Look at me, I'm Reinold Messner! (2) Circumnavigating Kerbin over mountains

[king of nowhere]

My last mission, a caveman run, required dropping pods all over Kerbin to collect science from biomes. Often, I would land near mountains; Kerbin is one of the few planets with real mountains. And I love mountains. So I devised a mission to climb as many of them as possible with a rover.

Most people, when circumnavigating Kerbin, go around mountain chains. They miss all the fun.

Part 1: Starting the mission

First part of the mission is to pick a rover. Then I have to decide an itinerary.

The first part of the chosen path

Spoiler

I never considered making a new rover; I have two very good ones for mountaineering, Leaping Mantis and Tamarromobile. I was tempted to use Tamarromobile, as it's very fun, but I picked Leaping Mantis, it's more efficient.

I could have used something even more efficient. Once I made a rover to climb the tower west of the KSC, and it was able to climb 80° slopes.

The unnamed rover I used 2 years ago to climb Devil's Tower

However, I don't want the rover to be too efficient. If I can just press forward and go, it becomes boring. I need a rover that's capable enough to climb mountains, but not so capable that it can just go forward everywhere. Besides, I want something that's generally fun to drive, and Leaping Mantis does that very well.

However, circumnavigating Kerbin has an additional challenge: water. Regardless of the chosen trajectory, I'd have to cross significant bodies of water. For that, I spent some time trying to modify Leaping Mantis for the task

Here I tried to put propellers on it

But the experiments were unsuccessful. Its shape is not hydrodynamic at all, and the small propellers can only push it to 1 m/s. No, I'm not crossing the ocean at 1 m/s. I could put stronger propellers, but they would make climbing too easy; may as well make an helicopter.

Another set of experiments involved putting ore tanks to sink Leaping Mantis and move on the ocean floor. However, those crew cabins have a lot of buoyancy. Even doubling the mass with clipping ore tanks did not sink the rover - and the extra mass, even with the tanks empty, would have significantly impacted climbing performance. Besides, even when I could sink Leaping Mantis, it wasn't going any faster than the propeller experiment.

So, I just decided to tackle the water problem differently. The rules of a circumnavigation allow to send new vehicles, as long as the crew completes the trip. I'll do just that. And that's the end of the problem for the rover; I don't need a launch vehicle for once.

Now I need a trajectory. Unlike most circumnavigations that go purely polar or equatorial, I want to hit as many mountain ranges as possible, which entails zig-zagging. After studying the map, I settle for the path shown below.

I start from the southernmost tip of the mountain range west of the KSC. I move north-east, then north-west, intercepting two more ranges. Then I go straight north, crossing another mountain, until reaching the pole.

I cross the pole, mostly on a mountain range that turns around the ice cap. Down there I zig-zag a bit to intercept more mountain ranges and massif.

I'm sorry to miss the Woomerang launch site, but it's too far off the path.

Finally, the last leg of the trip should be one big mountain massif covering a whole continent.

After that I'll hit the sea, I will send there a boat to get the crew

To start, I must move to the mountains to the west of the KSC.

I take a chance to drill a baobab along the way, just because it looks good

Crossing the foothills

Mountains are very hard on the wheels. Here Bill is repairing one. I risk running out of repair kits at this rate

Crossing an incline

Visiting a giant quartz

Leaping Mantis is in the center of the picture, too small to be seen, but the illuminated area from the floodlights is visible

I reached the southernmost tip of the first mountain chain. For clarity I should give them names, but I really can't think of anything good. Anyway, now I can start the trail.

Edited November 19 by king of nowhere

[JeDoesStuff]

I should really make a video on the caveman challenge, or at least my version, which is setting all the difficulty settings to max. I feel like with what I know now I could get to R&D tier 2 more efficiently, but it's probably just hundreds upon hundreds of contracts.

[king of nowhere]

Part 2: The Rocket Graveyard range

I said that I wasn't going to name all mountain ranges, but I got a few good names.

Here's the first mountain range crossed, directly west of the KSC. I dubbed it this way not because rockets fall there - they fall in the ocean, to the east - but because, in both my caveman missions, I sent a lot of rockets to crash in the region, in the hope of getting science from the mountain biome. It's where I lost Valentina in my first caveman run.

Spoiler

In front of me is a rock wall. On Wal I got used to just going straight up, relying on the sheer traction power of 16 wheels for a vehicle of less than 11 tons. But of course, Kerbin has a much higher gravity. Leaping Mantis can tackle up to 15°, maybe 20° slopes, then it must start switchbacking.

Zigzagging up a slope...

 

ù

... as it gradually gets steeper...

... and steeper

Thanks to its wide base and low baricenter, Leaping Mantis can easily, comfortably zig-zag up cliffs steeper than 45°. Unfortunately, climbing up drains the battery pretty fast. The original Leaping Mantis never had to worry about electricity because it was using stronger RTGs from near future electrics, here I'm doing only stock. And during the various circumnavigations of the moons of Jool, there just wasn't enough hardship to drain the battery. I had to stop a couple times to recharge, which was rather annoying. Aside from that, Leaping Mantis showed once more how great of a climber it is.

Now there is a flatt-ish plateau on top of the mountains. I landed Arrowhead there during the A'Tuin mission.

Forward on this plateau

It looks easy, but it's actually harder. The terrain is very rough, with ups and downs all the time. Going downhill is a lot harder than going uphill, and moving over rough terrain is harsh on the wheels. And still uses up a lot of battery.

Eventually, that section ends, with more mountains and cliffs.

Also, look at those long shadows. I'm not used to how fast night comes on Kerbin.

Here I'm moving laterally around a mountain. I'm not sure why I didn't just climb to the top, it's been a couple weeks ago

Here I have to cross that ridge to move from one mountain to the other

And now up another mountain. The KSC is visible far in the east

Going up wasn't just showing off - though this mount appears to be the highest around, I wanted to leave a flag on top.

No, going forward the cliff was so steep, Leaping Mantis wasn't able to proceed. Even the wide base wasn't enough, even aided with reaction wheels; the baricenter would fall out of the wheels, and the rover would rotate and fall.

Switchbacking is a lot harder when you don't have a wide, flat surface where you can pick up speed and take wide turns. In narrow places, I may have to just reverse gear and move backwards, instead of turning the rover around. Still, Leaping Mantis is up to the task.

Now going down that mountain. In front is Devil's Tower, way to steep to even try to climb. to the left, a hole in the ground. I'm heading there

Falling down the mountain, I get stuck here, in a narrow canyon between Devil's tower and the mountain I just climbed

I was uncertain the robotic arm to upright the rover would work in Kerbin's gravity, but it does. Barely. It requires swinging the reaction wheels like a pendulum to add momentum too.

Here I'm trying to avoid climbing down and up again by crossing the near-vertical cliff

I failed. The cliff is too steep, Leaping Mantis couldn't stay on the ground. I had to go down and up again after all. Even going down wasn't easy, though in retrospect I really should brake more.

Next mountain, I pass again on the side

Finally, I managed to take a good picture of what happens when I try to cut a ravine too steep

The limit for how much inclination is roughly 60°, which is also the highest inclination Leaping Mantis can climb by switchbacking. Above that, it capsizes. And the wheels are slipping down anyway. Notably, Leaping Mantis can often survive the drop, and if the capsizing was caused by a mistake in driving it can also stop itself before reaching the bottom.

60 degrees is actually an incredible inclination for this game, virtually nonexhistant outside Kerbin. Vall is a fairly mountainous world, and I circumnavigated it one and a half times, but I never saw anythig steeper than 50° except near the poles. Wal had the crazy equatorial bulge, with mountains up to 20 km high, and yet the whole circumnavigation encountered a maximum steepness of 55° - which Leaping Mantis tackled head-on, in a show of stubborness. Most crater walls on Mun are less than 50°, and they are short; there are some steeper holes near the Mun poles, but in a narrow geographical area. I did drive rovers everywhere, I'm not aware of anywhere else in of the stock system with slopes above 50°. Slate and Priax from OPM probably came above that, not sure; I never got a chance to actually measure most inclinations while driving Tamarromobile, and on Priax the low gravity made them mostly moot anyway.

There are cliffs with 80° inclination on Kerbin. This circumnavigation was a good choice; having to find a way around obstacles is a lot more fun than pressing the forward arrow for hours on end.

After that mountain, there's a piece of lowland. I'm going down. I'm using the brakes, but the rover is still sliding down

And finally, the last massif to the north, more isolated. I could turn around it, but it's not what I signed up for. Switchbacking to the top was just challenging enough; I left another flag there

And now the really rough part is over, there's easier terrain

I am quite happy with the rover, but a few things bother me. One is battery, it runs out too fast. The other is the science jr; I brought it along to read funny reports, but it turned into a liability whenever the rover tumbles. I decide to make some quick changes and send a new rover.

Besides, swapping rover also let me replenish the stockpile of repair kits. I'm burning through them at an impressive rates. I will have to send a plane with additional kits somewhere along the road.

The new Leaping Mantis

Old and new, side by side

So, I removed the science instruments, removing 600 kg and lowering the center of mass. I pulled the RTGs inside the the trusses, instead of on top. You have no idea how often one of those RTGs hit the ground and exploded from a tumble that the rover would have otherwise survived unschated. And I added a bunch of batteries, now I have 4000 electric charge, that's enough to last through almost every ascent - and those few times I still have to stop, it's not often enough to disrupt the momentum of the climb.

The next mountains await to the northeast.

Edited November 22 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 3: The Banana ranges

Continuing northeast, then northwest, Leaping Mantis stays on elevated ground most of the time. Those are smaller mountains, rarely offering big challenging near-vertical cliffs. They still are a big threat to wheels, though, and plenty of smaller mountains that are still interesting to climb.

Spoiler

Coming out of the Rocket Graveyard, I have some 50 km of flat land. Booooring.

Nice solar eclipse, though

Not sure how I capsized the rover in this flat land, but I wanted to show the rover upturning itself

Finally, I found more mountains to offer a challenge.

There is a pass going through, but I'm certainly not going to take the easy route

Those foothills are not very high nor steep, so I stay on crests as much as I can

On top of a mountain, with a good view before going down

Racing down a ravine!

I love to throw my rover down a ravine at full speed. Almost always it ends poorly, though. Most times, I just zoom down and eventually explode, or break half the wheels, then I reload and repeat, until I get the need for speed out of my system and am willing to brake more.

I found a real cliff, eventually. It's the same that's seen in the distance in the previous pic

Not a difficult one to climb, though

Getting on top of this thin rocky blade was harder

Going down again, this time I can mantain full speed without damage

What I'm calling the Banana ranges (for reasons that should be clear from their shape on the map) are actually two separate massifs that have longer "tendrils" extending around. As you can see from the above pic, I actually skipped the highest part of the first range. Mostly because from my position I had a very easy approach and felt they weren't challenging enough to be worth taking the detour. I'd rather keep progressing on this line of foothills, connecting directly with the other range with very limited flat ground between them.

In this terrain I can move fast, but it's still challenging enough to not be boring.

I've seen flying surface objects many times, but I still find them funny

Going up another crest, you can see the shadow of Leaping Mantis in the middle of the screen. Ahead there's one of the few bits of glaciers in this part of the road

The aforementioned glacier part

And more foothills

Being able to climb up to 20°, Leaping Mantis has to occasionally zig-zag up an incline in those conditions, but it rarely has to really slow down. I like this kind of landscape.

One last mountain crest, significantly higher and steeper than the others. Night came, you can see the lights of the rover

In front of the rover, crossing the horizon from one side to the other, is a significantly higher mountain range, which I dubbed The Slash.

Approaching the first mountain of The Slash. It's getting its own chapter, though

Edited December 6 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 4: The Slash range

I called this range the Slash because its horizontal shape on a spheric object makes me think of a scar on the cheek.

Originally, I wasn't even supposed to cross it fully, as it's mostly east-west and doesn't bring me any closer to the pole. But it was just an amazing challenge, exactly the reason I started this circumnavigation. I'm not in any hurry to finish, I'm here for as much mountaineering as I can take.

The range itself is only roughly 100 km long, but I planted flags on many major peaks

Spoiler

The last picture of the previous chapter was looking up at the first significant mountain in the Slash. It didn't look much from that perspective, but it's different with a better perspective.

I dubbed it the Castle

Ok, I already used that name on Vall, but here it's even more appropriate. Look at the squarish shape, the higher peaks rising like towers from the corners, and the lower terrain contained inside the "walls".

I spent some time assaulting the Castle, but its walls are getting gradually steeper the higher you go.

Approaching the limits of what Leaping Mantis can take

Trying to go around, looking for a better approach. I regret the poor illumination, maybe I should have used light enhancement after all

Found a small ledge to stop and recharge the battery

Ever since I swapped out the new version of the rover, I no longer have to stop frequently to recharge - but the battery will eventually drain in a prolonged climb like this one. And on the cliff side, Leaping Mantis can't stop, or it slowly slids down. A ledge like that is necessary to stop and recharge. Also, to save the game without fear that loading will explode something.

Even more vertical. Look at the roll and the lack of red light, I'm manually rolling the rover to prevent it from capsizing

But it's not enough

Eventually I have to give up, that last part of the wall is too steep. The Castle resisted!

I have to bypass it on the side

Not that it's particularly easy either

After the Castle, a snowy plateau

Looking back at the Castle, this side looks less impregnable

I could probably climb the Castle from this side, but I decide not to. After spending the best part of an hour trying on the other side and admitting defeat, just going up on the easier side feels petty. No, the Castle beat me fair and square, and out of respect I will not attempt to go up on the easier side.

Wow, I'm talking about respecting a fictional mountain range in a fictional world in a fictional videogame, one that probably was visited by no more than a dozen people anyway.

Well, the snowy plateau ends in a big cliff. I've never tried going down on one of those yet.

It's nearly vertical. I could never go up here, but maybe I can go down

This is not a serious attempt. I just wanted to see what would happen

Of Course Leaping Mantis explodes, but the crew actually reaches the bottom alive

This is the actual serious attempt. I'm braking all the time, but the rover is sliding down

Later I perfected the technique. I need to keep reaction wheels activated and pull down, to keep the rover from turning back to front. That way I can go down 80° cliffs, and I can even afford to accelerate to 10 m/s before braking.

After the cliff there's a valley, and another rocky pinnacle. I went up that one, it had a nice challenging wall. Lights from the rover visible

Unfortunately, I'm unhappy with the pictures I have. I feel like they either fail to show the environment, or they fail to show what the rover is doing.

Anyway, after that tower I went down to a valley, then up another mountain.

Some more crossing cliffs

Falling again, but this time I managed to stop the fall and keep going. Leaping Mantis is wonderful

Another instance where I prefer to go on the side rather than up (again, you can't see the rover but you can see its light)

That cliff face was too steep, I realized that after going halfway up.

I'm very close to the sea. Reminds me of Liguria (italian region), I've never been there but I'd like to

Another major valley cuts the Slash range. By now it's dawn

I included this purely for the landscape

On the other side, there is a nice long crest. I'm going up the knife edge

Crossing the top of the mountains felt cool at the time, but maybe trying to cross the cliffs on the sides would have been more challenging

Still on the same crest

Staying on such a narrow place has disadvantages. I broke the front of the rover

The crest is ending in another high plateau

Leading to another massif

I'm going to climb the big mountain. Rover in the center of the picture, nearing the base. On this side it's not too hard

It's satisfying to switchback on a big flat cliff like this one

Once more, I launch down Leaping Mantis just to see if it would survive

Once more, after falling 4 km, the rover is still mostly intact. That was a huge cliff

Reloading back, I have to go down on this side, not on the big cliff

This channel looks like a trampoline for sky jumping, so I tried to jump down it. But the end is rugged terrain, it always throws Leaping Mantis off course

Another difficult cliff. I went up halfway, then realized I could not climb up. Probably I could on the right side, but I wanted to go left

So I cut horizontally across the cliff again

This is at the limit of what Leaping Mantis can do

A bit of flatter land. For once I'm going on the passes, just to add some variety

Nice image of Mun disappearing behind an impressive tower

I reach the base of the tower on a ridge. I consider trying to climb - impossible on this side, but maybe on the other. I decide not to; I had enough climbing for now

Besides, after passing that tower on the side...

I had another one I wanted to climb

One with an impressive rocky amphiteather

That cliff is too steep to climb, but the left edge of the amphiteather is more accessible. And on the right side of the amphiteather the top plateau starts at a lower elevation. I can't climb the amphitheater, but if I climb up on the left side, then I cross all around the formation until I reach the right side, if I manage to do that without losing too much elevation I can reach the top plateau. I can't stay on the crest on top, it's too jagged.

Doing exactly that, I manage to conquer the top. That was really hard

The Amphiteather, besides being one of the hardest, most satisfying mountains to climb, is also the easternmost peak in the Slash range. I've finished it, now I can restart going north.

First I must climb down, of course

Up to 80° elevation, but I mastered the technique

Leaping Mantis is about to face easier terrain

That was a wild ride. Best mountain range so far. If there's some other crazy person like me who likes to climb mountains on a rover, this is probably the place I'd recommend the most.

Edited December 7 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 5: Mostly flatlands

The next real mountain range is all the way up in the arctic, Leaping Manits has to cross a lot of relatively flat ground.

In terms purely of distance traveled, this is the longest chapter so far, but it will be shorter in word count

Spoiler

Going north from the Slash range, there are no other big mountains for a long time. As I planned itineraries, I saw that it could not be avoided.

The terrain is rolling hills at first

There are a few occasional bigger mountains, but nothing too complicated for Leaping Mantis

This terrain is actually harder on the wheels, because it's flat enough to pick up speed, but you still get speed bumps like the one I'm about to hit

As I move north, I start finding pine trees

Just a rare different IVA view

A rare bigger mountain. I come from the milder side on top of the image, climbing up was easy

Ok, perhaps I underestimated this massif. Reload

I already mentioned that, between the high gravity, bumpy terrain and high speed, I'm eating up repair kits like there's no tomorrow. Which is the actual case, at least as far as my corner wheels are concerned. But I didn't worry much about it, because I knew I could run a resupply mission. I still have a handful of kits, but right now the flat terrain is good to land an airplane, which can't be said of some of the places I'll visit next. So I quickly build a plane to bring spare parts.

Simple, yet functional. It's very easy to build a plane when you have the whole tech tree and you don't need it to do anything special

Crossing the Slash, on the same ridge that Leaping Mantis crawled over

At first I was a bit hesitant about using the afterburner, but I realized I have enough fuel to circumnavigate the world anyway.

Transferring repair kits to Leaping Mantis

The plane still has a bunch of kits, I'm leaving it here so it will be faster to send the next time I'll need resupply. At this rate it will happen another couple times at least, I'm chewing through wheels frighteningly fast.

Moving north, I find the relay station named north station 1

Followed by some more hilly terrain

And some extremely flat terrain. Which went on for a while. Booooring. How can people circumnavigate a whole planet like that?

Passing close to a glacial lake near the ice cap (visible on the map)

I end up in the water. Luckily, using reaction wheels to push down, I can touch the bottom with one wheel, which generates enough traction to slowly pull me out

Finally, after much flat ground, I see the next major range

The ice cap too. When I visited Duna's, the change in the ground was gradual and only noticeable over long distances. Here, it's abrupt

Not much to report here (though still some pretty views), but next there were some pretty hard mountains, I wanted to split the report to avoid a too-big chapter.

Edited December 12 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 6: The Box massif

A squarish mountain massif made of deep gorges provides a very challenging tower to climb.

Spoiler

Coming north from the relay station, I encounter a roughly square massif, with steep cliffs on every side and a lower laying area in the middle. I call it the Box, because it's basically what it is.

Just like in many other planets, close to the poles the terrain tend to be squeezed in the longitude, resulting in deep canyons pointing towards the pole. The highest mountains tend to be narrow crests with nearly vertical sides. I decide I'll try to climb the tallest of them.

The one on the right

First I must cross some more gorges to reach its base

It's very imposing. The sides are impossible to climb, but here there is a path that looks less steep than the rest

The path is too short and steep to properly switchback, I have to use reverse gear. Every time I go forward and backward, I painstakingly gain a few tens of meters

While those ledges give me a chance to recharge the battery

Made it to the top

I fail going down safely

But somehow I can recover. An atmosphere preventing the rover from picking too much speed helps

I reach the bottom with a single broken wheel. Good enough, considering I was plummeting to certain death a minute ago

+

Time to exit the Box. This time, I will pick one of the valleys, they look lovely

Indeed, they are

Aerial views of the Box

After the Box, the terrain is a lot flatter

Indeed, piece of cake. But I'm deviating from the rough terrain...

... because I wanted to visit the crashed ufo. It looked bigger from the wiki pictures

Edited Sunday at 02:31 PM by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 7: The Gouged mountains

After some flat polar ice cap, I find another major mountain range, made of thin mountain crests parallel to each other. They must be crossed perpendicularly to the orientation of the crests, going up and down multiple times.

Spoiler

I took a detour to the crashed saucer, but there weren't any real mountains between the Box and the next target. I have to cross almost 100 km of perfectly flat ice.

I can do it at 2x warp, at least

You can see there are hills to the left, but they are not steep or difficult in any way, no fun.

I pass this very interesting wall, though. It reminds me of giant's causeway

At this fast pace, I soon reach the next mountain range - though from satellite view I wasn't even sure they'd be actual mountains and not regular rough terrain.

The Gouged mountains

The name I gave should explain itself. It's a pretty long mountain range, all made of those long, narrow crests with very steep sides. I found this kind of terrain in most planets from the OPM pack, it's a terrain artifact near the poles where the "valleys" are all pointing at the poles. Among others, I found them on Slate, Tal, Tekto, Polta. I guess they all used Kerbin as a sort of starting algorithm.

All the other times I just passed through the valleys. I clearly remember making a remark for my circumnavigation of Slate on the likes of "I'm so glad I can follow the valleys instead of having to cut perpendicularly through the crests". Well, now cutting through the crests is the name of the game. With the right rover, it's gonna be fun.

It requires going up and down all the time. Here going down

And up the next

Ooops!

Besides being a lot bigger than the first, this second crest is a lot steeper. Its walls are getting increasingly vertical going upwards, making me realize the futility of climbing them only after spending significant effort going up most of the way.

However, unlike what happened with the Castle, I'm not inclined to give this rock any respect. The Castle was a mountain, it beat me fair and square. This is just a bidimensional line with near vertical sides. That's cheating. Everything can be impossible to climb this way. So I want to conquer this formation.

I know, I'm not having much logical consistency. But I reserve for myself the right of not being logical when it's done for entertainment purposes alone.

So I look around, and find one short side is less sheer. Looking around, I also found a synonym that will save me from repeating steep all the time

I can climb nearly to the top, but the last part is still too precipitous (synonym dictionary, thanks again) to go up. I must cut on the long side, and hope I can climb there. 

I am so glad the lights are so well visible in the image. It allows to show both the mountain shape and the rover position at the same time.

Turns out that yes, with difficulty I can go up. Here I'm almost to the ledge

Ridge conquered. Note the near vertical walls all around

There are many ways to climb mountains with Leaping Mantis, but the only proper way to go down is straight

After a bunch of minor crests that don't offer much resistance to the rover's relentless wheels, I find another major obstacle.

This new massif cannot be climbed from my direction

I cut laterally. I am aiming to cross as many mountains as possible in the circumnavigation, but I'm not obliged to top each and every summit

Leaping Mantis may not be able to climb 70° inclines, but it can cross them laterally. I will lose some elevation due to the wheels skidding, but it's acceptable.

I probably could ramp way up my capability to climb if I fiddled with the friction settings of the wheels, but I'm not even trying. It's not fun if you can just go forward and the rover will carry you no matter what. Proper fun requires having enough options that you can puzzle your way around obstacles, but enough limitations that you still have to stretch and make an effort to succeed.

I need to use that sentence next time I discuss optimization in D&D.

The cliff starts manageable

But it becomes progressively steeper the farther I go

That section felt like it lasted forever, even though it only took a few minutes. The tension of pushing Leaping Mantis to the limit was one factor. Having to repeat the part a half dozen times because I kept crashing to the bottom is another. Being unable to save, because when you reload the game drops you a few meters vertically above the ground, and in this situation that's enough to ensure I'll crash again, is another. You can also notice that between the two pictures I dropped 300 meters in elevation.

In the end, I was able to access a ledge where a gully creates more manageable terrain to the top. Once more, you can see the position of the rover from the lights

Like with the Castle, I decide to respect this place by not trying to get up the mountain on the right. Instead, I go over the ridge to the mountain on the left, then down.

The same massif seen from the other side. The peak to the right is on the left of the previous picture, barely out of the frame

After a half-hearted attempt, I realize that final peak is just impossible to climb, and move on.

There is a small plain dividing the Gouged range in two

But I'm soon climbing again

This is yet another formation I didn't try to climb to the top. I realized I'm not required to crest every single ridge, and the Gouged range simply has too many of those anyway. It's ok if I pass on the sides of some of them.

I'm not missing going up this gully, though

I liked climbing towards a mountain pass with Tamarromobile on Slate, and here I can live the same adventure, on a much smaller scale

I wonder how Leaping Mantis would have fared against pass Thoushaltnot! on Slate. Maybe one day I'll bring this rover to Slate. But probably not, my time is not unlimited and I have other things competing for it.

I'm also skipping those next few ridges. Every once in a while, it's more fun to cross through the passes

But I'm absolutely going up this big one!

I picked this ridge to climb because, while precipitous (I don't like sheer, I keep envisioning its use in porn, but I also don't want to repeat steep all the time, I may stick with this word instead) enough everywhere but there is one side where it may just be possible to go up. Basically, while with most ridges I can immediately tell "ok, I can go up easily if I want" or "nope, this cannot be conquered", with this one I was in doubt. Perfect challenge.

Inching upwards

This side is way too steep to switchback, forcing me to alternate forward and reverse gear instead. So far, so good. It's also narrow enough that I can't pick up speed, I can only go forward a few seconds before it's time to stop and go the other direction. The upper part is vertical enough that the slightest mistake will send Leaping Mantis tumbling down - it often recovers unscathed, but it's still a loss of time. Near the end, there was a vertical crease on the ground that, at such an inclination, was enough to lose contact and drop the rover. Room to maneuver was very tight, I had barely a few meters to go forward and backward while trying to climb up faster than I was sliding down.

In short, it was amazing. I passed only after a prolonged effort.

After the hardest part

This is a very long ridge

Close to the top

And going down

Those final views are among my favourite landscapes. This time, I'm not going down vertically, but I keep going on the ridge, where it connects eventually with mountains.

I consider those a different range. The Gouged was straight and narrow, with a line of consecutive crests, occasionally fused into a greater massif.

Final ledge into the next mountain range

The next region will still feature rocky ridges, but there's a lot more of them, and while roughly parallel, they are not that regular anymore, creating a maze of valleys.

I called it the Labyrinth.

Edited 3 minutes ago by king of nowhere