Lrota-Keh Plateau rises in the northern Crunch, that mega-continent where many platelets have collided, corrugated and stacked. Lrota-Keh is the squashed remnant of a once-sprawling continent, perhaps 100 million years ago. Like our Mediterranean Basin, faults and ranges twist under pressure. It's not typical, though; most of the Crunch is dry. Lrota-Keh is equatorial, and much of it's torrentially rainy.

If Capsica was as wet as Earth, with a sealevel three km higher, L'rota-Keh wouldn't change much--still a steep rainforested coast rising to highlands--just one or two km high instead of four or five On Capsica as it is, coastal lowlands are bared, but they're narrow--and as deadly to Terrans as our abyssal plains. On Capsica's equator, lowlands (wet or dry, summer or winter) are hot even for native Capsicans, and fatal to Terrans: averaging 60°C (140°F) and up to 70°C (158°F). They'd be hotter yet if they weren't so humid; clouds often cover them, except inland where the plateau casts a mild rainshadow; unlike most of the Crunch's interior, there's still a substantial monsoon--rainy summer, dry winter.

All in all, Lrota-Keh's one of Capsica's garden spots. Just a bit too hot of a hothouse--for your chilly Terran blood.

Unlike many uplands in the Crunch, Lrota is fairly easy to reach and tour, if you've mastered flying in strap-on wings; no long fatal lowlands to cross. The highlands of Lrota-Keh snag clouds and rain year-round, and temperatures are mild in summer, a mere 40-50°C (104-122°F), and downright cool in orbital winter, just 30-40°C (86-104°F). For obvious reasons, Terrans all tour in winter, and they MUST stick to the highlands.

Though snowless, the flanks and summits of Lrota-Keh's volcanic spine are green climatic islands in the sea of red. The high meadows of the outer slopes, above 5 km (16,400'), thrust up through the cloud-sea into relatively sunny air. But these heights aren't arid, as on many Terran tropical peaks like Kilimanjaro or much of the Altiplano. Capsica's denser atmosphere, thinning slower in the lower gravity, means high-altitude air holds more moisture than Earth's; and Capsica's tropics have more thunderstorms, especially in global summer, when the little planet swings close to the sun.

Though snowless, the summits are windy and dry enough to discourage trees--the higher peaks have quite Terran-looking meadows, sometimes gold in the winter dry season, greening again with the summer rains. It's the subalpine shoulders just below, with small creeks and shade trees, that are ideal camps for tourists. You don't have to ask permission; the locals won't mind. For them, these peaks are just cold windy holes frayed through an otherwise balmy, pleasant climate-carpet. Mountains are scenic signposts, but as unlivable for them as any glacier-capped peak is for us on Earth.

We'll start in the west, approaching from the Njip Peninsula.

You're on the north rim of Guin Plateau, the east end of the Njip region. Humid, lush. Waterfalls and plum-colored rainforest below you, chartreuse peaks of the Ajun Range above--despite their height, no snow; you're right on the equator now. Not that you can see all that well. Big white cloud-sheep graze the lowlands, and banners veil the peaks and ridges. Not much of the mainland Crunch is tropical or maritime, but this coast is an exception; you could still be out on Njip Peninsula, Capsica's Malaysia.

The Ajuns above you are pale green grassy or ferny domes, cones and mesas--monster molars 5-6 km high (17-19,000'). More like the knobby, rain-sculpted uplands of Ethiopia or Papua than the Alps or Himalayas. We are, after all, on the equator; it takes a Himalaya here to generate ice.

South through a pass in the Ajun Range over 4.5 km high (15,000'), between two lumpy molar-peaks. Chartreuse fern meadows; trees only along streams.

You first glimpse of Central Asia (oops) The Crunch is... more than a glimpse. In the north, cloud-herds veiled and shadow-purpled the lowlands. Not here. Heights generate cumulus towers, but the red groves and open lavender meadows of the Nevo Basin are mostly sunny, even if the Nevo Sea itself is still too far off to spot on the horizon. It's a fatal sauna down there still, but a dry one, not the steambath of the north. You could almost survive.

Next morning you face a decision: you can continue south to southern Njip. I wouldn't recommend it. The first few hundred km are fine--though rainless now in winter, summers rains sustain some trees and streams; it's not harsh by Crunch standards. But farther south it gets uninhabitable nasty. Even for Capsicans, I mean. You don't want to see the real Crunch, down in Droom.

A day or two of leisurely wind-riding southeast, then east. Take your time; this segment is a good 300 km (200 mi). Tree-lined streams leap off the cliffs every few miles; no problem finding water or shade. Just don't swim and get swept over the falls. But you won't need to swim frequently as in the north; less muggy. All in all, your first view of the inland Crunch is pleasant. I just wish it were typical.

The first day, all you see on the southern horizon is a small green island floating in haze: a volcano taller than Fuji. Out here that's nothing much. You could fly out there and camp on the summit and see the Nevo Sea below.

Don't bother. For the second day, the Nevo Sea comes to you. A shimmering blue strip on the pale lowland horizon. You can't tell it's considerably saltier than the world-sea you're used to. Though many in the Crunch are worse; the Nevo, because its head is in the rainy tropics, is well-fed and fairly stable, just a few feet of annual tide as the monsoon comes and goes. It has none of the salt and alkali flats that poison some basins deeper in the Crunch.

East, then northeast... Off to your right, the Nevo Basin ends suddenly in a vast wall, the Lau Range. It's a good flyway--you could veer south into Darim, a more typical Crunch platelet--think Xinjiang, heated on a griddle. Deserts below, steppes and sparse trees along rare streams up top. Big rawboned country--Darim Plateau and its alluvial lowlands are nearly as big as Tibet.

Let's stick to Lrota-Keh. The gulf between you and the Laus slowly narrows to a canyon 3 km deep (nearly 10,000')--Jalin Gorge. A faint thunder--a Niagara miles below you. Another. Another. The Jalin has a long way to drop--its source is that monstrous white thing on the northwestern horizon--Mount Ozaro, 11 km tall (36,000'). Capsica, on the equator--that's like high noon in Hell. But go high enough, and even Capsica's dense greenhouse air thins and cools at last...

Eternal snows? No. But for months in orbital winter...

Follow the Jalin northeast. When the canyon forks, we go east, toward that slightly smaller horn, Mt Iksa, a mere 9.5 km tall (31,000'; barely higher than Everest!) Our pass is south of both of them, a broad grassy saddle 5.2 km up (17,000'); the highest we'll have to go on this tour. Unfortunately the prevailing winds blow west, right in your face--and downhill. A grim slog. Stay low, avoiding the worst of the headwind, and take advantage of the ground effect--the air trapped between your wings and the turf buoys you up. But dodging boulders stops being fun after the thousandth one. You'll ache tomorrow. Of course on Earth you'd barely be able to walk, gasping in thin air; Capsica's dense air is forgiving. But still. I constantly steer you to heights on these tours, but there's too much of a good thing.

Over a rolling steppe, dropping slowly back to below 5 km (16,500'). Camp by a creek of--don't be shocked--snowmelt.

East a day. Slowly down. Rivulets off those high unnatural snowfields collect to a river... and start to carve a canyon. Stick to the northern bank; Nolat Gorge gets wide and deep ahead. By afternoon, you're still 4 km up, riding updrafts at the edge of the high steppe, silver-blonde in winter; but the inner gorge, down near the spray from the rapids, is a deep red forest strip. Down in the fatally hot zone.

I've called this the inland side of Lrota-Keh, but here a tongue of the world-sea reaches into the continental mass of the Crunch: Rmitsa Gulf, big as our Black Sea. The shores aren't as lush as the north side of Lrota-Keh, but they're wooded and fertile. Most parts of the Crunch are either low and hot, or high and cold (for the locals, I mean; not you). But Nolat Gorge and the Rmitsa coast are juuuuust right. Orchards, towns. After all that lonely land behind you, you'd like to visit civilization. It's orbital winter, surely...

It's 55°C--131°F. And muggy, too. Go ahead, I won't stop you.

Now that our party is a more manageable size, and lacks the suicidal fringe so annoying to old Capsican travelers, perhaps we can proceed sensibly--east along the rim of Lrota-Keh Plateau, riding what updrafts we can. The canyon wall starts to fray into side gorges and ridges--the Amiro Spurs. The ridges are crumpled carpets of green crowns--wall-to-wall broccoli, reddening down in the depths. Clouds on the heights, clouds in the gorges. Odd clouds. That stay put. Oh. Spray from huge falls. There are dozens over 100 meters in the Amiro gorges and many over a kilometer (3300').

At last a deep gap of lowland rainforest. Ruby broccoli? It's like you're seeing the Amazon in infrared. More green hills on the southeast horizon, but... if this were Earth, it'd be a strait; those hills'd be Rmitsa Island.

You could cross that steamy gulf, your stamina's enough by now--you could leave Lrota-Keh and head southeast along the Rmitsa Peninsulas, twin capes almost walling off the Gulf (as if the Crunch needs any more inland seas!)

But let's finish Lrota-Keh--bank and wheel northeast... away from this steambath, toward the wet side of Lrota-Keh.

Northwest, hopping ridge to ridge, camping on the heights. But each a bit lower. You're nearing the sea.

Don't worry--I have a goal in mind--after four shinking ridges, a great cone rises ahead--Mount Obika. Ruby-red skirts, dark olive flanks, green shoulders, and a pale green fern-fell head, trailing a mist-veil. Snowless of course; it's only 4.6 km tall, a mere 15,000'. But all of it's exposed: its north slope plummets into Obika Bay, the best harbor in east Lrota-Keh.

Port Obika's right beneath you. At last you can see a Capsican city...

...with binoculars. Though orchards climb far up the slopes, they thin out a mile beneath you, where it gets uncomfortably cold for Capsicans.

Sorry. Best I can offer you. It's our fault, of course, for being cryophilic freaks craving cold down near freezing, wilting in that mild, wide, optimal life-range midway between freezing and boiling, like most Galactic life. The Capsicans aren't shunning us.

Thermal segregation's still no fun. But then is any other type?

West and north a day, to Hirepa Pass, at the root of Hirepa Spur, a finger reaching out to the coast. Between Hirepa and Direma Spur, a day or two ahead, the coastal dropoff is as famed for waterfalls as Amiro behind you. They're just harder to see--clouds and mist all day.

But in mid-afternoon you get lucky for an hour...

Through the gate, at the head of that side valley, you see a real monster--the north face of Mt Iksa, jagged and steep, white-headed, and capped with a lenticular cloud. Flying saucer hat.

I wanted you to see this shift--the same rocks, the same pressures--but they get shaped very differently when nature switches from rain's brush to ice's chisel; and temperature determines that, on Capsica just as on Earth. The thermocline dividing domes and hoodoos from ice-horns and cirques is just miles higher here.

East. The Direma River turns north. We fly on up a side valley past Mt Ozaro, still 80 km off (50 mi); easier passes, nearly as high as on the south side, but the wind's with us now.

East across the heads of great valleys and rolling domes--green forests and grasslands the size of cities. Two days with the wind. And nearly a week now with not a red tree or fatally hot zone in sight. You could be on Earth--a dream Earth with lower gravity yet denser air, remade to your heart's desire--to fly like an angel, but in the flesh.

Let's veer north to the coast one last time. A steady day up Atram Spur. Capsica's reality creeps up like a slow red tide, til we're zigzagging along green and olive ridges, just 3-4 km up (10-13,000') above a cloud-choked ruby abyss. The clouds rise round you, you might as well be in a cave...

Then, through a blue window, a vision ahead: the clouds break like surf round an island. A mountain 5.7 km above the tropical sea--Mt Atram. At its feet, Atram Bay is smaller and more exposed than Obika Bay--on the northwest Atram Island shelters it, but the harbor's open to storms from the northeast. Still the best on this stretch of coast. Port Atram's not huge, but it's close. You can look down on boats, streets, trade booths, even individual people... from the mountain-shoulder miles above.

Few Capsican tours let you even see the sea; most plateaus have long alluvial slopes or coastal plains, too low and hot for you. But Lrota-Keh's north shore is steep country; I could lead you its entire length, even out to Cape Psaka, some 500 km north of the ice giants. We'd have to ridge-hop carefully but it could be done. Obika and Atram are just representative samples of this patchwork of green and red, high and low, hot and cool (for Capsica).

Southwest along green forest. Atram Spur isn't a single line; this branch is sustained, unlike much of the washboard I described above. Canyons are fewer, shallower, barely a mile deep; olive not red in their depths. You could survive down there. Not happily; it's 40°C (104°F) and muggy. Stay up here in the refreshing cool of 35... In a day or two, you reach our starting point at the foot of the Ajun Range, on the border of Njip Upland. But that's another tour.

Congratulations! Not the longest Capsican tour, but maybe the sweatiest. Right on the equator. Good job surviving!

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