The first 9 caches in this series are placed along the 1-mile long Byron Glacier trail near Portage. This well-maintained and mostly level trail is stroller friendly. Magnificent views of the surrounding mountains, waterfalls, and glacier are a great backdrop for skipping stones, walking on the snowfields, or seeking out remnants of the ice caves.
When Thread began its fall, the settlers of Pern needed to find safe places to live. Wooden structures, crops, herd animals, and flesh were devoured by this new adversary. Fort became the first Hold.
Excerpt:
The first chamber of the cave complex measured an awesome fifty-seven meters deep at its widest, tapering at either end to forty-six meters on the left and forty-two meters on the right. Along the back wall, there were innumerable irregular openings at random levels; some were on the ground level leading into apparent tunnel complexes, most of which were high enough to admit Tarvi’s tall frame with considerable head space; others, like great dead eyes, peered down from higher up the inside wall. Entranced as Tarvie was by their discovery, he was a trained scientific observer. With Sallah’s aid, he began to draft an accurate plan of the main chamber, the openings of secondary ones, and the tunnel complexes heading inward.
.....
“There are hundreds of ready-made chambers in this complex alone,” Telgar said. He was unfolding the plassheet on which he and his beloved Sallah had recorded their investigations of eight years earlier. “There are at least four openings to the cliff top which could be used for air circulation. Channel down to water level and install pumps and pipe – I came across big reservoirs of artesian water. Core down to the thermal layer and, big as it is, this whole complex could be warned in the winter months.” He turned back to the opening. “Block that up with native stone and this would be an impregnable fort. No safer place on this world during Threadfall. Further along the valley there are surface-level caves near the pasture land. Of course, it would have to be seeded, but we still have the alfalfa grass propagators that were brought for the first year.
The previous paragraphs are excerpted from Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey, copyright 1988 by Anne McCaffrey.