Colter's Mountain: A Tale of High Adventure

By Doug Houser

Thirteen-year-old Colter’s summer vacation takes a twist when he finds himself on a broiling city sidewalk, on the hottest day of the year. The young man finds hope in an ad in the back of a comic book. It promises to send a special rock, for free, that he can plant in his backyard. The comic claims that rock will grow into a massive mountain almost no one else can see with rushing streams, towering evergreen forests, and lofty granite peaks covered with snow.

Colter thinks it sounds like a scam but curiosity makes him send for it anyway. Imagine his surprise when everything the ad promised comes true! Time stands still in the ordinary world while he explores his own majestic wilderness. There he meets a mountain man named Bridger, who explains the ways of the wild. He warns Colter of the many dangers that lie ahead. He must seek the help of skilled climbers from a local mountaineering lodge, including a girl his age named Chrysanthemum.

Will they be able to overcome the challenges of convincing parents that can’t see the mountain? They also must face off against ferocious grizzly bears, towering cliffs, and dangerous weather to find a route to the top of Colter’s Mountain. Worst of all, can they escape the deadly plot of a sinister enemy known as the Alpinist?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385004331

Doug Houser

Doug Houser grew up in the Pacific Northwest. After serving in the Army during the Vietnam War, he joined a wilderness search and rescue team and earned a biology degree from Whitworth University. In 1978, Doug traveled with a Christian band to New Jersey to help plant new churches, where he became a pastor and pioneered Christian schools. Doug taught biology and forensic science in public schools for twenty years. He was married to his wife Barbara for twenty-five years and has two sons, Adam and Jonathan.

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Colter’s

Mountain

A Tale of High Adventure

Doug Houser

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Copyright © 2023 Doug Houser.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

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expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission

of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The

NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in

the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0431-7 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0432-4 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0433-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023914192

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/21/2023

While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but

not by human hands … the rock … became a

huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

—Daniel 2:34, 35

This book is

dedicated to:

Adam Douglas Houser

August 20th, 1989 to June 11th, 2023

He was the first to read Colter’s Mountain.

He was the first to realize there must be a villain.

When he was young, like Colter,

he dreamed, believed, worked, and dared.

When he became a man, like Bridger, he did the same.

He was compassionate, kind, and patient,

showing others the way with wisdom, humor, vision,

and self-sacrifice.

"You can’t guess how high someone else’s mountain will be . . .

Learning to get to the top can be the quest of a lifetime." Bridger

"Do you believe that these mountains—your mountain, Sam’s,

Randy’s, Chrysanthemum’s—do you believe they are real? Are

there real mountains, right in your back yard, in this city?"

Of course, Colter answered. "I mean,

that’s where all this happened."

"Yes. And as much as I believe that too, I also believe there

are other mountains that we have not seen, or few have

seen—: higher mountains. And I believe that Bridger is

there now. We will see him again. He may come down from

those mountains. Or we shall go to him." Herr Ober

Contents

Chapter 1     Trapped on a Broiling Sidewalk

Chapter 2     The Secret Pool

Chapter 3     It Wasn’t a Cloud

Chapter 4     Meeting a Mountain Man

Chapter 5     A Girl Wearing Climbing Boots

Chapter 6     Chrysanthemum’s Way Up

Chapter 7     Sam’s New World

Chapter 8     I Saw You on the Roof of the Church!

Chapter 9     Problems with Equipment

Chapter 10   You Wanted to Go First

Chapter 11   The Bear

Chapter 12   Mountain Music at Bear Camp

Chapter 13   Pathfinders

Chapter 14   Would You Like Your Trout with Heavy Metals or Radioactive Waste?

Chapter 15   The Garden of the Gods

Chapter 16   Lightning Has Colors

Chapter 17   Concerned Mothers

Chapter 18   A Shirt Her Father Wore

Chapter 19   The Sharp End of the Rope

Chapter 20   Eavesdropping in the Rain

Chapter 21   Pure Water Pollution and Other Problems

Chapter 22   Rocks for Everyone

Chapter 23   What I Did Last Summer

Chapter 24   Showtime!

Chapter 25   The Alpinist

Chapter 26   Angry 350-Pound Mountain Goats

Chapter 27   The Coming Storm

Chapter 28   Edelweiss

Chapter 29   Trying to Find a Needle in a Haystack

Chapter 30   The Black Canyon

Chapter 31   After the Storm

Acknowledgments and Backstory

About the Author

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01

Trapped on a

Broiling Sidewalk

Only eleven o’clock in the morning, and already over ninety degrees! The glare from the sidewalk gave Colter a headache. He could see very little shade to hide in, just a sliver of shadow next to the arcade—and not a whisper of a breeze. A bus roared by, belching out black exhaust right at Colter. With his back against the cool, air-conditioned window of the arcade, he slid down slowly until he was sitting on the concrete, elbows on his knees, hands holding his sweaty head.

Colter wondered whether people died of thirst or starvation first. It would be three hours before he could go home. This being the first Saturday of summer vacation, early in the morning his mom had appeared with her cleaning kerchief on her head, and everybody in the family knew what that meant. His father ran out to the hardware store and post office, then planned to do a few errands, sort of like evacuating when you knew a hurricane was coming. Colter’s mom had given him ten dollars for the arcade and for a slice of pizza and a soda for lunch. He had already blown the ten bucks in the arcade by 10:30, playing every video game he could until, before he knew it, he had spent every quarter. Mr. Patel, the manager, could spot a deadbeat in about two minutes flat.

No pay, no play. You go out! That was what Mr. Patel always said. At school, the kids would say it to one another as a joke. Now it wasn’t so funny, out on the sidewalk, hungry, hot, and thirsty, with nowhere to go. And no lunch money.

A group of five teenagers came walking by, taking up the whole sidewalk. The one closest to Colter stepped over him. The one on the outside had a giant soda dripping with condensation. He swirled the ice inside, took a big sip, and let out an enormous burp. Then he chucked the soda at the trash can up the street, trying to get it through the little hole on top. It missed. More than half-full, ice and soda splashed all over the sidewalk and into the gutter. Colter now understood why homeless people went dumpster diving. He watched the ice melt as the teenagers disappeared around the next corner.

Someone was coming down the street from a couple of blocks away, carrying a yellow plastic bag from the drugstore. He looked familiar. His friend Randy! In a minute, he sat next to Colter in the shade of the arcade. Colter explained his situation.

Randy felt bad. I’m leaving for basketball camp in ten minutes. My mom sent me to the store to get extra socks and deodorant. You could come over, but we’ll be gone. Only my brother will be there. Well, so much for that. Randy’s older brother was already in high school.

Randy had another thought. Once, when I was locked out of the house—a day just like today, hotter than blazes—I hadn’t eaten anything for six hours, but I found a robin’s egg that fell out of a nest and fried it right on the sidewalk and ate it. Colter mulled that over. It didn’t sound too good. But right now, he’d take a dozen, over easy.

The two friends sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Then Randy had to go. It took three hours to get to the basketball camp up in the woods somewhere. He disappeared down the street. Colter watched him go and thought about any other friends’ houses he might go to. They were probably already at camp, too, or on vacation.

An old lady pushing a cart full of laundry kept close to the building, trying to stay in the shade as she headed for the Laundromat down the street. She ran over Colter’s foot with the squeaking wheel of the cart. She glared at him like he had tried to trip her, muttered some sentence in a foreign language, and kept struggling down the street. Why’d she yell at me? Colter wondered. She’s the one who ran into me. It got hotter.

Colter slowly became aware of something poking him in the back. It was a rolled-up comic book, stuck in his back pants pocket. Colter pulled it out. Trash Man Meets the Mollusk! He’d already read it twice, but he started thumbing through the advertisements in the back. Stuff like a set of two hundred soldiers for only $3.95, a drawing contest to see if you qualified to go to art school, and a way to build up your muscles if you were a weakling getting sand kicked in your face at the beach. Being at the beach sounded nice. Sand sounded better than bus exhaust and his own sweat stinging his eyes. Then Colter noticed something he had never noticed before. It read as follows:

Tired of life in the city? The pollution, the crowds, the sweltering heat? Now you can experience the refreshing, pure atmosphere of the high mountains! Drink from icy, rushing torrents and plunge into the turquoise depths of their mossy pools. Bask in the silent solitude of towering forests! Frolic on the snowy slopes of cathedral-like granite peaks and scale their lofty heights, where eagles soar above the clouds!

Colter had never heard of a rushing torrent, but it sounded pretty good. He kept reading.

Yes, you can have your very own mountain, right here in the middle of the city! Simply fill out this prepaid, self-addressed postcard and put it in the nearest mailbox. Be sure to include your name and address, and we will send you, free, a rock, cut out, but not by human hands, from the living depths of the mountains. Plant it in your own backyard and watch it grow! What are you waiting for? We’ll see you in the mountains!

Colter decided he would do it. Why not? He had ordered some stuff from comic books before, some of it junk, some of it stuff he really liked, but nothing for free. Besides, his curiosity had taken over. He’d like to see this rock; and maybe they would send some brochures with pictures of these cool mountain places.

Colter spotted a big blue mailbox down on the corner, but he didn’t have a pen or pencil. Now where to get one? Across the street at the bank! He’d been in there with his dad plenty of times. They had pens in there, with wires on the back so no one could take them by mistake, at the little counters where you could get your paperwork ready. Colter ducked into the bank and used one to fill out the card before the guard could kick him out.

He wrote his full name: Colter Caldwell Carpenter.

It’s alliterative, his mom had said, like poetry.

His dad had said he thought littering was against the law, but since each of the names had connections with family or history, OK. So the name stayed. Colter filled in his address: 67 Industry Avenue, Ironworks, New Jersey.

The guard came over. Hey, kid, you have an account in here? There’s no loitering. See that sign? It’s against the law. So take a hike. The guard wasn’t a retired cop like most guards, hired to scare off robbers and pickpockets and make sure the customers didn’t drop or forget stuff. He was just some guy who wanted to be important and boss people around. Colter had finished his card, so he took it and left. He stuck it in the mailbox.

Now what to do for a few hours? Colter decided to keep moving. Maybe he would run into someone he knew or find a cool place to hang out. He wandered down by the school and hit the jackpot! Someone had left the sprinklers on, and he managed to squeeze through a gap between the fence and the gate. He found a spot next to a wall hidden from the sidewalk. The sprinkler came around every forty-three seconds or so. He never imagined it would feel so good to be soaking wet in his clothes; Colter figured when he could go home, with the heat, he’d probably be dry by the time he got there. Meanwhile, he entertained himself by opening his mouth and trying to catch as much water as he could every time the sprinkler came around.

***

Colter! There’s a package here for you! Colter’s mom shook the box.

Colter rushed to the kitchen. Finally here! It was Friday, almost a week after he had sent away for the rock.

What did you order now? ‘First Ascent, Distributors of Mountain Materials,’ she read the return address.

It’s a rock, Mom. Colter popped into the kitchen and grabbed the package eagerly.

A rock! Well, I … She didn’t know what to say. It was hard to think of a rock as good or bad or whatever.

A voice from behind a newspaper at the kitchen table spoke. So, what did this … ah, rock … set you back?

Dad, it’s free. They sent it free. You just had to mail in a postage-free card to order it.

An eye appeared over the top of the newspaper. Uh-huh. Well, the best coffee maker we ever had—that’s it now, on the counter—we got free. The company just hoped you would order your coffee from them. We did get some; it tasted OK.

That seemed to be it. To Dad, if you got something free, it couldn’t be all that bad. Colter didn’t wait for any more comments but ran out to the backyard to check out his prize. The yard had a little square of concrete as a patio and, beyond that, a little grass with a tree or a bush here and there and a wooden fence that separated their yard from all the other little squares of concrete and grass on the block.

Colter opened the box easily, and out tumbled the rock. It was pretty cool looking but not that special—rough, with flecks of smoky white, black, and a kind of dull pink, about the size of a baseball. A slip of paper wrapped partway around the rock, and Colter unfolded it. At the top, it said, Instructions.

Congratulations! He read further. "You are privileged to hold in your hands a piece of the high mountains, taken from their very heart. What you do with it will greatly affect your life. Choose wisely. We recommend that you find a sheltered area in which to plant your rock. A few inches of dirt will do; bury the rock there. Come back often; come back soon; you will discover your very own way up into the peaks, scaling heights unknown. Climb well.

Courtesy of Eagle’s Refuge Mountaineering Society.

OK, so you had to plant the rock. Thoughts came into Colter’s head: Pretty foolish to plant a rock; what a scam. He could hear some pranksters somewhere laughing about it as they mailed out more rocks. He should just chuck the rock—or leave it on his shelf, since he liked the way it looked.

On the other hand, it seemed pretty easy to do, planting a rock, and what if it did grow into a mountain? That would be the coolest thing in the world and worth the trouble. Already hot and sticky again in the city, he could just imagine himself jumping into one of those rushing torrents. Colter knew just the place for the rock. In between his house and Mr. Patterson’s garage! Smaller than the houses on the street, the garage only came back half the distance. So that left a little grassy area behind it. To get into it, you had to squeeze between two big blue spruce trees, which looked kind of like Christmas trees. Colter’s dad had this idea as a little kid that he wanted to plant some trees, so with the help of Colter’s grandpa, they planted them behind the garage. Now they had been growing for over forty years, and they filled up the whole entry space, all the way down to the ground. The branches were stiff and prickly, and it kept everybody out. Underneath them, there was a little dark space, which made a great place for a fort. He didn’t go out there much anymore. An old birdbath stood in the middle of the grassy spot, and then up close to the gray cinder blocks of the garage’s back wall grew a big maple tree. It was the shadiest spot in the neighborhood.

Colter found a patch of dirt in between the maple and the wall. He kicked up a spot with his sneaker and took a look at the rock. It felt … well, like a rock. He shrugged and dropped it in the little hole. The situation suddenly felt rather solemn and important, so he carefully swept dirt over the rock with his hands. He wiped the dirt on his pants and stood looking down at the spot. Then his mother called. Colter! Do you want some lunch? He’d check on the rock tomorrow.

Colter woke early the next day. A soft, warm breeze blew through his open bedroom window, making the curtains dance. It took a moment as he blinked in the slanting sunlight to remember what day it was. Saturday, great! And summer with no school anyway. Suddenly, he remembered the rock. Colter dressed in a flash, bounded downstairs, and jumped completely over the stairs out into the backyard. He pushed through the prickly branches of the spruce trees into the hidden garden, with its big maple tree and the gray cinder block wall. He walked slowly to the spot where he had buried the rock, disappointed. A soft green light beamed through the maple leaves, and he heard the faint buzz of a bee somewhere. The summer-morning smells of grass and soil and trees being warmed by the sun drew Colter nearer. That’s when he noticed the wall. It seemed closer than usual to the tree. It also appeared to be leaning away, just a little bit, not straight up and down, as if getting ready to fall over. The surface looked rough and crumbling too, as if someone had started to smash the surface with sledgehammers. The whole wall looked that way, from Mr. Patterson’s house to Colter’s. It had lumps and hollows and a ledge, about three inches wide, that started about ten feet up and went slanting up at a wild angle to the right. A big crack running straight up on the left started higher than that.

Colter didn’t know Mr. Patterson planned to have his garage torn down. Then he had a frightful thought that maybe the old garage had started to fall over and his neighbor didn’t even know! Maybe he should tell him. He studied the wall, unsure about what to do.

With a jolt, Colter jumped backward. What! A wall? This is not a wall, he thought. As he looked closer, he noticed there weren’t any cinder blocks at all; no rectangles with mortar between them … It looked like a huge rock, filling the whole space between the houses! It went up … a lot higher than Mr. Patterson’s garage. Had a meteor landed on the garage? About fifteen feet up, you couldn’t see any more of it because the branches of the maple tree were in the way. Breathless in the quiet of the garden, Colter finally realized that his rock had grown. It must be enormous. Cautiously, he approached what had been the wall; he would have to call it something else. The cliff, or the face … or the mountain.

Definitely made of rock, the face of the mountain had flecks of white and black and a pale salmon color, just like the rock he had planted. He reached out and touched it. Colter didn’t know what he was expecting—a tingling sensation, or an electric shock, or to hear high-pitched, ringing sounds or a deep throbbing somewhere, like in a science fiction movie—but it just felt like a rock, still cool there in the shade, solid and unmoving, and not crumbly at all. What he did feel was a sudden thrill and the urge to climb.

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02

The Secret Pool

A little nub of rock stuck out, like the step of a ladder. About a foot off the ground, Colter could just get his right foot on it. And if he stood on his tiptoes, he could just reach another projection of rock that would do for a handhold. He pulled himself up, with a little help from the foothold. And so it went, looking for handholds and footholds, making his way up the wall. Solving the puzzle and finding his way up the vertical maze, Colter was having fun. He just concentrated on finding the easiest way. He could see little handholds and footholds scattered all over, some he could reach, some he couldn’t. Some were easy to grab, others a bit harder, although not much harder than the jungle gym they had on the elementary school playground, until they took it out. They were worried about somebody falling and getting hurt, and even more afraid of somebody named Sue, whoever she was; Colter never found out, or why she didn’t like it.

He reached the small ledge and slowly edged up and to the right, through the lower branches of the maple tree, and into the sunlight. The rock wall, getting warm now, had a pleasant earthy smell. The soft breeze tossed the maple branches. The face became less steep for a little way, like the roof of a house, and Colter scrambled quickly up another twenty feet. Then the rock face got steeper again and suddenly jutted straight out in an overhang. The entire face stuck out about three feet, just like being under the eaves of the roof of a house. Colter paused to figure out what to do next. That’s when he noticed, as he looked around, the top of the maple tree two or three stories below him, and the houses on his street and the whole town too. He felt a sudden rush of fear and grabbed tightly to the rock. Whoa, look out! he cried.

Colter made sure of his feet; he found the most secure spot and double-checked his hand holds. He was safe. He took a deep breath to stop his legs from trembling. Up on the mountain—higher than any place in town, except maybe the water tower—he could see just about everything. The slate tiles of the church roof glistened in the sun on one side, and over the other way, he could see his school, with the little green square of athletic field, and the track, and the playground where he sat in the sprinkler a week ago. Colter’s fear turned to exhilaration. He could not think of anything cooler he had done in a long time. Looking down on the whole town, he could see the rows of houses, the streets, the river off in the distance, everything. Colter just sat for a few minutes, taking everything in, enjoying the sun and the breeze.

Eventually, he decided he would try to climb a little higher. It would be a good idea to be very careful at this point. There are no handrails or caution signs on a mountain, Colter reminded himself. Slowly he climbed over to the left under the overhang, to see if he could find a break in it and some way up. He reached the spot where the small crack he had noticed from the ground ran straight up. He couldn’t see above the overhang and what happened to the crack as it moved up the face—if the crack disappeared or if the climbing got easier. But the rock overhang had grown smaller, just a foot or two wide now. Only one way to find out, he told himself.

He could just barely jam his foot into the crack, but by grabbing either side of the crack with his hands, like he was trying to pry it apart, he found he could climb slowly upward. When he reached the overhang, he peeked over and saw that the crack widened, and the slope got more gradual. He climbed over the overhang easily. Soon, the crack widened, and he could almost wedge his whole body into the crack. Wider still, and he slipped sideways onto the fissure’s steeply sloping floor. In just a few more feet, he could face forward and put out his hands to touch either side. The floor turned into a series of ledges like a set of stairs. He paused on the first step and caught his breath, panting in the damp, musty air. Then he walked and climbed up the uneven stairs, covered with a vivid green carpet of thick moss. He walked even more slowly as the stairs reached the top. With each step, he saw more clearly.

A most unexpected sight unfolded in front of him. He had stepped into another world. A deep forest of emerald-colored evergreens, each tree hundreds of feet high, hung over his entryway. High above, the top branches swayed in the breeze; still, he heard only his own breathing. Tree trunks as thick as a small car, with bark that looked like strips of reddish-brown leather, rose like the massive Greek columns of ancient buildings he had seen in his history textbook, spreading in all directions. For all Colter knew, these trunks might be older than ancient Greece. Maybe they had been here all the time, but he just never knew about them! The broad, sweeping bows of the trees started thirty or forty feet up. He could barely see the tops of the trees. They were western red cedars, he found out later; they gave a strong, pleasant scent to the quiet air. At every step, his feet sank into a thick carpet of soft brown needles and moss; it felt like walking around on a pile of down quilts. In some places, big patches of ferns grew, some of them almost six feet tall. The slope of the mountain became gentler as he walked deeper into the forest; shafts of hazy golden sunlight broke through the ceiling of green in a few areas over to his left and lit the warm forest floor like spotlights on a stage. A hush of wind tousled the tops of the cedars. As Colter slowly walked, his feet made no sound.

Strange music suddenly echoed through the trunks of the trees; as Colter searched for the origin, he saw a flash of brilliant blue. Aha! A bird! But what kind? The song echoed around the thick trunks of the trees as the bird disappeared up into the towering crowns. Vast, vaulted spaces stretched into the distance, under where the boughs started. Colter had been in a cathedral once. He liked this better. More solemn, more grand, and more beautiful. He sat down on the soft floor and listened, breathing in the fragrant air. Just a few days ago, he had been sitting on a concrete sidewalk in front of the arcade, hot and miserable. Now, he felt like a king in some luxurious throne room—a hidden, mysterious one, all his. The bluebird showed up again and perched on a little branch only a story or so above his head.

Chur-we! called the bird.

Huh? Colter felt he should answer back.

Chur-weee! the bird sang again.

Colter did his best to imitate the sound. Chur-weee!

The bird answered with a whole complicated song, then suddenly took off deeper into the forest. Colter watched him go. Another odd sound, very soft, slowly caught his attention. It seemed to vary in pitch and texture; it had low, rumbling sounds as well as high, repeating tones. He sat still for a few moments, trying to find its source. It came from his left, downhill just a little, the same way the bird had gone, only a little farther away. Colter decided to follow the sound. He had lost track of the bluebird, but then he spotted it sitting on a branch thirty feet up, preening its feathers and looking proud of itself as it looked back in his direction. As he wove in and out through the boles of the cedars and got closer to the bird, the strange music became more distinct and suddenly familiar.

Ha! he said out loud. A brook! Rounding one large tree, he could see it, splashing and gurgling and chortling through its rounded cobblestones and mossy banks. The clear water frothed over