Bøker av Alfred Cool

We, me and my navigator, Drake, drove forward relentlessly, lost on confusing, deserted back roads somewhere north and west of Campbell River. Forbidding, snow-burdened mountains hemmed us in on all sides. Our fuel gauge hovered near empty. The sun made a cameo appearance earlier that evening, briefly highlighting the orange peaks before another soggy layer of dense, dark clouds and late twilight smothered the sky above us. A coroner, if anyone ever found us, would likely declare our deaths accidental. But that would be misleading because we made our choice to get out-no matter what. We made that crucial decision standing on the wrong, crumbling bank of the rushing sluice of angry water smashing submerged rocks together like we were at a five-pin bowling alley. The raging torrent had no business still being there. Even after days of northern Vancouver Island monsoons, we expected the flash flooding to be over. However, this was not so, and this Rubicon was ours to cross.

Adventures along the coast and in the South Coast Mountains of British Columbia. It was after midnight on a moonless night. Mike and I were twenty-two hours into our summit day, downclimbing a jagged knife-edge ridge by headlamp, out of water and food, and still hours from the tent.We had descended a hellish wall of mud and shattered rock, stopping at a tenuous perch where cliffs fell away on three sides. There was nowhere to go from there.I peered into Mike's eyes through the weak amber glow from his failing headlamp. "Remind me," I said, "what Culbert wrote about this mountain?""He said Turner's a long two days from the car."I waved a hand at the gaping black chasm at our feet. "I wonder what he'd do about that?""I doubt he'd stand here all night talking about it," said Mike, and then he took a single step and dropped like a stone into the terrible abyss.