If Capsica were Earth, the Droom Desert would be a two island chains meeting in an upside-down T shape, in otherwise deep sea. With Capsica's lower sea level, the islands are sky-islands with livable temperatures and at least some rain, in a sea of desert--and sunken, bath-hot inland seas where all the streams from the highlands collect. These lowlands are hot even for native Capsicans, and fatal to Terrans, not in days but within an hour: daytime highs on the seashores are often 65°C (149°F) and can hit 70 or 75 (158-167°F). Streams from the heights form oases, and some Capsicans do live along these creeks and at their mouths. But you can't; not more than minutes.

For these twin reasons--hydraulic and thermal--this is one of the most limited tours on Capsica. No wide plateaus, no great mountain ranges to explore with little effort, riding updrafts like a hawk. Here, you'll mostly be lofting as high as you can above fatal abysses between desert peaks wringing a little water from stingy winds. You can explore no more than one per cent of the region! And for a change, even the most heat-tolerant locals aren't much better off.

The sky-island chains are another world--they snag clouds and rain year-round, and temperatures are mild in summer, just 40-50°C (104-122°F), and downright cool in winter (30-40°C, 86-104°F). For obvious reasons, Terrans all tour in winter.

The flanks of Droom's mountain ranges are green climatic islands in the dusty sea. Many Terran tropical peaks like Kilimanjaro or much of the Altiplano are dry, for they're above most of the clouds. Capsica's denser atmosphere thins slowly in the low gravity, letting high-altitude air hold more moisture than Earth's; and Capsica has more thunderstorms, especially in global summer, when the little planet swings close to the sun.

The summits are windy and dry enough to discourage trees--many peaks have quite Terran-looking meadows, turning gold in the winter dry season, greening again with the summer rains. And the very highest peaks in Droom are so tall they do have snow.

It's the shoulders just below, with small creeks and shade trees, that are ideal camps for Terrans. You don't have to ask permission; the locals don't care. For them, these shoulders are just wider holes in their habitable world, little different from the snowy summits above them. What's unique about Droom is that most Capsicans loathe the lowlands here nearly as much as you do. They too cling to sky-islands--just lower down, with water and shade and reasonable heat. You just like it a bit higher and cooler.

Anyway, there are only a couple of practical routes through Droom: enter from the southwest, from Lanifa and head straight east to the central upland, called Lium; or from Cape Njip in the north, south a thousand miles along a mountain-chain to Lium.

From Lium the only practical exit is west, to the biggest sky-island, Doro, and then on to the heart of the Crunch: Tralken Plateau.

We'll start from southeast Lanifa. You're riding the winds sweeping up off the Lanifa Sea 3 km below you (10,000') to the summits of the Arka Range more than 3 km above you: all told, a 20,000' sweep. Earth has just a handful of such spectacles--Denali, the Santa Martas, Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat; but Capsica's lighter gravity makes such mountain rises more common. Even in this one little region, we'll see taller walls and bigger drops.

South to J'ntamba Ridge, a lesser range of merely Alpine height. East another two days...

And on toward that white triangle floating in the eastern sky: the snows of Mount Hin, first of the more-than-Himalayan sky-islands of Droom. Over 9 km high (30,000'), and what's more, it rises from sea level--well, local sea level, some 50 m (160') below the world-sea level. It's still 200 km off (125 mi). An example of something we'll see more of in the central Crunch--not volcanic yet Martian-scale. As the spreading zone of the Arch squeezes the Crunch like a python strangling a pig, small wedges of crust crack free and tilt up to Himalayan heights, often from quite low sea-basins. From desert to rainy uplands. Well, at least non-parched uplands.

Exploring the sky island of Mount Hin.

The south (cooler) side. Time to leave the safe green zone. Out over black shelflands--old lava flows 1-2 km up, grizzled with sparse red trees--an open forest, by inland Crunch standards. Now, in winter, a mile up, they've cooled to 35-40°C (95-104°F)--well, the air is that cool. Unfortunately all black rock just sucks up solar energy; it'll burn your feet. So don't crash-land. Or land at all.

Ahead is a straggling line of lesser volcanoes, the Nonarrom Hills. Head east. Every 25-30 km, another cone pokes its nose into the olive zone, around 3 km up. Hot, dryish, scrubby trees, certainly no water near the summit; dry camping. But land on the third summit, rough though it looks. The lesser cones ahead are lower and hotter still. Sleep.

East across pinkish scrublands and prairies. Half a day with no respite. At last a welcome sight: a Fuji ahead, rearing 3.7 km up (over 12,000')--at this latitude, well into the olive zone. Camp, exhausted, on its shoulder. Green shade and running water--only a trickle, but still.

Next morning you wheel around this nameless peak, and see what it hid. A vast Himalayan sky-island, Mt Lium (L'yoom), nearly 10 km high (almost 33,000'). That's why this little Fuji cone is nameless: it's nothing, a forgettable spur. Lium, more a country than a mountain, rises more gently than the ridges of Mt Hin--not quite a Terran shield volcano with their 10% grades, for in Capsica's low gravity even runny lava tends to build steeper slopes. But the massif really is massif--some 200 km wide at the base (125 mi). Comparable to the massive rise of our Hawai'i; but that hundred km of hidden slopes bared, above water.

Explore! Lium's more a country than a mountain. Big as the Shire. Open woods--nowhere near the cloud forest you'd find if this gigantic wedge rose on the rim of the Crunch, instead of its heart. But green trees--hot now, in summer, but bearable. A lot of Capsicans here, more than you'll see on most tours. It's cold for them up here, but it's just too dry lower down. Oh, they can get drinking water from rills cascading down hanging valleys at just 2 km up, where now in winter it's just 40-45°C (104-113°F), but little food. Leaves and shoots of green, fruits of red and yellow and blue all look weird to them, but still edible, just as cold-weather pine nuts and fresh needles are, though we evolved in a hot zone. So they shiver and restock as best they can. Out of politeness you forage and camp higher up, but closer than usual. Oases concentrate life.

Recently--as in ten thousand years ago--Lium blew a breach in its summit crater on the north face, grass and then trees crept in through the gap. You can actually fly in and out, if not easily--the floor, terraced by old flows, is from 6-7 km high, right around your flight ceiling. Not oxygen shortage, just too thin for rented wings, weak muscles and solid Terran bones. Above you loom cliffs 3 km high (10,000') dusted in winter snow; the few glaciers hide on the outer, southern rim, away from the sun... Still, you shiver. It's dropped to 20°C (68°F). Unnatural. A little patch of Earth. And you've adapted to Capsica--as much as a Terran can.

Not a Capsican's in sight. The off season. Local tourists come only in summer. Still cold for them, but bearable short-term.

Now we'll enter Droom from the north--the only other practical route.

You set out from the high, green Liet Mountains of southern Njip. Quite Terran; only the low gravity tips you off this isn't Earth. Well, and the occasional Capsican flapping by, with a 5 meter wingspan and up to half your weight. But they stay wall below you on the mountainslopes--they value Liet's updrafts as much as you do, but it's too cold for them up here; from a distance, scale's hard to judge; just big birds.

The Suul Mountains. Olive at first, and hot, and muggy--we're well within the tropic zone, though on the dry inland side of the mountains, so we're spared the worst of the humidity. The central Suul range gets higher--4, then over 5 km high (13-17,000'). Relief! Even its shoulders are... not cool of course, this is Capsica, but mild--just 25-30°C (77-86°F).

East to the Desh Range--lower, but still capped with green woods extensive enough for shade, fruit and small creeks. You can swim.

South along a slumping ridge, then up again to South Desh, 4.5 km (14,800')

At dawn, west to the Kanza Mts, about the same height.

West to the Sor Kal Mountains. A bit lower, not quite 4 km (13,000') but long. An easy day riding updrafts south on this endless front. The southern Sor Kal widens to a small plateau, a green country 40 by 25 km (25 by 15 mi)--a thousandth the size of the continental remnants in nearby tours, but the best northern Droom has to offer. Just 30°C (86°F) and less muggy (we're creeping out of the humid tropics), extensive greenwoods with fruit and nuts, real creeks with deep swimming holes... Relax a day. Pretend you're on Earth.

West to Mt Retsi over another gap.

Why these zigzagging flights over dangerous lowland? Why isn't the isthmus between the Lanifa and Nevo Basins a continuous mountain ridge, or a simple volcanic chain, a dotted line? The Crunch, like Earth, has plenty of both. I think this pattern of not-quite-aligned ridges is the result of east-west compression and corrugation followed by a shift, millions of years later, to diagonal pressure--every valley a San Andreas Fault! You do see something like it off the West Coast, and also the southwestern Indian Ocean, though that's a vigorous spreading rift, not dying sea-remnants pushed around every which way by geological bullies...

From Mount Retsi, west over yet another searing valley 3 km below you (10,000'), to Mt Ch'lor. Here you start to feel the heat; though we're creeping out of the tropics, the ridge of Ch'lor is just 3.2 km up (10,500'), the lowest peak so far--instead of 30°C (86°F) it's more like 35°C (95°F). Two miles up. In winter! Just to be clear that Capsica can look like Earth--blue sky, green woods, mountains, deserts far below--but looks deceive. Convention would have my next line say Capsica's treacherous, but the truth is, Terra's the sneaky, dangerous one--a world teetering near the deadly freezing point, while Capsica is mild, in the middle of the Goldilocks zone--juuuust right!

Unless you happen to be a cold-adapted freak. Like Terrans.

South to Mt Yemyem, and thermal relief; this ridge has one of the smallest footprints, but is 4 km high, (13,000'), and those extra few thousand feet takes the edge off the heat again.

Yemyem sags to the south, but 50 km later the same ridge rises again, to the highest point since the Suul Range a week ago: Mount Eijei tops 5 km (nearly 17,000'). You camp in a hanging valley with cascades, looking out over the desert below. Sweet contrast.

It's not that these flights are grueling, or unusually hot or dry for Capsica. Quite the opposite; most tours have worse. It's just that this it it--these monotonous hops between slivers of ridgetop are the only bits of northern Droom you can survive in. To the east, muggy savanna down to the Nevo Sea, to the west the Dal Rogad Desert, less muggy but even hotter. You'd live perhaps an hour.

A long flight south to the N'shk Nuj Mountains--a small range, but still high enough to be quite safe.

To the west, a change--lavender savanna, with a green river lined in red trees, winding along parallel to your ridge. No mystery why--the plain of Dal Rogad is gone; that's a valley. A deep one. The horizon rises, and rises, and rises impossibly, and whitens. You're seeing snow atop the Hin Mountains, a monster volcanic cluster 9 km high--higher than Everest. A true sky island--what you've hopped between so far have been mere sky-atolls, sky-shoals.

Ahead, to the south, over a tree-dotted grass valley--lilac with red freckles--an even bigger sky-island, Mount Lium, 10 km high; the heart of (survivable) Droom.

Whether you got to the sky-island of Lium via the northern or western route, you're here. I won't re-describe it--the western route AND the northern meet here. Unavoidable.

And it's a couple of days on the wing just to circle it at a reasonable height.

Down a long southeast ridge--still higher than the Alps. Over 100 km from the summit and you're still in the green zone.

Veer due south over the Yagrom Valley--a muddle of overlapping lava flows, grizzled with pioneer trees, a few green, mostly red--to the Yagrom Hills. A straggle of freestanding cinder cones, the highest in sight just 3.4 km (11,200')--that looks knee-high after Lium. Still, the summit's high and cool enough to keep you alive--we're 15-20° polewards from our tropical starting point, so winter's starting to mean something. Rest up through midday, and re-adjust to temperatures in the high thirties (c.100°F) after Lium spoiled you with its mid-twenties (c.80°F).

In late afternoon, as the heat eases a bit and the sun's behind us, head east and and a bit south. Since most of the Yagrom summits rising into the green are to the west, this seems unwise; but trust me, this is our route--toward that lone cone on the horizon, around the same height. Looks like an ideal camp, but I have reasons to push you. Press on southeast as the sun swims down behind you and the dense air reddens.

Ahead: a steeper, slightly smaller cone standing alone--the last gasp of the Yagrom Chain, Mt Dlumak. Its summit is just 3 km (not quite 10,000') and its thermal island is smaller, but we'll need this advance-camp. Make do with a trickle of water...

Dawn. Set out across the Dlumak Gap, 125 km wide (75 mi). Blotchy pink and dun mesas and canyons--still cool enough--some still in blue shadow--that a brief emergency landing won't immediately bake you to death. A dark mass grows ahead--the rugged Thuada Hills. Safe! A labyrinth of sparsely wooded but green ridges over 3 km up, though box canyons still have red depths. Beware abrupt downdrafts! Your life here depends on staying high. I do not mean drugs.

East for the rest of the day, winding through Thuada... Camp. As the stars come out, some bloom below you--lights in those deadly canyons. These heights snag rain, but are uncomfortably cold for Capsicans; they live down there, along the streams leaving the hills.

South all day, to the biggest sky-island of all: Doro, 11 km high (almost 36,000').

Explore for a few days. The Terran-friendly zone is quite a bit bigger than either Lium's or Hin's.

That creamy white at the summit is ice. It's a nightmare to get to, since the air gets too thin for you to fly all the way, but you actually can climb on foot, gasping and shivering but alive, to the (extensive) snowfields and (small) glaciers round the summit caldera. Capsica's air thins slower than ours; there's still enough oxygen. Peer down those 4-km cliffs (not a typo; the cliffs rear 14,000' in places) into that staring blue eye. If you carried your wings, you could unpack and strap them on and dive down there and pull out and land in that Lost World. (A pit, unlike Conan Doyle's Lost World, set on a Roraima plateau. But up or down, a wall is a wall.)

You could reach it. You just couldn't return. The lake, inconceivably far below you, is still 7 km up; above your flight ceiling.

Glide northeast, down off the heights, over red lowlands to the eastern Thuada Hills.

Wind east through the maze. These 3-km crags (10,000') and 2-km gorges (7000') now seem just a rumpled rug.

Veer a little south to skirt that desert basin cupping a blind white eye--a salt pan 25 km end to end (15 mi). A hundred-kilometer flight to a broad, cliffwalled, olive-capped mesa--the first outlier of Tralken Plateau, the center of the Crunch, as far you can get from the World Ocean (and, as Gollum said, "decent placesss"). But that's another ordeal tour.

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