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Beneath the Sea of Stars
Sep. 22nd, 2015 10:51 pmI decided to store my second cut hay in a different room from the first cut, or at least for the time being. I chose another guest room with a balcony, near the kitchen, and I moved all the furniture into a corner, out of the way. I don't get many guests. That's just as well or I'd have to hire staff. The first cut hay in my other larder still smells good, although it is not smelling as sweet and fresh as it had a month ago. Ponyville grows good hay.
Back to my notes from the dark, starlit north!
Day 7. Tethered single-file, we've been picking our way through the boulders and pitfall crevasses of this ice sheet all day. It's slow and tiring. We're taking more breaks and a longer lunch.
During lunch and short stops I have to use a pencil to take notes. Even though I thaw the ink in my inkwell before dipping my nib, the ink freezes solid again before I can press the nib to paper. At camp, in the evening, the oil lamp heats the air in my tent enough to make the ink workable, but just barely. For extra warmth we've taken to sleeping two to a bedroll and combining our horse blankets. I've noticed that Rainbow Dash snores, but most of the time I'm so exhausted I just sleep through it.
Suddenly, mountains! Rarity helped Rainbow reposition her winter blankets to free up her wings and she went scouting ahead after lunch. When she got back she told us that we were nearly out of the icy debris and we could have avoided most, if not all of it if we had walked on a long ridge a bit to our left. But the best news was that up ahead she had found a serene valley of snow framed by two identical mountain peaks!
She was half frozen from the flight. Rarity rebundled her until all we could see of her was the tip of her muzzle deep in a tunnel of wool cloth, like she had been rolled in a carpet. After two cups of hot cocoa she stopped shaking and we were good to go.
We headed first to Rainbow's ridge and continued north from there. By evening we'd made camp at the south end of the valley. The snow in this valley is so light and fluffy, it drifts willy nilly with the slightest breeze. I've never seen anything like it, these snowflakes are so different from our hoof-made snowflakes. They're mostly dendrites with plates, but the plates look like duck's feet and the dendrites like a cross between club moss fronds and moth antennae.
If anypony entered here recently, all signs of their passage has been obliterated. In some places the soft snow was up to our necks but we still could easily push forward. Tomorrow we'll have to move carefully to avoid falling into pits hidden by this snow.
Day 8. It has been slow going in this unusually light and fluffy snow. Again we are tethered together, our guide in the lead, advancing single file, blind to what is at our feet. The constant fear of falling into a crevasse and feeling our way around rocks or chunks of ice is very tiring. We've stopped for lunch. It takes a whole lot of this snow to make a tea cup of water. We're melting clean chunks of ice instead. The constellations above us are so weird they're nearly abstract. They seem crystalline, or maybe geometric.
Rainbow went scouting again and says she's spotted a cavern ahead, carved into a brilliant blue glacier, a bit to the left! Could it be the same cave Moondancer described the last time I saw her in Haycarts' book? Lunch is over, Rainbow Dash is just about warmed up and we're all feeling our oats. I think we're almost there!
Back to my notes from the dark, starlit north!
Day 7. Tethered single-file, we've been picking our way through the boulders and pitfall crevasses of this ice sheet all day. It's slow and tiring. We're taking more breaks and a longer lunch.
During lunch and short stops I have to use a pencil to take notes. Even though I thaw the ink in my inkwell before dipping my nib, the ink freezes solid again before I can press the nib to paper. At camp, in the evening, the oil lamp heats the air in my tent enough to make the ink workable, but just barely. For extra warmth we've taken to sleeping two to a bedroll and combining our horse blankets. I've noticed that Rainbow Dash snores, but most of the time I'm so exhausted I just sleep through it.
Suddenly, mountains! Rarity helped Rainbow reposition her winter blankets to free up her wings and she went scouting ahead after lunch. When she got back she told us that we were nearly out of the icy debris and we could have avoided most, if not all of it if we had walked on a long ridge a bit to our left. But the best news was that up ahead she had found a serene valley of snow framed by two identical mountain peaks!
She was half frozen from the flight. Rarity rebundled her until all we could see of her was the tip of her muzzle deep in a tunnel of wool cloth, like she had been rolled in a carpet. After two cups of hot cocoa she stopped shaking and we were good to go.
We headed first to Rainbow's ridge and continued north from there. By evening we'd made camp at the south end of the valley. The snow in this valley is so light and fluffy, it drifts willy nilly with the slightest breeze. I've never seen anything like it, these snowflakes are so different from our hoof-made snowflakes. They're mostly dendrites with plates, but the plates look like duck's feet and the dendrites like a cross between club moss fronds and moth antennae.
If anypony entered here recently, all signs of their passage has been obliterated. In some places the soft snow was up to our necks but we still could easily push forward. Tomorrow we'll have to move carefully to avoid falling into pits hidden by this snow.
Day 8. It has been slow going in this unusually light and fluffy snow. Again we are tethered together, our guide in the lead, advancing single file, blind to what is at our feet. The constant fear of falling into a crevasse and feeling our way around rocks or chunks of ice is very tiring. We've stopped for lunch. It takes a whole lot of this snow to make a tea cup of water. We're melting clean chunks of ice instead. The constellations above us are so weird they're nearly abstract. They seem crystalline, or maybe geometric.
Rainbow went scouting again and says she's spotted a cavern ahead, carved into a brilliant blue glacier, a bit to the left! Could it be the same cave Moondancer described the last time I saw her in Haycarts' book? Lunch is over, Rainbow Dash is just about warmed up and we're all feeling our oats. I think we're almost there!
