"It was a rhetorical question."

Rinka glances over at Malik, still not sure how they ended up on this task together. But someone has to go warn the people living up the mountain, and when there's snow and questionable weather conditions involved, of course the buddy system gets implemented.

"Have you been up here before?"

Or are they both unfamiliar with this area and thus that much more likely to get lost if something goes wrong...