The First Sighting:

The weather had turned cold suddenly, and now, only a week after the first frost, the first serious snow of the season had arrived — eight inches in four hours locally, but there would be more, much more, in the mountains.

Our "foreign expert" had finally arrived, after being delayed at the border for nearly two weeks. We had hoped to get up into the mountains sooner, but fate, as usual, conspired against us. Often, we conclude that Fate and the dragons have a mighty fine arrangement between them that prevents us from learning more about them.

However, despite the impending bad weather, the low moving in, and the general fool-hardiness of heading into the back country in the beginning of the winter season, when the first big storms are due, but the ground has none of the stability of months of hard freezing, we loaded up the sleds, clambered onto the ATVs and headed out. I still prefer to use live animals for transportation, horses or pack goats, but even I could see that where we were going, nothing short of mountain goats would be useful, and we didn't have any of those. If Fate wanted to keep us out, she would have to kill us — not that I believe that she would hesitate for a second to do so.

Three days of hard travelling took us deep into the back country — the ATVs left behind now, above the treeline and into serious climbing country. The dogs I had selected for this expedition were only two — the only two in my kennel that were suitable for this climate. One, a canny old malamute cross with a half marked face and one blue eye named Fritz, and the other a young bitch cross of underdetermined parentage known affectionately as "The Bush Wolf" for her looks, or "Loki's Spawn" for her behaviour. However, both of them were superb at tracking dragons, and fearless enough to do so. It was my discovery that some dogs could track dragons that had made all the difference in our expeditions, and since then I have formulated some theories about the reasons that humans and dogs have formed such a lasting partnership. However, I digress.

On the third night, Fritz acted restless and lay at the door to the tent, in an alert position, simply watching. I don't believe he slept, simply dozing, looking out the door flap that I kept partially open for his benefit. This resulted in my cocooning myself even more mummy-like in my sleeping bag, with The Bush Wolf curled behind my knees for warmth. In the other tent, our guest expert and my long-time companion and surrogate muscles burrowed deeply in their own sleeping bags, but without the factor of the open tent door.

Morning dawned crystal clear and bright, but with the promise of worse weather to come — Fritz was in full alert now, and The Bush Wolf was circling the camp. Breakfast was a hasty affair, cold food and left over coffee, and we decided to not break the camp, leaving it where it was for an early start. Armed only with climbing gear, I crouched down beside Fritz, where he was staring out to the north and west, and gave the magic command. "Find it" — and he was off at an easy lope through the snow, air-scenting as he went, into the rocks. We took off after him at our own best pace, with The Bush Wolf running the course between Fritz and us, making sure that we stayed on his tracks. After a short while, the track became too strong for her to ignore, and overcame her instinct to keep the pack together and soon we followed their joint tracks alone, fresh in the snow. The landscape began to look "strange" — a characteristic when nearing the lair of a dragon. Years of experience told us to keep looking down and follow the fresh dog tracks — the only real thing in a surreal landscape. Only experience too allowed us to ignore the nagging feeling that we were on the wrong trail, in a part of the mountain that we shouldn't be in, and other nameless sensations that are part of the dragons arsenal of defense.

It was nearly noon, and the weather was holding better than I expected, when I heard barks from the dogs — The Bush Wolf, a few short high-pitched barks, and short moaning howl from Fritz. Minutes later, we scrambled out from the craggy boulders and into a clearing, a half circle, about 30 feet across, completely cleared of rocks, fronting onto a sheer cliff wall. About 10 feet up the cliff, surprise, surprise, a cave faced into the clearing.

Our imported expert unshipped the still camera, an aged Rolli, — we gave up on video and any electronic equipment ages ago, the natural electrical energy of the dragon makes any electronic equipment fail miserably at their will — and he started taking pictures of the cave entrance.

The dogs were silent, but every muscle as taunt as a spring — there was no doubt that the trail led here, and if the inhabitant was not home, he or she had been recently. While we stood and watched, contemplating whether our next move was to climb up and into the cave entrance, we heard a "suring" noise, a dry scraping, of something smooth but heavy being dragged over stone. We waited, unmoving, breathless, too anticipant to even move to cover. The noise grew a little, and then ceased, and as it ceased, we saw movement, a shimmer in the cave's dark entrance.

Then, full into the sunlight, one of the most breathtaking spectacles even seen — a wild dragon. She poised at the cave's entrance, and the full light of day shimmered off her silvering skin — she gleamed like polished metal. Her talons gripped the edge of the cave opening, and her long tail writhed up and coiled behind her. A crest like a horse's mane, but made up of living tendrils that writhed and moved of their own accord, ran from her forehead down her back and out of sight in the darkness of the cave. I thought I could see an arrowhead shape at the tail tip, indicating some possible kinship with the ancient dragons of Great Britain. She turned her head to look at us with one eye, and it was an icy blue, as cold as the heart of winter.

She posed there, the image burning into our memory, for one endless, momentary, immeasurable fragment of time, in which we all forgot to breath — and then, she tipped her nose to the sky and let out a trumpeting blast of sound. The answer was an almost immediate lightening blast and accompanying thunder — and when we picked ourselves up — she was gone. But now, we had weather. The blue sky disappeared in an instant, and fat wet flakes of snow whirled down, and we knew we had but minutes to get out of there. We turned and headed out the way we had come, stumbling as an impossible wind started to howl around us.

Suffice it to say that we eventually made it back to camp, but that we would never have done so without the help of the dogs — as usual. We spent another 3 days huddled in the tents, waiting for the fury of the unnatural storm to blow itself out — sketching and making notes. On the fourth day, the weather lost its furious edge, and we broke camp and made our way down the mountain in merely ordinary blizzard conditions.

Our conclusions: a previously unknown dragon living on the mountain, with the usual mind-befuddling dragon defenses. A native to snow and ice conditions — surely those claws functioned as ice picks in forays out onto the glaciers — with the ability to control the weather. Appeared to be in prime condition and in peak health. All in all, a very encouraging and successful expedition. Dragons aren't extinct — they're just very good at hiding!