The Mountain Challenge Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  The Bear Grylls Adventures series

  Dedication

  1. Bubble Run

  2. High and Mighty

  3. Rocky Rendezvous

  4. High Seas

  5. Double Up

  6. Thin Air

  7. Firs and Ferns

  8. Too Much Information

  9. Face Down

  10. Needing to be Said

  About the Author

  Brilliant Beastly Bears: Did You Know?

  Copyright

  The BEAR GRYLLS ADVENTURES series

  The Blizzard Challenge

  The Desert Challenge

  The Jungle Challenge

  The Sea Challenge

  The River Challenge

  The Earthquake Challenge

  The Volcano Challenge

  The Safari Challenge

  The Cave Challenge

  The Mountain Challenge

  To the young survivor

  reading this book for the first time.

  May your eyes always be wide open

  to adventure, and your heart full

  of courage and determination to

  see your dreams through.

  1

  BUBBLE RUN

  Lily held her breath and watched Mia send the shuttlecock soaring through the air. Down, down, down it went, towards a part of the court that nobody was standing in.

  Just as Lily was about to shout ‘yes!’ in triumph, Callum came charging out of nowhere and swiped furiously with his racket. The shuttlecock flew low over the net back to Lily’s side, and hit the ground before anyone could get it.

  “Point!” Callum shouted. “He shoots, he scores!”

  He led his team in an annoying victory dance, while Lily stared.

  “It touched the ground on your side!” Mia protested. “It’s not your point!”

  “Did not!” Callum shouted. “I got it just before!”

  Mia waved her racket at Lily.

  “Lily! You were closest! Go on, tell him!”

  “I, um …” Lily began. She was ninety-nine per cent sure Mia was right. The shuttlecock had touched the ground and Callum had scooped it up. All eyes swung onto her. She flushed.

  “I, uh, I think …” she stammered.

  “See? Lily says it didn’t land!” Callum called.

  “That isn’t what she said!” Mia snorted. “Did you, Lily? You saw it touch, right?”

  “Um …”

  Lily knew whatever she said was going to upset someone. Callum and Mia both looked mad. And now she was upsetting herself. She hated not being able to stand up to people. She hated letting them down even more.

  “I’ve got to go!” she said as she ran from the court. “I don’t want to be late!”

  *

  The moment Lily saw it, she thought the Bubble Run looked like mad fun. Everyone was paired up and strapped inside giant transparent inflatable bubbles, which raced along a sandy track that ran around the edge of a clearing at the top of the woods. They had to roll themselves along, trying not to hit other teams or anything else. Lily had been looking forward to it all week and now it was her turn.

  There was a crowd of people waiting in front of Lily, including Mia. Lily hoped she wasn’t upset with her, but hung back just in case. She pushed her hands into her pockets, slouching at the back of the group.

  What was that in her pocket? Oh yes, a compass. She’d got it the day before, from Harry after they’d played Team Frisbee. Harry had been playing to win but he’d scared her by playing so hard, so he’d given her the compass as a gift to say sorry. At the time Lily had wondered why he thought she might want a compass, but she was too scared to say anything.

  Just then the bubbles bounced into view through the trees, with a leader firmly strapped inside each one. Lily forgot about the compass and listened carefully as the leaders clambered out and explained how the activity worked.

  “Each bubble takes two of you. Strap into this harness – it’s very important that you double strap for safety. If you come loose inside the bubble you could get hurt. To move the bubble you both have to lean yourselves in the direction you want it to move – and it goes! So, choose a partner, and we’ll send you round the course in pairs.”

  “Come with me, Lily?” Mia said to Lily, with a friendly smile. Lily beamed back. It was good to know Mia wasn’t upset with her after all.

  “Sure!”

  Lily and Mia watched the first two pairs go round the track. Everyone cheered and laughed as the bubbles spun and wobbled and bounced. Eventually they rolled back to the start and the giddy kids were let out, laughing and dizzy.

  Next up were Lily and Mia, and Joe and Omar. They got inside the bubbles and the leaders fitted the inflatable hatch to seal them in. The sides were a bit cloudy but Lily could make out everything outside. Mia was fiddling with her straps and then stopped. She hadn’t done up the second set.

  “It’s too uncomfortable to do both. I’ve done this before, it’s fine with just one anyway … we’re ready!” she called out loudly to the leader waiting for their signal.

  But we were told it was important! Lily wanted to say. But Mia seemed so confident.

  Just then the leaders gave their bubble a push, and they were off.

  The whole world spun around them. Lily felt her head and her stomach whirling and swirling. She suddenly understood why they had been told not to have a big breakfast.

  The girls soon got the hang of it. You just had to lean a little, and you could make the bubble go forward, or tilt it to the left or the right.

  “Here come the boys,” Mia called.

  Joe and Omar’s bubble was bouncing towards them.

  “Are they trying to ram us?” Lily could hear the tremble in her voice.

  It was against the rules for bubbles to ram each other deliberately, but it looked like that was what Joe and Omar were about to do. Lily hadn’t thought either of the boys was the kind who would break the rules but …

  Bump.

  The bubbles collided.

  The inflatable hulls took the impact, but both bubbles got knocked off course.

  Lily saw the gap in the trees spinning around ahead of them. They were heading for a slope.

  “Mia, we need to go right!”

  “Got it!”

  Mia and Lily leaned their bodies over to the right to get their bubble back on course.

  Bump.

  The boys hit them again.

  The girls’ bubble spun around so that Mia was hanging down from the top.

  And then, with the sound of ripping Velcro, Mia’s single strap came loose.

  “Aargh!”

  Mia couldn’t fight gravity. She tumbled down and landed on Lily.

  “Ow!” Lily shouted.

  Lily was double-strapped in place, but the girls were tangled up together and the bubble was seriously unbalanced. Lily felt it teeter over towards the edge of the hill.

  “Mia, get up! You’ve got to –”

  It was too late. The bubble tipped over the edge …

  Instantly the world started spinning. Lily’s head was shaken this way and that as the bubble tumbled its way down the slope. Picking up speed with every second, bouncing higher and higher. It was totally out of control.

  2

  HIGH AND MIGHTY

  Mia screamed as she tumbled around inside the bubble. Lily’s stomach went into free-fall.

  “Oof!”

  “Ow!”

  Mia and Lily crunched in a massive crash as the bubble hit the ground one last time before coming to a stop. In the crush, the compass that was still in Lily’s pocket jabbed painfully into her. Lily pulled it out as Mia climbed off her.
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  “Oops!” Mia looked like she didn’t know whether to giggle or cry.

  Lily wasn’t laughing and she definitely wanted to cry. It had really hurt to have Mia land on her so many times. But instead of checking herself for injuries, Lily couldn’t stop staring at the compass in her hand. Its needle was spinning round and round, and she could swear there were five directions on it. It was obviously broken. Was Harry going to be annoyed with her for breaking it?

  The whole stupid going-out-of-control thing wouldn’t have happened if Mia had just followed instructions and done up the double strap in the first place. And now she’d broken Harry’s compass.

  But Lily still didn’t say anything. She wanted to stay friends, not cause any more trouble.

  “Come on,” Mia said. “Let’s get out of here, Lily.”

  Lily was nearest to the hatch. She just had to twist a couple of toggles, and give it a push. She started to crawl out.

  “Aargh!”

  Suddenly Lily was tumbling down a rocky slope. Small stones and pebbles rained down next to her.

  At last Lily bumped into something that stopped her. But whatever it was made of was so hard that it knocked the breath out of her. She lay absolutely still, eyes shut until she was positive she had stopped moving. The bubble must have come to a halt at the top of a ditch. When she’d opened the hatch, she hadn’t checked to see if there was actually any ground outside.

  Lily climbed to her feet and dusted herself down.

  “Well, that was really stupid, wasn’t it?” she started to mutter.

  But the words dried in her mouth as she saw where she was.

  Lily slowly turned on the spot.

  There was no ditch.

  There was no sign of the bubble.

  There was no sign of Mia.

  In fact, there was no sign of Camp.

  The slope she had fallen down was as long as a football field, and as steep as the roof of a house. It was covered in rocks and boulders. Lily had bumped into one of them. A few metres further on, the slope plunged over a sheer drop.

  But that was only the start of the weirdness.

  Lily looked out over a sea of hill tops and deep valleys. Some of the lower slopes seemed to be covered in forest. The tops were all bare, jagged rock. It stretched out away from her like an ocean.

  A cold wind was blowing, and it cut right through Lily’s thin top. She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed them to try to keep warm. Then she lifted her eyes.

  However she had got here, Lily could see that she needed to get off this high ground and out of this wind. She ran her eyes along the tops of the hills. Over to the side, the slope turned into a flat ridge that she could walk along. In fact, she thought she could see a route from the ridge, down a spur of high ground and into the valley below. Okay, she decided. That was where she should go.

  But it was easier said than done. The first thing she had to do was step away from her safe little rock. The slope was steep and dangerous. She’d have to be careful with every step.

  Lily decided the best way would be to crawl across the slope, sideways, on all fours.

  She cautiously put one foot out, then a hand, then the other hand, and then the other foot. Crawling slowly towards the ridge, she didn’t look down. The thought of the drop behind her was just too scary.

  Suddenly a stone gave way beneath her. Lily’s foot shot away and she dropped down onto one knee, banging it against the hard ground. She heard the loose stone tumble away, until suddenly there was silence as it went over the edge.

  Lily’s heart was beating faster than ever and she wanted to cry. But she knew she had to go on. Slowly, she straightened her leg and started to crawl again.

  She moved carefully for a while, but as the ridge came closer, she decided to risk it and move a little faster.

  Bad move. Her foot slipped away again and this time she fell flat on her face. Worse, Lily could feel herself start to slide down the slope. She tried to dig her fingers and feet into the rocky earth, but it was no good. Soon she started to roll. She was out of control.

  Lily was spinning and bumping towards the sheer drop.

  3

  ROCKY RENDEZVOUS

  “Put your arms and legs out!”

  A man was shouting. Lily could hear him over the rattle of falling stones and her own panic.

  “Put your arms and legs out! Quickly!”

  Lily flung her arms and legs into a starfish position.

  She kept skidding down, but at least she’d stopped rolling. Soon she could feel herself slowing. At last, once she had stopped moving, Lily lay flat on her back and breathed. She didn’t dare to move.

  “Are you okay?” the man called.

  Lily just couldn’t find her voice. She knew she needed to speak, but she couldn’t.

  “Are you okay? Can you come back towards me?” the man called again.

  Lily looked. She had stopped just before a sheer drop. She panicked again, feeling the drop pull at her like a magnet. If she moved, she would go over it.

  “I … I don’t think I can,” she called back eventually, fighting to keep her voice steady.

  “Okay. Hold on.”

  Boots scuffed on rock. She watched the man come into view, backwards, holding onto a rope. He was dressed for the mountains, in tough trousers, a protective helmet and a colourful

  He stopped a short distance away

  “Okay, this is as far as the rope goes. So I’m going to have to ask you to be brave and do this yourself, right? I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Lily nodded. She didn’t feel brave, though.

  “Great stuff. Okay, first, you need to roll over onto your front.” Lily didn’t need to be told twice. She knew that she was in trouble and she trusted the man, whoever he was. “That’s it,” he said as she twisted herself slowly over. “Well done. You’re doing great.”

  Lily carried on doing exactly what he told her, turning around until she was pointing up the slope then carefully edging herself along towards him, only moving one hand or foot at a time.

  It took all her courage, but Lily managed to follow his directions. She took it slowly and surely. Eventually she was close enough for him to pull her to her feet.

  “Excellent! Now, go in front of me and hold onto the rope while we work our way back up …”

  A few minutes later, they were both on flat ground. The man started to coil his rope up and put it in his rucksack.

  “So, how did you get there?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  Lily wasn’t quite sure how to answer. She stayed quiet.

  The man looked at her kindly.

  “Pretty scary, huh? Don’t worry, I know how it feels. Listen, my name’s Bear, and I’m exploring a new path over the mountains … and now it looks like you’re joining me. Are you ready for some adventure?”

  Lily looked out over the endless mountain tops. She wasn’t so sure that she wanted an adventure. Mostly, she wanted it all to be over and to be back at Camp.

  But she could see there wasn’t any other way off this mountain.

  “Thanks for helping me, Bear,” she said at last. “I’m Lily.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Lily.” Bear started to dig around inside his rucksack. “You’ll need some proper kit for the mountains. Those trousers are fine – lightweight and rugged. But let’s get you some more clothes to go on top of that t-shirt. We both need to be wearing lots of thin layers, so the air between them gets warmed up by body heat.”

  Bear produced a top from his rucksack. “This one’s good …”

  Lily was about to take it when he pulled out another.

  “Or how about this?”

  He laid the two tops on a rock, and rummaged in his rucksack again.

  “And there’s these …”

  Eventually, Lily was looking at a pile of tops, sweatshirts, cagoules and hats.

  “Choose whatever you like,” Bear told her cheerfully.

  Lily stared at all
the choices. She had to make a decision. She hated making decisions. She almost felt as nervous as she had when she was tumbling down the slope.

  “I don’t know,” Lily stammered. “Um … which do you think, Bear?”

  Bear’s eyes were kind.

  “You don’t have to worry about getting it wrong, Lily,” he said gently. “All that matters is that you feel comfortable wearing them. They have to be right for you.”

  Lily felt a bit bolder. She chose a couple of tops, a sweatshirt, jacket and hat.

  “Great choice,” Bear approved. “You’ll need a helmet and these boots, too, instead of trainers.”

  He put down a helmet and a pair of scuffed, leather mountain boots. Lily put the helmet and boots on, and bounced on her toes a couple of times. They seemed to grip her feet and her ankles. She felt herself planted firmly on the rocky ground.

  “Thanks, they feel good,” she said.

  Bear was looking out over the mountains.

  “Great. So now you’re kitted out, wwe need to head out. You should always try to take the easiest route off a mountain, which is back the way I came.” He pointed. “We need to get down to the valley, where it’s warmer, and we’ve got more chance of finding shelter and food. It’s always best to come down a mountain spur, if you can, because you get a view down in all directions, and you can get a good idea of where you’re going. So, if we follow this flat ground, then we come to that ridge, then follow that spur, which leads down …”

  In fact, Bear was describing exactly the route that Lily had worked out for herself. She wanted to tell him so, but she felt worried about speaking up. So Lily just kept quiet. Still, she was pleased to know she had got it right. And it felt good to know where they were going. Hopefully she would be back in Camp before too long.

  They both took a drink of water from Bear’s water bottle, and ate half a ration bar each.

  “Just enough to give us energy for now,” Bear said. “We’ll take a break every hour – five minutes, to stop us stiffening up – and then we’ll have a proper meal break in a few hours. Does that sound okay, Lily?”