The Crevasse of Ippfi Kakoosh
Quickly making time through the great Ice Plains after visiting the wonderful Kaakaaks of Nanoork Burr, I was once more caught in a blizzard. A terrible one that I thought I would never see the end of. Even my faithful and trusty dogs were blinded by the sudden whipping flurries that screeched by at a frightful rate before our very eyes. Yes, this place is dangerous. Beautiful, but dangerous in it's stark display of geological elements that cannot be tamed.
Suddenly, before we could stop to pitch the tent and dig in, we all fell down a steep crevasse! I felt the ground give way beneath my sled as we all slid down a steep icy incline...deep beneath the face of the earth. Surely, I was doomed. The darkness slid by me and around me as my wonderful dog companions howled and whimpered, thinking that they too had suddenly come to their end.
But, what luck! We landed in a soft deep drift of snow. Luck indeed, for only ten feet from us were sharp and hard jagged peaks of millennia-old ice formations that surely would have ended us all. We had fallen only seconds, but that meant that we were far beneath the face of the world, deep in a land that time had forgotten. I stood up, slowly, in amazement. Packages and bundles of my kit were everywhere, and the dogs were stunned, whining softly and huddling around me close for security as my fingers shook, searching for my flashlight. I couldn't find it. Everywhere around me, my equipment lay in a scattered mess, half-buried in the soft snowdrift. But then, gradually, my eyes became adjusted to the dim light around me. The great glaciers of many past ice ages reflected the light and revealed themselves to us. Standing like frozen faces in time to tell a tale of long ago when they were above and kings of all the earth. Of course, as everyone knows, deep glaciers in a crevasse of immense size can date for millennia, if not longer, and such a crevasse and cavern we were in. Oh! My dear friends, the beauty that took my breath away! How graceful it all was, how the forms entranced the eyes.
But quickly, we had to retrieve all our belongings or else we could freeze and come to an unpleasant end, and I wished not this great place to become my tomb, no matter how beautiful it was! After a few minutes of hunting around, I found all my belongings, my faithful dogs sniffing out most of the items and helping in the foraging of them. Above us, a blizzard raged and snow began to drift from the great opening. We had to move deeper into the cave to find a roof over our heads, and then decide on a way out later on.
So, deeper down the gargantuan ice ravine we traveled, plodding along in amazement, searching up at the walls and trying to find any way out that we might use for later on. But at least we were safe, for now - though the shave had been a close one indeed! Several minutes of careful exploration revealed to us a glowing nimbus up ahead. I couldn't fathom what it was, and my dogs looked at me curiously, as if thinking the same thing with their big intelligent eyes. Was there life down here in this neglected part of the world, frozen in time and form? I ventured forth, uncertainly.
And then, my friends, I came to a wonderful place. Within the crevasse itself, at the bottom, under a roof of arching ice that was sculpted thousands of years ago, was a little village. A tiny little village, protected and secure and so pristine and beautiful. And different kinds of fungi and mushrooms glowed and provided a warm light that glittered off of the face of these frozen cliffs, the very air sparkled with their gorgeous colors. The little tiny dwellings were like small igloos, made of some sort of icy material, with a warm glow coming from their strange windows. What peace and serenity. What a beautiful thing to happen across by mere chance! Far above, in a cavern beyond, the light was shining down in rays that seemed to slide off the slick cold walls like a liquid light of it's own making.
Curiously, the inhabitants came out. Little blue people no larger than my thumb. They smiled softly and saw that I meant no harm, and my dogs merely knelt by me and made those curious sounds that dogs do when trying to understand the unfathomable. These people spoke in very soft words - a survival practice from long ago so as not to trigger any avalanches upon their abodes. Their elder told me that they were named "Ippfiloos" because they lived in the Crevasse of Ippfi Kakoosh, and several cities were sprawled out like theirs here beneath the ice. The cold to them was nothing, of course, but they understood that I needed warmer surroundings. Unfortunately, their tiny houses were far too small to accommodate even my feet. So, they helped me to make camp at the base of their village, and then provided me with warmed food in which the entire village participated in the cooking thereof. What delicious simple fare! It was mostly mushrooms, of course, but how different the tastes all were and their stories warmed my heart. Some of the dogs even took willing people on short little rides up and down the length of part of the crevasse. And what tales they told, spinning pictures before me as their words came from their mouths, seeming to be created out of the magical glowing air. And then, safely, we slept the blizzard through.
Three days I spent in that beautiful place until it was time to say goodbye. Of course they led me up to a safe path and provided me with a map of the area so as not to fall in any more dangerous caves. And, waving farewell to my newly found friends, my dogs and I set out once more across the icy terrain, never to forget our magical time beneath the glaciers of Ippfi Kakoosh.