a steep pyramidal shape and Viennetta flutes that look practically edible, Alpamayo remains a highly coveted summit.

4. Matterhorn

Height: 4,478m (14,694ft) Location: Pennine Alps, Italy and Switzerland

Bob Pool/Shutterstock The iconic Matterhorn

The Matterhorn is clearly one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Often credited with the birth of Alpinism in the mid-19th century, the iconic pyramidal peak is successfully summited by thousands of climbers every year with up to 150 attempting an ascent every day during peak season.

5. Ama Dablam

Height: 6,812m (22,349ft) Location: Himalayas, Nepal

Daniel Prudek/Shutterstock Ama Dablam has appeared in products by Apple and Google

Ama Dablam is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Situated in the heart of Everest’s Khumbu Region, it looms directly above Thyangboche Monastery on the Everest Base Camp Trek.

Ama Dablam is so picturesque, Google used it as the background of an early version of Gmail while Apple used it as a wallpaper in iOS 7 – high praise in modern times.

6. Half Dome

Height: 2,694m (8,838ft) Location: Sierra Nevada, California, USA

Dreamstime The imposing Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is one of the world’s best big wall climbs. The first technical ascent was in 1957 via a route known today as the Regular Northwest Face. The ascent – which took five days – was the first Grade VI climb in the US.

Today, the route has been free-soloed in a mere few hours. The fastest ascent was completed in 1hr 22m by Alex Honnold in May 2012.

7. Ulvetanna Peak

Height: 2,930m (9,612ft) Location: Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

Gordon Wiltsie/With Permission Ulvetanna is one of the most remote mountains in the world

Ulvetanna is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Tolkienesque in appearance, it rises crown-like above a landscape of white.

Ulvetanna, which means ‘the wolf’s tooth’ in Norwegian, was first climbed in 1994. Its north-east ridge was conquered almost two decades later by British climber Leo Houlding and his team.

8. Mount Asgard

Height: 2,015m (6,610ft) Location: Baffin Mountains, Canada

Dreamstime The fantastical Mt Asgard is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world

The twin peaks of Mt Asgard seem to have emerged from a fictional realm. Fittingly, they have been used for several fantastical feats. In 1976, stuntman Rick Sylvester skied off the mountain with a Union Jack parachute for the opening sequence of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

In 2009, Leo Houlding and his team made a bid for the first free ascent of the north face, a story told in award-winning film The Asgard Project. Houlding later BASE jumped off the summit – an illegal feat for which he was fined.

9. Laila Peak

Height: 6,096m (20,000ft) Location: Karakoram, Pakistan

Pornchai_Ar/Shutterstock The needlepoint summit of Laila Peak

Laila Peak with its needlepoint summit vies with Ama Dablam for the title of the most beautiful mountain in the Himalayas. The first ascent (made without permits and therefore unofficial) was by a four-man British team including Simon Yates who climbed the peak in 1987. It was Yates’ first big climb since the dramatic events on Siula Grande depicted in Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void.

10. Ketil

Height: 2,010m (6,594ft) Location: Kujalleq, Greenland

Fair Use Ketil is home to one of the world’s biggest near-vertical walls

The vast west face of Ketil is another of the world’s biggest near-vertical walls. Located near the southern tip of Greenland, the peak is becoming increasingly popular among the world’s big wall climbers.

Ketil rises above the valley of Klosterdalen which, on the face of it, seems idyllic but is actually a mixture of boot-sucking marshland and thick birch woodland – though climbers are likely to have other worries while bivvying on the wall.

11. Huayna Picchu

Height: 2,693m (8,835ft) Location: Andes, Peru

Emperorcosar/Shutterstock Huayna Picchu looms above Machu Picchu

The iconic Inca citadel of Machu Picchu wouldn’t be half as beautiful without Huayna Picchu looming above it. For many trekkers, climbing this picturesque peak is the highlight of their visit. The views of the citadel – one of the seven Wonders of the World – are extraordinary from the summit and well worth the extra effort.

12. Denali

Height: 6,190m (20,308ft) Location: Alaska Range, Alaska, USA

Steve Allen/Shutterstock The hulking Denali

Denali in Alaska is arguably the most difficult mountain of the seven summits after Everest. It is particularly tough as climbers need to carry heavy loads or pull them on sledges. The notoriously stormy and unpredictable weather on the mountain only makes matters worse.

Denali’s stunning aspect makes it just a little bit easier to understand why it unfailingly attracts climbers to its slopes.

13. Cerro Torre

Height: 3,128m (10,262ft) Location: Andes, Chile/Argentina (disputed)

Sebastien Burel/Shutterstock Cerro Torre has given rise to famous controversies

Cerro Torre is a sheer and sharp pinnacle jutting vertically from the Patagonian Ice Field, fortified with a perilous layer of rime ice and buffeting winds. It is both undeniably beautiful and deeply lethal.

In 1959, Italian climber Cesare Maestri claimed he had successfully climbed the mountain. However, his partner Toni Egger had fallen to his death along with the camera that proved their ascent successful. When every subsequent expedition to Cerro Torre in the following years failed – bringing further death – doubts about Maestri’s summit emerged. He, however, has doggedly maintained his version of events.

14. Machapuchare

Height: 6,993m (22,942ft) Location: Himalayas, Nepal

GlebSStock/Shutterstock One of the last untrodden places on Earth?

Majestic Machapuchare is a sacred peak in the Hindu religion, associated with the god Shiva. In 1957, British climber Wilfrid Noyce set out to climb the mountain, but the king of Nepal asked him to respect Hindu religious customs and not set foot on the summit. Noyce and his climbing companion, A.D.M. Cox, turned back 45m (148ft) short of the summit.

It’s said that no human has ever set foot on it, but it seems to be an open secret that New Zealand climber Bill Denz did so illegally in the early 1980s. Denz was killed in an avalanche on Manaslu in 1983 and the truth died with him.

15. Tre Cime di Lavaredo

Height: 2,999m (9,839ft) Location: Dolomites, Italy

Kan_khampanya/Shutterstock The iconic Tre Cime di Lavaredo

The distinctive peaks known as the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Three Peaks of Lavaredo) depict Italy’s Dolomites at their iconic best.

The peaks made the news in 2018 when the BBC erroneously used them in a documentary about yak herders in the Himalayas. A viewer spotted the error and informed the broadcaster who apologised and later edited out the footage.

16. Polar Sun Spire

Height: 1,438m (4,717ft) Location: Baffin Island, Canada

Summitpost/Fair Use The so-called ‘mother of all headwalls’

The Polar Sun Spire is notable for its stunning 1,300m north face. The team behind the first ascent spent a full month on the mountain and summited after 36 consecutive nights in a portaledge.

The peak has been called ‘the mother of all headwalls’ and reputedly features an even larger uninterrupted cliff face than Mt Thor though this has not been officially confirmed.

17. Fitz Roy

Height: 3,405m (11,171ft) Location: Andes, Argentina and Chile

4kwonderland/Shutterstock The imposing Fitz Roy

The Fitz Roy range with its imposing peaks and shark-tooth summits has beguiled some of the best climbers in the world.

In 2014, Tommy Caldwell (of The Dawn Wall fame) and Alex Honnold (of Free Solo fame) completed the first ascent of the ‘Fitz Traverse’, climbing across the ridge-line of Cerro Fitz Roy and its satellite peaks. The route is 5km long and includes around 4,000m of vertical elevation.

18. Huangshan

Height: 1,864m (6,115ft) Location: Huangshan, China

4045/Shutterstock Huangshan inspired James Cameron’s Avatar

The Huangshan mountain range in southern Anhui province is one of the most iconic images of China. The towering granite peaks shrouded in wisps of mist are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of China’s most popular tourist destinations.

The range has inspired scores of poets, painters and filmmakers, among them James Cameron who took inspiration from Huangshan in designing the fictional shangri-la of Pandora in his blockbuster film Avatar.

19. Mount Roraima

Height: 2,810m (9,219ft) Location: Guiana Highlands, Venezuela

Fair Use Roraima serves as a tripoint for Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela

Another mountain immortalised in film, Roraima is said to have inspired scenes in Pixar’s Up. This hulking slab has a summit of 31km2 and serves as a tripoint for Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela.

Unexplored until 1884, Roraima has occupied botanists ever since with its diverse range of flora. Needless to say, it is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world.

20. Mount Fuji

Height: 3,776m (12,388ft) Location: Honshu Island, Japan

FocusStocker/Shutterstock Pretty at a distance

According to the Japanese proverb, ‘he who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool’. This is not without merit for the climb itself offers little of Fuji’s beauty as seen from afar. On the mountain itself, one will find a barren landscape trod by 300,000 people a year.

From a distance, however, Fuji maintains an arresting equanimity that secures its place on this list of the most beautiful mountains in the world.

21. Mount Assiniboine

Height: 3,618m (11,870ft) Location: Canadian Rockies, Canada

Pavel Tvrdy/Shutterstock Mount Assiniboine is known as Canada’s Matterhorn

Mount Assiniboine is a pyramidal peak, often referred to as Canada’s Matterhorn. Located on the Great Divide on the British Columbia-Alberta border, the mountain was named in 1885 by Canadian Surveyor George M. Dawson. On spotting the mountain, Dawson saw a trail of clouds rising from the top, which reminded him of the plumes of smoke emanating from the teepees of Assiniboine Indians.

22. Mount Kilimanjaro

Height: 5,895m (19,340ft) Location: Eastern Rift mountains, Tanzania

Andrzej Kubik/Shutterstock The world’s highest freestanding mountain

Kilimanjaro is the world’s highest freestanding mountain, meaning it is not attached to a mountain range. The ‘Roof of Africa’ boasts myriad landscapes and climatic zones, each with its own distinct flora and fauna.

Ascents begin in dense rainforest, followed by a more scrubland setting with low brush. At around 4,000m, this gives way to a rocky, almost lunar-like landscape before finally, on summit day, a fine glacial scree.

23. Mount Whitney

Height: 4,421m (14,504ft) Location: Sierra Nevada, California, USA

Mariusz S. Jurgielewicz/Shutterstock The highest summit in the contiguous United States

Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States (i.e. excluding Hawaii and Alaska). It looks intimidating on first view but the popular Mount Whitney Trail starts at an elevation of 2,550m, meaning the summit can be reached in a day or two.

24. Stetind

Height: 1,392m (4,566ft) Location: Nordland, Norway

Frode Jenssen/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 “An anvil whereupon the Gods can hammer”

In 2002, Stetind was unofficially selected as Norway’s national mountain. Author and mountaineer Peter Wessel Zappfe described its smooth, steep shape as “an anvil whereupon the Gods can hammer”.

Meanwhile, British mountaineer William C. Slingsby called it the ugliest mountain he ever saw – but we beg to differ. Slingsby failed to achieve the summit which may explain his gloomy view.

25. Aiguille du Dru

Height: 3,754m (12,316ft) Location: The Alps, France

Yao Moxi/Shutterstock Fittingly, ‘aiguille’ translates as ‘needle’

Aiguilles du Dru in the Mont Blanc mountain range is striking for its jutting peak, aptly name ‘aiguille’ which translates as ‘needle’. The peak of granite rock stands at 3,754m and is coupled with a lower peak at 3,733m: Petit Dru which offers one of the world’s most stunning big wall climbs.

26. Trango Towers

Height: 6,286m (20,623ft) Location: Karakoram, Pakistan

Dreamstime The colossal Trango Towers

The Trango Towers in northern Pakistan offer some of the world’s most difficult big wall climbing due to a combination of altitude, height and steepness. Here you’ll find some of the most colossal cliffs on Earth. In fact, the east face of Great Trango Tower is the world’s greatest ‘nearly vertical’ drop at 1,340m.

27. Tsaranoro Be

Height: 1,910m (6,266ft) Location: Tsaranoro, Madagascar

Dreamstime The Tsaranoro Massif is known as ‘Africa’s Yosemite’

Madagascar may be famous for its wildlife, but it has more to offer than lemurs. Dubbed Africa’s Yosemite, the Tsaranoro Massif features orange-streaked granite walls that have drawn climbers since the late 90s. The majority of the walls can be tackled in a day, but the Tough Enough route is considered one of the hardest multi-pitch routes in the world.

28. Uluru

Height: 863m (2,831ft) Location: Northern Territory, Australia

Atlas & Boots Uluru in the red centre of Australia is worth the epic trip

The huge rock formation in central Australia is actually an inselberg, which literally means ‘island mountain’ and refers to isolated rock hills, ridges or small mountains that rise abruptly from more level surroundings.

From 1873, this particular inselberg was widely known as Ayers Rock, a name coined by European explorer William Gosse. However, the local Aboriginal people had called it Uluru for centuries. In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted and it was renamed Ayers Rock/Uluru, before being changed in 2002 to Uluru/Ayers Rock.

29. Eiger

Height: 3,970m (13,024ft) Location: Bernese Alps, Switzerland

Dreamstime The Eiger is home to Mordwand (the ‘Murder Wall’)

The arresting Eiger is deceptive in its beauty. As well as one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, it is also one of the most dangerous. It’s north face is possibly the most notorious in history. The combination of extreme weather, risk of avalanche, rock fall, technical climbing and freezing temperatures inspired the nickname Mordwand (‘Murder Wall’ in German). In recent years, the Eiger’s menacing reputation has somewhat dissipated, but the legend of the Mordwand endures.

30. Table Mountain

Height: 1,085m (3,559ft) Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Alexcpt_photography/Shutterstock Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain

Table Mountain is said to be one of the oldest in the world. Its formation began circa 280 million years ago and some of its rocks date back 600 million years (long before the Himalayas).

Standing at 1,085m, it’s not the mountain’s height but its breadth that’s most impressive. The stark, scarred northern face hulks across the skyline, topped by a vast plateau that stretches for three kilometres.

Lead image: Daniel Prudek/Shutterstock

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rjzimmerman · 6 years ago

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Excerpt from this story from Mercury News:

Frankfurter’s death, on Sept. 4 of last year, was reported widely. But the dramatic details of the accident — one of a growing number of fatalities involving young people in search of spectacular photos, often to post on Instagram, Facebook or other social media — have not been made public until now, after being obtained by this organization through a Freedom of Information Act request.

For generations, visitors have taken risks at Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and other national parks. Some have died by getting too close to cliffs or waterfalls while trying to photograph landscapes. A man from Hong Kong died this week at the Grand Canyon when he stumbled while taking a photo and fell 1,000 feet.

Now, however, the internet and social media are changing the equation. The goal is often not to come back with a scenic photo, but rather to come back with a photo of yourself taking a risk, experts say.

“It appears to be a selfie epidemic,” said Michael Ghiglieri, co-author of “Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite,” a 2007 book about fatal accidents in the park. “Today people are trying to prove that they did something,” Ghiglieri said. “In the old days people went out to have an experience. Now they go out to record that they had that experience.”

Between 2011 and 2017, at least 259 people around the world died while attempting to take selfies, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.

Their average age was 23. Three-quarters were male. The most common causes of death were drowning, often by being swept into the ocean by big waves; transportation accidents, like being hit by a moving train; and falling from high places.

“Most people will say, ‘I want the photo, but it’s too dangerous,'” said Ghiglieri, a former Vietnam-era Army platoon sergeant who has led more than 600 outdoor trips to places as diverse as the Grand Canyon and Rwanda. “Some people — and it’s almost always guys — recognize it’s dangerous, but they don’t internalize it as dangerous. They perceive it like a Hollywood movie set. It’s a disconnect.”

Ghiglieri said there’s not much that national parks can do.

“It’s impossible,” he said. “Even if you built miles of cyclone fencing, someone would climb over it.”

#selfies

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albrtmason · 6 years ago

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perhaps a joy that came in droves

rating: g characters: albert mason, arthur morgan ship: implied AT LEAST onesided albert/arthur word count: 919 read on ao3

buy me a coffee!

see, the thing was that albert hadn’t expected to see arthur morgan again.

not that he ever did, really, but their last parting had had so much finality to it, had felt so much like a goodbye. a part of that may have been albert’s own frustration, his disappointment and defeat, but there had been so much wistfulness in morgan’s voice that it had felt like an ending.

(in retrospect perhaps morgan knew in some way that he was dying even then, had been tying up loose ends before he passed, and in that consideration albert couldn’t help but find himself feeling honored.)

but he does, he does see him again, and albert isn’t sure if it’s a blessing or a curse.

it is just before he leaves saint denis for san francisco, determined to begin what work he could in yosemite, the land so loved by muir and johnson, whose work had first inspired albert to wildlife photography in the first place. he comes to collect his photographs from the gallery, folio tucked under his arm, and the showrooms are as silent and still as they nearly always are. the receptionist gives him a smile before turning back to her novel.

and in the front room, inspecting a display on the wall with his thumbs hooked into his belt, is arthur.

“mister morgan,” albert says, surprised but pleasantly so, though something catches in his throat when morgan turns to face him. “i didn’t expect to see you here!”

morgan looks like death warmed over, his skin pale and waxy, color high in his cheeks; his sunken eyes and gaunt face lend him a skeletal appearance. it wasn’t unlikely that he’d lost weight, as well, but it was hard to tell beneath the coat he wore, the broad line of his shoulders slumped and tired. but he smiles anyway, the genuine and nearly bashful smile that albert had always favored most, the one he had received when he gifted morgan a print of the wolves. albert smiles back.

“mister mason,” morgan greets, turning back to the picture framed on the wall. “these turned out mighty fine. you might just have more talent than you say you do.”

albert huffs, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, and turns as well. they are looking at the photo he had captured of the alligator, the beast half-facing the camera, its maw open to show all of its teeth. it was, albert admitted, an impressive picture, though at the time he’d been less impressed and more breathless with adrenaline.

“let us hope so,” albert says wryly, shifting the folio he held. “these are new york-bound, and i’d hate to prove my mother right.”

morgan looks at him then, really looks at him, his blue eyes clear and sharp despite his diminished appearance. “you’re goin’ to new york?”

“oh, not quite. not yet, at least. i was planning on spending some time in california, perhaps get some shots of yosemite valley.” albert pauses for a moment. “and... you? saint denis seems rather out of the way from your typical stomping ground, if you’ll excuse the assumption.”

morgan chuckles at that, just a little thing, but it devolves into a coughing fit soon enough, until he is bent at the middle and gasping for each wheezing breath. albert frets at the sight of blood and digs out a handkerchief, but morgan waves him off, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand instead.

hoarse, he answers albert’s earlier question, “nothin’ much, really. was in the area, thought i’d come see the sights.”

“mister morgan, are you quite well? do you need a doctor?”

“ain’t nothin’ a doctor can do for me.” a frown twitches the corner of his mouth as he glances away, and albert notes faintly that there are still flecks of blood in his beard. then morgan sighs, a sad, rattling sort of thing. “i’m real sick, mister mason. just... tryin’ to make the most’ve things, now.”

“i’m sorry.” the words are hollow, reflexive; his hand is raised in some abortive measure of comfort. albert curls his fingers closed and brings his fist uselessly close to his chest.

they stay like that for a moment, in stifled, heavy silence, looking at the photo of the alligator. it was hard to reconcile the morgan in front of him with the man who’d rescued him from wolves, from alligators, from his own stupidity. who’d chased coyotes and wrangled horses for him. albert had always admired morgan, had enjoyed his kindness and envied his competence, and had hoped and hoped for every one of their unexpected meetings.

and now, it seemed, that this would be the last.

“have you ever seen california, mister morgan?”

morgan’s brows raise in surprise at albert’s blurted question, and albert swallows back a wince. he didn’t want to watch this man die and deteriorate before his eyes but he wanted this, this time, wanted to be greedy and savor it, have it all to himself.

“that is to say, travelling alone is never quite as enjoyable as with a companion, and i’m sure that it’s not yet too late to purchase train tickets. and san francisco has dry seasons, in the summer, which i’ve heard can do wonders for the health.”

morgan studies him for a moment, blue eyes intense, and albert swallows thickly under the attention. “arthur.”

“pardon?”

“may as well call me by my name,” arthur says slowly, “if we’re gonna be settin’ off to california together.”

#rdr2 #fic #albert mason #arthur morgan #2am

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hunterguyveriv · 6 years ago

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Daddy Please Wake Up part 1

As some are aware I have posted the story I am working on titled “Daddy Please Wake Up!” on DeviantArt, Fanfiction.Net, and Archive about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to share it here for those who may not be a member of those sites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

As I have mentioned on the 3 sites I posted this story on, this was inspired by the lack of fan art of Post Explosion/Crash Keith and his wolf. So I wanted to be the first to do something like this.

Part 1: The Explosion & Crash The explosion was nearly as bright as the antiquated nuclear weapons used for tests during a conflict that happened nearly 150 years ago called the Cold War if not brighter. Temporarily frying the polarized filters in the cockpits of the lions, causing the paladins to go blind. Not that becoming blind would matter… The explosion was bright enough that it looked as if it were a second sun. Not even seconds later it slammed into the lions with enough force it was a surprise that they weren't destroyed. Slamming into the black lion the hardest, having supported the body and the other lions supporting the limbs. But there were no screams over the comms, it was as if they accepted their inevitable fate. In the cockpit of the Black Lion, being hit the hardest, Keith was instantaneously thrown into the console in front of him causing him to scream out blindly from some of his ribs breaking before collapsing back into his chair. Almost as if sensing the imminent danger to his paladin the chair magnetized holding Keith to it before everything went offline. He tried calling out to the paladins over his helmet but all he heard was static. He desperately grabbed the controls to do something… anything but they were locked up like the time Voltron was hit by the Komar. The lion was violently rocked again from hitting Earth’s atmosphere during reentry causing the magnetic locks to nearly completely fail to cause him to slam the visor of his helmet into the same console he broke his ribs on. He screamed in pain again as his head started to ring from the impact and blood slowly trickled down his face from his broken visor. Being closest to Black, Blue nearly suffered the same fate from the explosion, had she not been vaguely shielded from Black’s wings. Instead, Blue was slammed with enough force to cause the Princess to get whiplash from the violent motions. Seconds later sensing danger to her Paladin Blue magnetized Allura’s seat even her helmet to keep her from doing any serious damage to her neck. She remembered something Lance said nearly 4 years ago about Water helping Blue recharge. She just managed to type in the coordinates she wanted just before Blue slammed into the atmosphere. SHe grunted in pain trying to keep her calm in the face of certain death, holding on to the controls. Manhandling them trying to keep Blue straight. It was only when Blue started barrel rolling that her resolve started to crack.

Inside the Yellow Lion, Hunk was surprisingly fairing better than the rest of the team in terms of plummeting down to Earth. Due to the extra armor, Yellow had he could still manage to fight the effects of the explosion hurtling his Lion back to Earth. His console in front of him arched streams of blue energy, prompting him to protect his face. Being the heaviest of the Lions Yellow slammed hard into the atmosphere. Inside the cockpit due to the impact with the atmosphere Hunk slammed his arms into the console and his head into his arms cutting it open while also giving himself a concussion. When the Lion started to tail spine adding insult to injury Hunk felt his stomach churning violently. Through the lulling ringing of his concussion and the effects of G-Forces he grabbed his controls and started fighting with them to get control again, yelling. Pidge, being the smallest of the Paladins struggled against the Magnetic locks holding her in place. Her lion’s display flickered off and on as she plummeted towards the atmosphere. She grabbed her controls the best she could but only one responded. She typed some buttons on the console to her left. She pulled up the Head-Missile and tried to launch as a sort of escape pod, but the systems were jammed. She frantically typed other commands on her consoles but nothing was working. Tears started flowing from her eyes as everything she thought of just wouldn't work mathematically or function. She was 30 seconds from burning up on reentry or minutes away from crashing head first into the ground. She heard a faint rumble in the back of her head and with what little power her lion had put it in “Form Voltron mode” reducing the surface of the lion praying it would work.

Inside the Red Lion, Lance was having troubles holding her together. The shockwave not only damaged many critical systems to Red, due to her lack of armor for the sacrifice of speed and maneuverability but Lance hadn't gone unscathed. In the violent shaking and rocking, he bit his lip open but also broke an arm from flailing about. But like Black, Red magnetized her seat to protect her paladin’s torso from the shockwave. He grunted against the pain grabbing both controls. He had to position her for reentry. He called out to Allura - nothing, Keith - he heard briefly a blood-curdling scream of pain before his coms went down, Pidge - static, Hunk - garbled transmissions of him saying something. Before succumbing to G-Forces upon reentry his last thought to himself was to find a soft landing.

On Earth Atlas was in the process of powering back up to revert to its Battleship form when the sonic booms of the lions reentering the atmosphere were recorded on sensors. Shiro tried contacting the Lions but all he got was static. He tried again still static before the realization hit him, they were all free falling to Earth. The only thing the Bridge-Crew could do was watch in horror as the lions fell.

Due to the limited power returning sensors were limited to a 50-mile radius around Atlas. He ordered the sensor officer to track their trajectory and plot estimated crash sites. He as ordered the MFEs ready to launch with Medics in tow with them. They were to follow the lions when they got out of sensor ranger and render any necessary aide to the Paladins. In the hanger bay, the MFE-Pilots and medics received their orders. Each itching to take off as the hanger doors were forcibly opened manually. But the manual override to the hanger dors was too slow. Just as the first MFE left the hanger the lions had all crashed.

Red slammed into a surprisingly intact flat surface on the outskirts of Platt City near what looked like refinery drums. She slammed so hard that Lance broke his arm when it slammed into his console to his right. With the crash over, the magnetic lock released Lance from its vice-like grip on the Paladin. With the artificial gravity system offline Lance fell and to add insult to injury dislocated the shoulder to the very arm he broke. Blue had slashed down, nice and softly into the Gulf of Mexico. Like on the Mermaid Planet all her systems were down as she sank deeper and deeper into the Gulf. Her Paladin unconscious from the impact had a pain where bruises would later appear shooting through her. Blue’s hull groaned from the stress of the explosion and the water as she came to a stop on her side. Just barely surviving reentry Green used the last ounce of her energy to revert from her arm stage to her lion stage. She also managed to roll over as to have her back shield take the initial impact. Green crashed into the forest of Yosemite National Park just barely missing El Capitan. Alarms of various system failures blared in Pidge’s cockpit, but she was already unconscious from the G-Forces wreaking havoc on her small frame. Yellow nearly collided with the Galra base but the impact and close proximity did irrevocable damage to the base causing able prisoners to flee. Nearly all of them fled except for a shocked and growing crowd surrounding two, who stared at the massive lion in fear. Fear of the occupant, one they dreamt of holding in their arms again didn't make it. Not knowing he had fared better than his friends, only slammed his head into a console Leaving just Black…

His body was screaming in pain at him, blood trickling down his cut face as he struggled. Struggled to gain some control of his lion. Struggled against the pain in his ribs laying an arm against them as if it was all that was holding them together. Struggled to stay awake as the ringing from his concussion got louder. Consoles erupted in sparks causing him to wince and move his head away from exploding consoles. The sounds of alarms could be heard, causing his head to hurt even more. Just by closing his eyes to protect his slowly recovering eyesight started him to become drowsy. He heard a faint-weak whisper from his lion pleading with him to stay awake, he had to stay awake. Through his hazy sight, he saw the shack that was once part of the house his father and mother owned when he was a baby. Coming to terms, he thought to himself “how fitting… my path started here, now it is going to end,” he smiled through the physical pain. He thought of his mother, his wolf, his mentor Kolivan who was thankfully harsher on him than his brother Shiro ever was, and her... one last time. Groaning through the pain in his throat, “Well dad, guess I’ll be seeing you shortly. We can finally get to catch up.” Closing his eyes just before Black slammed into the ground head first.

Romelle was sitting in a room set aside for Keith. Of all the people on the Atlas including Shiro & Coran, it was decided she would keep the wolf company. After all, she knew him more than any of the Paladins, Coran, or Shiro. She was humming softly leaning against a wall petting the wolf everyone started calling Cosmo. He had settled down surprisingly during the battle with that Hammerhead Robeasts. Romelle commented “it must be nice to be that calm” as she continued to stroke the wolf’s fur. But the wolf raised his head looking around the strange room for something and started to whine.

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carryforthtradition · 3 years ago

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Beckoned by Illusion and Dreams: A Tale from the Trail by John Proctor

Photo John Proctor on the trail in English Lake district.

Early bird catches the worm

For me it began at an early age. I would get up hours before school and go running along the stream in the local Oak woodlands. On many occasion I wouldn’t make it into school. Adventure had gripped me and with it, came many risks.

Ultimately this cost me any chance of an early academic education. Teachers in their class rooms, their lectures and demand for uniform conformity had nothing of interest for me. Painful submission via physical punishments such has the cane only served to strengthen my dislike for them.

Long days wandering within the Oaks and the jungle of the city would replace school. Having fun with friends, daring and challenging each other, climbing drain pipes, running over buildings and jumping off roofs.

Mischievous adventures awaited, and along with other likeminded characters, I would fully engage and explore. Leaving school and living in the city, uneducated and unemployed I began the downward spiral into criminality drugs and violence.

There was risk, they were high; Prison, paranoia, drug addiction, death and poverty. Sanctuary and enlightenment rewarded the committed.

“I shivered soaked to the skin” - hiding under a bush.

“I held my breath and lowered my heart rate” - as the police used search lights to find me.

“I shuddered; the wooden steak spilt open my scalp” - as I fought another man.

“I held out my thumb” - as I hitch hiked to the mountains. My rucksack contained all I required for a few days, the city was draining, I needed space.

“A burst of colour vibrated spiralling through my vision” - a tab of Ecstasy.

“An image of light and space floated around me” - a trip from the mushrooms.

“A rainbow vortex appeared, the door way to reality” - a tab of LSD

“I held out my thumb” - as I hitch hiked back to the mountains, my mind had been opened and I needed to see.

Sense the Freedom

I’d reached out to education through college and university, a slow drip of exposure began through adventure pursuits like rock climbing and potholing. New and interesting experiences began to develop my thirst for knowledge.

As I moved away from the sanctuary of criminality I looked to the future and dreamed. Those dreams bared fruit as I took risks and committed, local adventures led to faraway places and a new type of connected friendship.

Climbing, running and skiing, my rucksack containing all I required, the life of a climber, simple in need and rich in experience. I became stronger mentally and physically through a dedication to train and learn.

I realised personal wealth for me would not come in the form a large bank balance or property portfolio. My wealth would be of personal experiences, adventure would be the route and commitment; the cost.

“Can you see it john”

“See what Jim”

“Up their man, that UFO”

“NO”

“That’s cos you’re not meant to see it man”

Jim was right I wasn’t meant to see it! I could, however smell it; sitting in a forest of thick, ancient pines. Engulfed by 1000m high walls of granite, the scent hung sweet in the air has I took a deep, slow breath.

Total focus was required as we climbed up super steep hard and technical granite rock, baked by the sun in the Yosemite Valley. Dreams had become reality; I climbed great walls of granite and ice in the Central Alps of Europe, California, Scotland and Patagonia.

Photo left the 1000m Granite West Face of the Peti Dru

time

The life I’d been travelling had far exceeded the expectations of my youth.

I wandered through the mountains, the peace they brought deepening the bond. I was in search of a pinnacle experience; a point I could, over time, return from.

Time was beckoning, I had witnessed the decline in many adventurers, their minds always strong, searching for adventure. Their bodies struggling from the years of demanding, training regimes and days of enduring endeavours, at 50 old years - my time was coming.

I stepped up the pace and began increasing the distance whilst out running, I had a new focus. I would head to the West coast of Scotland for an Ultra Skyrun, the ultimate line through the highest peaks and rock faces.

Skylander, beckoned by illusion and dream – John Proctor

Photo left - the mighty North Face of Ben Nevis

Below is a Tail from the Trail

Skylander 58km, 5280m ascent, Max elevation 1335m 15hrs

There is a coldness in the air, and all is quiet on the mountain, the first rays of sunshine open up the mighty and majestic north face of Ben Nevis as it breaks its cover from darkness. Engulfed by Incredible feelings of strength, excitement and desire, billions of neuron’s light up the inner mind. I tune into the atmosphere, step forward into the day and drift deeper into my soul; the trail has begun, time is rolling on.

“It was not exactly an Alpine start. I needed the daybreak for my ascent of Ledge Route, the trail to the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest peak. I had driven the 350 miles to Scotland and pitched my tent in Glencoe below the Aonach Eagach ridge. As I lay alone, resting and thinking of the run, a nervousness began swirling around my mind, casting a shadow of self-doubt. I knew navigating through the north face in the dark was a risk too far, I would wait for the sun’s rays.”

“I had turned to Sky running a few years previous, when a friend introduced me to it. I loved being in the mountains and I knew them well. However, to become a sky runner I needed to train and learn so that I could develop new skills and knowledge. The very nature of the challenge strongly upholds what I consider to be the hallmarks of adventure, risk, uncertainty, and commitment. I was hooked and set off on a personal journey, through Britain highest mountain trails, running, climbing, and becoming physically stronger, while mapping my mind and gaining on-trail knowledge.”

Skylander was to be my ultimate Sky run, a personal challenge and a reflection of the past few years, I had created the route and mapped my mind with the aid of the sketch map. I had all the elements for a good day in the mountains lined up and was now about as ready as I could possibly be, a few days after my 50th birthday I set off to celebrate.

The early morning run up to the Ben had the usual mix of glee and awe, now it was time to focus as I looked to climb Ledge Route. Solid blocks of avalanche debris choked the gully, I crossed them searching for a slanting terrace and the start of the route. The temperature was below zero and verglas coated a rock slab. I delicately padded my hands and feet on the slithers of dry rock, I crossed to the terrace and then on to the ridge line. Marvelling at my position, I placed my micro running spikes on and moved from rock to snowy ridge as I headed for the summit.

Photo right - View from my tent in Glencoe

Photo left - Looking back to the Ben`s North face from ledge route

“I run over the summit enjoying the fine views then headed for the descent, a super steep slope of crisp snow, the micro spikes attached to my trainers scraping the surface, ice axe ready, should I slip. I headed to the golden sun-soaked granite of the CMD Arete, gnarly worn teeth of rock glowing in golden rays of sunshine. I reached the arete and breathed a sigh of relief, took the spikes off, and placed the axe in the pack. Delicately balanced, I began striding across its brow, heading to Carn Mor Dearg summit.”

From the summit heading east I dropped down the ridge line to the head of Coire Giubhsachan, then turning to the south, I began the 3k of descent, running fast and free! I arrived at the Waters of Nevis, the cool waters refreshing my feet has I crossed.

Breathing deep, I began climbing up the zigzags to An Gearanach. Heading south to Am Bodach, there was not a hint of wind, I skipped across the mighty ridge line and descended to Kinlocheven. During the descent I stopped near a rock pool, took of my trainers and socks, and sat soaking myself in the cold water. I would need to cool down completely for the next section of the run

Photo above - On the summit of Am Bodach, with Ben Nevis in the background

Am Bodach

Leaving the village behind me, I set of on the 10km of moderate trail, running under the burning mid-day sun. I was glad to enter the cool shadow that cast down from the Monumental north face of the Buachaille. The heat of the day had taken a toll, cramp was gripping my calves and my stomach was churning. I calmed and steadied myself, overwhelmed by the views, I climbed curved ridge and topped-out on the summit.

“Throughout the day I had been following the ark of the sun as it past overhead. I turned to the west, it was time to run for the sunset, heading to the uber classic ridge line of Aonach Eagach. Sunrise on the Ben and sunset on the ridge had been the dream! I had 15hrs to do it, it was time to dig in and make it happen!”

I approached the summit of Am Bodach and the entrance to the ridge, the sun was resting on the horizon. The atmosphere and raw emotion engulfed me as I placed my climbing helmet on and begin the final balancing act. Sun sitting on the Horizon, looking from Am Bodach over the ridge of Aonach Eagach

John Proctor is the author of ‘Child of Time: Sanctuary in the Extreme’ and ‘Mapping the Mind: The Art of Skyrunning’ which you can buy here -

#John Proctor #climbing #Ben Nevis #Scotland #adventue #commitment

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