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Description
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEB4wU…

My newest fun with Opal and Yuka is that Yuka is going to be starting falconry. So be looking for some pics of that in the future!

PROLOGUE SIDE QUEST - JOURNEY TO THE TARTOKS

Depict your handler’s and Tokotas’ long journey to the Tartoks, your set-up at base camp, or meeting your Team leader (Thunderfeather or Mitchell).

Featured:

"We set out for the Tartoks today. Thunderfeather is an ever present source of inspiration to me and an idol to me as a child. I can't bring myself to sit idly by while she requests our aid.
Sometimes I liked to pretend Opal was Rainwater when she was small, and we'd go roaming the mountains finding herbs and animal bones to nurture the sick with.
Opal and I are both weathered to the winter--even to those as harsh as the winds that rage upon the mountain tops--but the cold still whisked down into our tendons the moment our feet touched the Tartok's heights.
I thank myself time and again for not choosing to bring a smaller Tokota. I saw other travelers doing so in the distance. I pray that they've brought warm skins and blankets. Opal has always been hard skinned and unmoved by the cold.
I worry less about her, yet worry all the same.
She just sits outside my campfire watching the darkness, almost seeming to make a statement that these flames were too much for her, despite the unusual chill. Perhaps this cold had really only been touching me all along.
The rocks are getting higher over our heads, cresting far above Opal's ears. We can no longer hope to scramble over them all, and instead have had to resort to milling through the cracks like a maze.
The snow is broken up, trampled by many others over the course of the day. We are certainly not the only one's making this trek. We're actually probably some of the last to set off.
A particularly large outcropping of stone lay before us. We have to be getting close to that camp Thunderfeather had mentioned.
It was here that we encountered something strange. I'm still dumbfounded by the experience. Winding through those rocks, there came a low moan.
I tell myself it was the wind and the shape of the passage. And I'd believe that if it weren't for how Opal had balked and stood bolt upright. Not just any gust of wind would make her react that way.
She knew what the wind howled like. She also knew things I didn't about the wilderness--and in that instant she seemed to be telling me, "No, my dear, this is something far more frightening than the wind."
She carried the both of us safely beyond those rocks all the same. It was difficult to tell, with the bulk of her collar and the rustling of the wind- but I swear her hackles were up the whole way through.
Everything about this journey has me on edge. We found camp none too soon. Thank goodness they all seem friendly!"

Description
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEB4wU…

My newest fun with Opal and Yuka is that Yuka is going to be starting falconry. So be looking for some pics of that in the future!

PROLOGUE SIDE QUEST - JOURNEY TO THE TARTOKS

Depict your handler’s and Tokotas’ long journey to the Tartoks, your set-up at base camp, or meeting your Team leader (Thunderfeather or Mitchell).

Featured:

"We set out for the Tartoks today. Thunderfeather is an ever present source of inspiration to me and an idol to me as a child. I can't bring myself to sit idly by while she requests our aid.
Sometimes I liked to pretend Opal was Rainwater when she was small, and we'd go roaming the mountains finding herbs and animal bones to nurture the sick with.
Opal and I are both weathered to the winter--even to those as harsh as the winds that rage upon the mountain tops--but the cold still whisked down into our tendons the moment our feet touched the Tartok's heights.
I thank myself time and again for not choosing to bring a smaller Tokota. I saw other travelers doing so in the distance. I pray that they've brought warm skins and blankets. Opal has always been hard skinned and unmoved by the cold.
I worry less about her, yet worry all the same.
She just sits outside my campfire watching the darkness, almost seeming to make a statement that these flames were too much for her, despite the unusual chill. Perhaps this cold had really only been touching me all along.
The rocks are getting higher over our heads, cresting far above Opal's ears. We can no longer hope to scramble over them all, and instead have had to resort to milling through the cracks like a maze.
The snow is broken up, trampled by many others over the course of the day. We are certainly not the only one's making this trek. We're actually probably some of the last to set off.
A particularly large outcropping of stone lay before us. We have to be getting close to that camp Thunderfeather had mentioned.
It was here that we encountered something strange. I'm still dumbfounded by the experience. Winding through those rocks, there came a low moan.
I tell myself it was the wind and the shape of the passage. And I'd believe that if it weren't for how Opal had balked and stood bolt upright. Not just any gust of wind would make her react that way.
She knew what the wind howled like. She also knew things I didn't about the wilderness--and in that instant she seemed to be telling me, "No, my dear, this is something far more frightening than the wind."
She carried the both of us safely beyond those rocks all the same. It was difficult to tell, with the bulk of her collar and the rustling of the wind- but I swear her hackles were up the whole way through.
Everything about this journey has me on edge. We found camp none too soon. Thank goodness they all seem friendly!"