Neil

As I pushed through the trees another peel of thunder sounded off in the distance. I knew that I shouldn’t be walking right now, I should find a moderate sized tree and just hunker down until the rain stops. Hell even without the lightning lighting up the sky directly above my head hiking in a torrential rain storm in the back country of the Canadian Rockies is a terrible idea. It was all too easy to lose sight of the trail and get lost, to say nothing of tripping and falling. But with the late afternoon sun completely blocked out by thick black clouds and neither the rain or the lightning looking to be letting up any time soon I pushed onwards to some shelter I knew was nearby.

At the base of a nearby mountain was a small overhang, it should protect me from at least the worst of the storm and would probably be safer than sitting under a tree, So If I could make it there maybe this wouldn’t end up being such a terrible night.

As a crash of thunder larger and louder than any before sounded I pushed my way through a few branches that were in my path, and I suddenly found myself with a face full of sun and a sweltering humid heat that hit me in the face so suddenly I started blinking as I walked forwards. The sky was clear, the rain had just stopped and there was even the buzzing of insects all around me instead of the sound of the downpour.

I was so shocked by the change in the weather and looking at the sky that I took several more steps and almost didn’t notice when I almost walked off a cliff. I’m not really sure what it was that tipped me off, maybe a change in the wind, maybe seeing something in my peripheral vision but for whatever reason I stopped, looked down and saw my right foot suspended over a drop of almost 1 kilometer straight down.

“Jesus!” I shouted and scrambled back from the edge landing on my ass. Taking a few deep breaths, I stood up and tried to calm down.

I had lived in the Canadian Rockies for just over 3 years now and I spent as much time as physically possible hiking. Here, now, looking over this valley I currently had no idea where the fuck I was.

Looking forwards I saw a valley in front of me filled with trees and grassy plains. In the distance probably 10 kilometers in front of me was a mountain range that stretched at least 5 kilometers tall and had so many mountains so close together they formed a complete wall that stretched to the left and right for as far as I could see. The top third of the peeks were capped with white snow and the rest of the mountain was dotted with bits of green that were probably trees or moss. There was even large waterfalls running down the side of the mountains, it was absolutely beautiful and not something I had ever seen on this trail.

In the valley between the mountain I stood on and the range in front of me was a dense forest with so many trees together I couldn’t see the ground in most places. Winding its way through the middle of the valley was a massive river, easily a few hundred meters across with small tributaries adding to it from the mountains.

Pulling out my map I looked at the last place I knew I had been. Before the rain started I had checked my map and I was in a valley a half a dozen kilometers from the closest river. After the rain began I had been walking for only 45 minutes, not nearly enough time to wander up a mountain by accident and get this close to the river.

Deciding to try and retrace my steps a little I turned around looking for the trees I had just pushed my way through, but when I turned around there was a sheer cliff face were I had just been walking from. The cliff was 90 degrees straight up and it continued straight up for another few hundred meters.

Feeling dazed I slowly turned in a slow circle taking in my immediate surroundings. I was standing on a small trail on a cliff, it was about 10 feet wide and was smooth and flat. It actually looked like it may have been carved out of the mountain at one point. There were no trees around me and nothing that looked like the trail I had just been on.

The closest tree was a solitary thing hanging precariously on the side of the mountain about 15 feet away, a leafy green thing, I noted wiping still wet pine needles off my shoulder.

Kneeling down I looked at and felt the rocks and the ground, everything was bone dry. If my hiking boots hadn’t still been squelching with my every step and my rain poncho wasn’t soaked as well I might have thought I imagined the torrential rainstorm that I had just been walking through.

For the first time in a long time I started to feel panic rise in my chest. Forcing it back down I started talking to myself. “Ok. Ok. Ok. Where the fuck am I?” My voice getting higher and higher pitched even to my own ears.

Knowing I needed to calm myself down I started pacing back and forth on the small trail. “Alright, alright. I’m not sure how but I got myself a little turned around in the thunderstorm. It happens all the time to people. The important thing is to not panic. I have 6 days worth of food and I am expected back in three days. When I don’t turn up, Grant will notice and call in the search and rescue teams. They have my route and I wasn’t wandering for that long, I can’t be far off. Rescue Choppers! Fuck Yeah!” I shouted excited despite myself, I had always wanted to ride in a helicopter.

“For now I just stay put, don’t get more lost, don’t get hurt. Don’t do anything stupid.” I said feeling much better. No matter the situation I always felt better talking it out, unfortunately this left me talking to myself far more than was probably healthy.

“First things first, take stock of what I have.” I said as I took off my pack. Not wanting to leave everything laying around on a cliff side I just used my memory to tell go through what I still had. “Food for 6 days, a liter and a half of water, should be enough for a day or two. Iodine pills, my tent, my sleeping bag, a few changes of clothes, two knives, folding and hunting. A first aid kit, assorted emergency supplies including matches a flashlight one flare, a bit of rope, cookware, a single burner camp stove and two cans of fuel for it.” I said to myself.

Feeling much better I knew what I would need to do next. “Find a water source, make sure I have a signal fire ready, dry out my clothes and stay safe until help arrives. No problem I can sit tight for a few days.”

Sighing in relief it was amazing how quickly I could go from almost a blind panic to feeling pretty good about my situation. Hell now that I was calmed down if I got out my map would I be able to figure out where I was? Maybe that was the closest river, just flooded from snow melt and rain storms? What if I had been lost for longer than I thought and wandered up the mountain and was looking at it from a strange angle?

Leaving my pack where it was, I walked back to the cliff face and took a closer look. This was a pretty good vantage point to look at the valley. Looking at the river below I tried to see if it was recognizable, or see a way down to it, I did after all need water. That was when I saw something flying towards me from the right.

Looking at it I was surprised to see it looking back at me. At first I thought it was some sort of eagle that was fairly close to me, but as it kept getting closer and closer and larger and larger I realized my sense of scale had been all wrong.

When it was 30 feet from me I realized that it was absolutely huge, its wingspan at least 10 feet across and its body at least 8 feet long. Trailing behind it was a long ribbon like tail that shifted in the breeze, it’s wings were completely devoid of feathers and its face didn’t have a beak but a long snout. It looked more like a dinosaur than any bird I had ever heard of.

“What in the fuck is that?” I said to myself in slack jawed awe. That is when something happened to me that I couldn’t ignore. A bright blue semi-transparent window opened directly in front of me.

Air Jack

A flying lizard native to the Alatross Islands. By using air magic and their large wingspan they are capable of flying great distances and can carry heavy burdens.

Well, that answered a question, and raised a few more, I thought.