In January 2023, I visited Cloud Edge, a stunning mountain setting beautifully presented to give the impression of being so high up in a mountain range the very clouds lay beneath you (see: Walking a Cloud Edge in Second Life). Designed by Funky Banana, a region designer with a talent for producing attention-holding region designs and settings I’ve delighted in writing about in these pages, Cloud Edge was somewhat unique in presentation – as I noted back in 2023. So, when I learned he had opened a new iteration of the setting, I was off to pay it a visit.
Still occupying a Homestead region, albeit in a new location, Cloud Edge II continues the theme established in Cloud Edge, offering a suggestion that this is a place within the same mountain range as the original, once again largely above the tree-line but where hardy growths of shrubs and krummholz cling to the otherwise barren rocks.
While there is a sense of continuation from the original Cloud Edge within this setting for those who visited the original, together with one or two familiar elements (notably the eagle – this time perched on a rock rather than riding the updraughts rising up from the valleys below – and the presence of a rope bridge), this is very much a place with an identity all its own. The clouds here are denser, forming a white sea which in places rises higher than the visible ridges as if to suggest there are other nearby domes and spines of rock lurking just beneath their blanket, and which might yet be revealed should the clouds deign to part.
That said, there is one dome visible to the south of the main ridge. It sits tantalisingly close yet forever out of reach of hikers (you can obviously fly over to it, but that’s cheating!), even if the clouds might encourage thoughts that just perhaps, beneath their fog-like embrace, a curtain of rock wide enough to traverse to reach the dome and its lonely tree might yet be found.
However, there is a visible hiking route to follow, one pointing north from the landing point at the south-eastern end of the ridge. It runs up to the foot of the blunt-nosed outcrop rising from the mid-point of the ridge to form a lone peak which seems to by supporting the trail as it sags away to lower ground to the south and north. Passing around the peak on its south side, the trail then drops back down and turns almost due north to rise via an narrow neck to a bulbous headland which extended a stubby nub of rock as if pointing to the (off-region) mountains.
This stubby finger of rock offers a dramatic look-out point with nothing but the blanket of thick cloud below, giving one the impression of standing on air with the enticing the mysteries of what lay beneath the veil on clouds calling up to you. But there is something else about this outcrop; it doesn’t take much of a rotation of the camera around it to realise that, with its bulbous mass sitting behind the stubby nub, it bears a suggestion of a terrapin sitting over white water, the nub of rock forming its head, the bulbous headland behind being its body. It an illusion heightened by the right play of light across it, which can give the illusion of the nub bearing a beak and an eye staring out over the cloud tops.
This northern end of the main ridge is not the last place to explore; over to west side of the descent from the main peak is another shoulder of cliff dropping away into the clouds before a thumb of rock pokes itself back above the mist. Such is its proximity, there is a suggestion that it is perhaps joined to the main ridgeline somewhere below, just hidden from sight.
However, there is no need to risk a scramble down into the clouds in an attempt to find out. Instead, a rope bridge has been strung across the gap between the two formations. Whilst missing some boards roughly two-thirds of the way across, the bridge nevertheless spans the narrow gap to offer a want onto the plateau on its far side and the presence of the eagle, which appear to be ready (and without Norma Desmond’s madness) for its close-up shot by budding DeMilles paying it a visit 🙂 .
Once again, an outstanding and unique location (albeit one with an unusual soundscape, sounding is as does like waves breaking against the shore), which continues and extends the beauty of the original. It is also a setting which naturally lends itself to a range of potential environment settings as well as the Shared environment when it comes to photography (as I’ve admittedly done in some of the images above).
SLurl Details
- Cloud Edge (Echo Mountain – rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 