One of my more detailed pieces I've done of my Tokotas: Sovi, Kodiak & Excidium.

Story:
It was a shortcut, we all knew that, but like an avalanche chute was the wisest choice. Several meters wide swath of mountain side riddled with fallen rocks, fallen trees, snow of mixed depths and the bodies of the poor souls caught in the destruction of mother nature’s deadly winter fury. The unsettling thing was the chute was a very much active and notorious avalanche zone.
Before we ever considered this insane path, the night before, while we sat around the crackling warmth of the campfire after traveling through snow drift after drift only to finally catch a break when we made camp. The ground shuttered and a loud roar echoed across the range. Vicious snapping, louder than the campfire, could ever produce. All three tokotas perked up and looked in the direction of nature’s thunderous roar.
Sovi and Kodiak didn’t move as their ears swiveled before turning their muzzles to the cool air and howled in their own retort while Excidium dropped his ears and whined despite being so confident. Both Sovi and Kodiak had the closest ties to their native heritage of wild tokotas unlike Excidium. We laughed a bit as we listened to the chorus trying to out preform one another, but we also knew that the humor would end by dawn…for tomorrow we were traveling through that notorious chute.
When dawn broke, we set to work on wrapping all of the metal pieces of out tack as well as anything on our own person that would make the slightest rattle while on the move. We had miles before we would reach the notorious chute, but it was better to take care of it now rather than later. Though they were less active that didn’t mean that they weren’t silent forever in a slumber of inactivity…just more unpredictable and our path was taking us straight across these avalanche chutes.
Once ready, we packed up and set out to traverse the first chutes before the notorious chute. Leaping, ducking and weaving through the chute’s broken terrain one after another without any issues. The local wildlife was scarce, not even the birds sung in these death valleys other than the drumming of the woodpeckers and sapsuckers.
The tokotas were enjoying this run more than we, their handlers, were. All out full stride as their ears moved without breaking a beat. Sovi was in the lead with the less experienced Excidium in the middle and Kodiak bringing up the flank. Yet we had to be on our toes for a stray branch and other unpredictable obstacles that lacked against our person. Without our goggles, someone could’ve lost an eye or worse. Luckily everyone packed theirs with extra lenses in before we even left base camp.
It was eerie when all you hear is the crunching of the snow under each paw stride. All the normal chimes and rattles of the tack was silenced. The only true sound was the measured breaths of all the three tokotas as well as our own muffled breathing through our face masks and the drumming of the birds scavenging through the dead snags.
Hours seemed to drag on as the sun disappeared behind the clouds as flecks of fresh snow started to fall adding to the ever increasing avalanche danger in the region. It wasn’t long until the wind started to pick up, making the winter bitten trees shiver. Branches cracked as needles tingled in the frost air. The tokotas slowed up, listening as the wind picked up and the snow-ladened wind grew thicker and thicker driving us into cover on the raising sides of the chute. Resounding crackling snaps filled the chilly air as branches snapped under the stress of the wind’s gale-force strength.
We didn’t waste time to get moving again. Snow whipped around us as we pressed on as quickly as we could without getting separated. Soon we decided to dismount and walk on foot with reins in hand before finding a rocky overhang to make a brief basecamp to wait out the sudden mountain downburst. Mountain storms or downbursts as they’re sometimes called could be over in mere few hours or even last the whole day or longer.
The fire lashed, clawing at the wind in vicious retaliation, as it struggled against the howling wind as we sat in a close group. Coffee kettle sat warming in the hot embers of the fire while the tokotas settled in, curled up, with their backs against the blowing snow and noses in their tails. Menna worked to get some snacks out while Arno got up to fetch more woods to keep the struggling fire from going out. The light of his locator beacon visibly blinked like a lost firefly while he wandered, here and there, to find wood. I looked up at the snow-filled sky wondering when the storm would break.
We still had miles to go and it was nearly dusk by the time the storm let up enough to make safe travel possible. The tokotas were up from being buried in fresh snow, shaking it off themselves and the tack as well. We looked over our saddles, re-cinching girth straps if needed, and packed up to continue. The fire long died out as the storm ebbed off, giving us our window to safely get moving. There are cracking and snapping of branches as the wind rustled through the overloaded branches before a rumbling roar echoed down a nearly by chute.
Without any more hesitation, we turned on our locators as we mounted up and pressed onward. The roar of a freshly-released avalanche echoed gnawed at our heels. It may have been from the chute beside the one we were traversing, but that didn’t stop our hearts from racing. The unnerving feeling a speeding train passing right alongside, spraying us with smoke of driven snow through the thick tree line that separated the two chutes. All we could do it edge down from the lip of our chute and let pass overhead, showering us with glistening powdered snow as we slowed a bit and allowed a moment to relax. It may have been a neighboring chute that released, but it still…it was unnerving and heart-pounding. Yet this was the risk of running the gauntlet.
It wasn’t until we got back that and then we heard the roar, looking back. The chute released a vengeful avalanche that came too late. All we could do is just watch and listen as it snapped trees and sent snow skyward. We stood, shoulder to shoulder, just watched the spectacle, before having a good laugh at how lucky we were to just missed getting caught up in it.

Artwork & story (c) me