The Kalama Incident

Chapter 1:  A Walk in the Wild

At noon, the two hikers huddled against the storm at Henry Lake and boiled water for a hot drink with lunch. Julie's original schedule had put them at Cowlitz Pass for lunch, but more than a mile of trail remained before they would reach the pass. They were an hour behind schedule.

"Why did we stop here?" Carolyn asked. "I thought we were going to stop for lunch at Cowlitz Pass."

"We have to stop here because this is the only drinkable water between Fish Lake and Dumbbell Lake," Julie answered. "Everything else is stagnant, water that you would only drink if you were going to die anyway."

"And we're having lunch because it's lunchtime--right?" Carolyn's patience was weakening.

"I don't know about you, but I'm having lunch because I'm hungry," Julie snapped. "You can wait if you'd like."

The wind rose as they sat there, driving the snow against their outerwear and reminding Carolyn that they could have been almost all the way to Bumping Lake if they had chosen to take their escape route.

"Do you think we ought to turn back now?" she asked.

"It's too late to turn back," Julie said. "Our closest point of escape is Dog Lake."

"When was the decision point?"

"When we left camp this morning," Julie admitted. "As long as I'm still kicking, I'm not going to give Mark the opportunity to say 'I told you so.'"

"I hope you didn't make the decision for the wrong reason," Carolyn said quietly, suddenly much less confident in their ability to complete the hike. "I'd rather hear 'I told you so' than freeze to death in a snowstorm."

Julie glowered and they slogged wearily onward, fighting the wind, the snow, and the mud that had begun to grow along the trail.

A season of rains had soaked many parts of the trail, and repeated horse passages had churned the mud into an impassable quagmire. Julie led Carolyn around the worst of the bogs as carefully as she could.

As they were trying to pick their way around a particularly nasty bog, Carolyn tripped over a root and fell. She rolled over onto her pack to stay out of the standing water, but she had soaked her right side thoroughly.

Julie heard the splash and looked back. "Oh, shit!" she exclaimed and rushed back to help.

Julie was moving in slow motion against the wind when one toe caught on some unseen obstruction in the snow and her other foot slipped out from under her before she could recover. She went down on her face with a splash; Carolyn knew at once that Julie was even more waterlogged than she was.

Cold and wet, their functional time was limited. They needed to pitch their tent and get out of the wind and the wet clothing, but the backpacking tent they carried didn't maneuver well in anything above the mildest winds. Julie didn't think they could wrestle it up unless they could find some kind of shelter from the storm to pitch it in. They needed to build a fire and dry their clothing, but the wind and snow ruled that alternative out as well. They pressed on, hoping to find some miraculous shelter against the snowstorm.

The storm continued to build, bringing their progress to a standstill. Julie was the wetter, and she soon lost her ability to make headway against the accumulating snow. Shivering uncontrollably, she instinctively crawled into a stand of young alders and sat down in the snow. Carolyn followed her inside.

"Don't bug me," Julie snapped. "I gotta think."

"Do me a favor," Carolyn answered. "If you get any more bright ideas, don't tell me about them."

"You're going to think up a way out of this mess on your own, huh?" Julie laughed without humor. "Gonna draw on your outdoor experience?"

"If I had been doing the thinking all along, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place."

"If you did the damn thinking, we'd never do anything."

The wind whistled through the branches of the thicket which provided them temporary shelter from the growing blizzard. Accumulated snow fell from the outer limbs and found its way through the maze of branches to splatter against Carolyn's face as she scowled at her lifelong friend.

"There are times when doing nothing is a hell of a lot better than doing something stupid," she said. "Coming out here like this was just plain stupid."

"Well, I don't recall anybody holding a gun to your head and making you come along," Julie said defensively. "You could have stayed home, you know."

Carolyn didn't answer immediately; she knew she had made a conscious decision to accompany Julie into the mountains when the forecast called for snow. Even so, Julie had been unwilling to accept Carolyn's polite refusal of her invitation to enjoy the indescribable beauty of the first snowfall of the season.

"I have to decide when to start making decisions for myself," Carolyn said as quietly as she could. "If you're going to kill yourself just to show Mark that you're as good a man as he is, I have to know when to get off."

A heavy gust of wind shook the trees around them and peppered them with snow. Julie shivered convulsively, reminding Carolyn that assigning the blame for their predicament wasn't as important as staying alive.

"We've got to get the tent up and dry out," she said.

"You can't pitch the tent in this wind," Julie argued. "Don't have enough hands."

"We have four," Carolyn said. "Isn't that enough?"

"The storm'll just blow it down on top of us," Julie said.

"All we really need is enough time to get into dry clothes," Carolyn said. "We can take turns holding the poles."

"All the gear will get wet when we unpack," Julie said.

"Jesus, Julie, we'll die if we don't get out of this damn wind and dry off!" Carol screamed. "Do you want to die to keep from getting your camera wet?"

"Don't get hysterical," Julie said. "It's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" Carolyn couldn't believe her ears. "Just look at you! You're turning blue and you're shivering so bad you're shaking snow off the trees! Do I have to slap you to get you to open your eyes?"

"Don't bug me," Julie said again.

In a blinding flash of the obvious, Carolyn suddenly realized that she alone was responsible for their survival. Julie might have more knowledge of the outdoors, but Julie was in no condition to draw on that knowledge. If Carolyn couldn't keep them alive, they would die in the snowstorm.

Ignoring Julie for a moment, Carolyn desperately looked around their improbable shelter for something to keep Julie alive long enough for her to pitch their tent. The ground cloth for the tent was near the top of her pack; with only a little fumbling, she pulled the polyethylene sheet out and shook it open. Julie protested numbly as Carolyn wrapped it around her.

"I can't do anything if you wrap me up in this thing," she complained. "Wear it yourself."

"You'll die if I don't get you out of this wind," Carolyn said with authority that momentarily shocked Julie into compliance. "Now bundle up and try to get warm."

Confident that Julie was at least stable for the moment, Carolyn wrestled the bag containing Julie's tent from her friend's pack. The backpacking tent would have been nearly impossible to pitch in the wind, but the shelter of the thicket allowed her to manipulate the poles and the wrinkled nylon shell into a serviceable shelter. It would be less secure without the groundcloth, but Julie's need was unquestionable.

Moments later, both of them safe inside the tent, Carolyn thought back over the beginnings of their adventure and looked for the clues she had certainly missed, the bits of information that would have allowed her to avoid this threat to survival.

Two days earlier, Julie Sullivan and Carolyn Young had set out from Bumping Lake on a crisp, clear morning in search of the beauty of the mountains in the fall. September had chipped away at summer until the morning breeze spoke of snow, and the winter population of migratory ducks and geese had begun to arrive in the swamplands along the Columbia River. Julie had seen the weather coming in the clouds, and both of them wanted to experience the great peace of the first snowfall of the season.

Carolyn closed her eyes and tried to distance herself from the deadly storm as she relived the pleasant beginnings of the trip.

"God, this is great," Julie sighed as they tramped off through the trees and descended into the rocky gulch that contained the Bumping River. "I never realize how much that clinic strangles me until I get out here." Dust swirled about their feet as they walked.

Carolyn breathed deeply of the cool air and agreed. "Yeah, this is pretty good," she said, "but don't you think we should have let Mark come along?"

Julie's friend Mark had reluctantly agreed to drop them off at Bumping Lake and pick them up three days later at White Pass. He didn't think it was a good idea for the women to make the trip without a man along, but Julie didn't appreciate his concern.

"Not a chance," Julie snapped. "I'm as good at this as any man, and letting him muscle in would have been admitting otherwise." In fact, Mark had been relieved when Julie had bluntly refused his escort; it had allowed him to skip the dangerous outing with a clear conscience.

The Bumping River, which feeds Bumping Lake, had dwindled to a mere trickle by the autumn. In the springtime, the river crossing is a chilling, dangerous experience, with the rushing water at the ford rising three feet or more above the river bed. Smoothed by countless seasons of stream flow, the stones of the river's path stand ready to sweep the unwary hiker's feet from under him and turn a routine crossing into an icy roller coaster ride. By the autumn, however, when the winter's snow pack is depleted, a careful hiker can walk across the river without taking his boots off and not get his feet wet.

"What do you think?" Julie asked. "Barefoot or chance getting our boots wet?" She had already made up her mind to wear her boots across, but it wouldn't hurt to have Carolyn come to the same conclusion.

"I dunno," Carolyn answered. "Looks pretty cold to me."

Julie tested the water with her finger. "Feels pretty cold, too. Let's see if we can pick the shallow spots." Some of the dust washed from their boots as they crossed and started the long, uphill trail to American Lake, which Julie had heard was the most beautiful place in the world.

Forty-five minutes later, they stopped for a brief rest beside a small creek they had been following. Without having to spend most of her energy keeping up with Julie's breakneck pace, Carolyn was finally able to look around.

"Those are cedar trees, aren't they?" she asked, recalling the tree among whose fragrant branches she had spent much of her childhood.

Julie stood up and snapped a twig from a low-hanging branch. "Smells like it," she said as she sniffed at the foliage.

"I haven't ever seen a cedar in these mountains," Carolyn said, taking the twig and sampling its aroma. "It kind of surprises me."

"Me, too," Julie admitted. "I always thought of a cedar as a big juniper, and we don't see many of them up here." Great juniper forests once covered some of the western deserts, but spruces and firs were much more commonplace in the wetter Cascades.

"They don't even look like the others," Carolyn commented. "Look at their bark." The cedars were easy to identify by their unique bark among the more commonplace conifers. The spruces and firs had hard, gnarled bark, but the cedars were almost shredded in their appearance. "And they don't look much like cedars, either," she said. "They're tall and skinny, and cedars are supposed to be squatty, like junipers."

"Let's get moving," Julie said, growing tired of the cedars. "Maybe you'll see some more as we go."

"I wish I'd brought my camera," Carolyn said.

At lunchtime, Julie called a halt in a clearing near a small waterfall, and they temporarily abandoned the burden of their packs for a longer rest. Julie wheeled a cut section of log over to the stream where a similar stool had already been positioned; when the wooden disk moved, it uncovered evidence of earlier hikers.

"Look at this," she said. "Some jerk stashed his cigarette pack under the log instead of packing it out." It was a hard candy green Salem pack, and it still smelled of tobacco.

"I wonder if it was too heavy for him to carry," Carolyn said. "Well, at least there isn't a fire circle with empty cans." She noted quietly that the smells of the forest were untainted by the aroma of horse manure; this picnic ground would do.

Carolyn broke out lunch. At the top of the food pack, she had packed a plastic bin with whole wheat crackers and squeeze tubes of peanut butter and cheese. A separate baggie contained mixed raisins and peanuts, affectionately known as "gorp" among campers. Julie contributed a bunch of green grapes and several strings of licorice candy.

Although they had seen few birds as they walked, the jays and camp robbers quickly found them as soon as food was evident. The sparrows and chickadees had long since left for warmer climate, knowing the winter would soon reach the crest trail. Carolyn fed the persistent birds Julie's grapes and candy, and they kept coming back for more. She laughed at them and they scolded her for it.

The trail map showed a place called "Swamp Lake" along their route. Although Julie's pace slowed after lunch, they reached it in early afternoon, when the trout were rising to take insects flying an inch above the surface in the day's heat. Earlier in the season, such a drama would be played out at twilight, but the shortening days forced both the insects and the fish to move their activities closer to noon. The wind was calm, leaving the lake's surface a natural mirror of the surrounding hills and trees.

"What an inappropriate name," Carolyn said. "This place is no swamp."

"Maybe it's a swamp in the spring," Julie suggested, unconsciously trying to justify the lake's odd choice of name. "If the water were higher, these flat spots might be a mess."

The trail led past the corner of the lake, where horse campers had built a rude shelter of logs. Three walls and a roof would protect travelers from the prevailing winds, and a hitching rail stood under the nearby trees. Scraps of paper littered the dirt floor, and the clearing smelled strongly of horse manure.

"This place is a little strong," Julie said, wrinkling her nose at the aroma. "Let's take a break a little farther on."

"Not too much farther," Carolyn said. "I need to put some moleskin on my feet."

Just past the lake, the trail turned left into an alpine meadow through which a creek had wound its way in wetter times. The creek bed was mostly mud on this day, with only a few pools of water left for the surviving minnows. The meadow had been afloat with wildflowers in July, but the chill of the alpine October had chased these colorful apparitions back into dormancy until spring.

"How's this?" Julie asked, not waiting for an answer before sitting down on a log.

"I guess it's better than horse manure," Carolyn said, swatting at a mosquito, "but I don't want to stay here very long, either." She unlaced her left boot and stripped the two socks down over her heel.

"Blister?" Julie asked.

"Yeah," Carolyn said. "I don't think I'll ever get these boots broken in." She cut a square of protective fabric from the roll of moleskin she carried and stuck it to a spot on her ankle. "I would have given this up a long time ago if it weren't for moleskin."

The fabric was soft and furry on the nonadhesive side, reducing the friction and heat buildup during prolonged walking. Properly applied moleskin could prevent blisters, but it became a more or less permanent part of the skin to which it was stuck. At best, it left an unsightly residue, removal of which required special attention.

"All done," Carolyn announced, standing up. "Let's get away from these mosquitoes before they eat me alive."

"If you're waitin' on me, you're backin' up," Julie joked.

They reached American Lake as the sun dipped near the western ridge, threatening to force them to make camp by candlelight. They pitched the tent quickly, but Julie postponed dinner until after they had taken a few minutes to savor the delicate freshness of this island of water in the forest ocean.

"This is the most beautiful place I've ever seen," Carolyn sighed. "I wish it weren't so far out in the woods."

"If you didn't have to walk six miles to get here, it'd be pretty crowded," Julie said condescendingly. "Isn't it worth the walk?"

"Yeah, but I think I'd like to get here more often, and it's taken me the whole season to get ready for this walk." Carolyn spun around slowly and basked in the unexpected beauty of the high valley.

"We could always walk over from Chinook Pass," Julie suggested.

"Would that be easier? It looks longer to me." Carolyn's blisters were growing tender.

"It's eight miles on the trail, but it's up and down." Julie had made the trek before. "We just did six miles of pure uphill."

"Sometimes walking downhill is harder work than walking uphill," Carolyn said.

"Well, it'd be different, anyway."

The brilliant splash of magenta that so often characterized the alpine sunset began to spread across the western sky as the water in the dinner pot began to boil. Backpacking meals weren't always good, but they were always fast; vestiges of daylight lingered as they finished the meal.

"You know, this is really great," Carolyn said. "The people in town really don't know what they're missing."

Julie shook the dusting of American Lake rime from her equipment while Carolyn boiled water for their hiker's breakfast of instant oatmeal and granola bars.

"How's that blister feel?" Julie asked.

"It's a little tender," Carolyn admitted, "but the moleskin seems to be taking care of it." She rubbed at her heel and tried not to show the burning pain from the growing patch of raw skin. "I'll be okay."

"Good. I'd hate to have a blister ruin your outing." Julie was less interested in the blister than in their progress through the wilderness. A crippled partner would mean slow going, and she was always in a hurry.

"Yeah. Me, too," Carolyn said, grateful for Julie's lack of serious interest. "Water's hot; are you ready for some coffee?"

Julie fumbled through her food pack and found the baggie of instant coffee. She shook some out into her cup and held it out for Carolyn to fill.

"The fluid of resurrection," Julie said as the dark liquid steamed. She gulped her coffee and turned back to packing the tent away as Carolyn savored the aroma and flavor of her own cup.

"Don't take too long with that," Julie warned, anxious to continue. "We've got miles ahead of us."

Carolyn finished her coffee and they set out for Fish Lake, the next overnight point on their season-ending journey. As they walked away from the lake, they paused on the wooden bridge across the trickle of water that would become the crashing American River ten miles downstream. Even in its infancy, this stream spoke of power, tumbling purposefully over its bed of rocks and logs to escape the peace of the lake.

"I wonder who built this," Carolyn said, studying the small but powerful cascade.

"The government hires college kids to do stuff like this during the summer," Julie said. "They build bridges and paint signs and maintain the trails."

"Only in the summer?"

"I suppose they hire a few overgrown kids during the winter," Julie explained, "but they need help most in the summer. The ones you meet out here this time of year are likely to be sociopaths--or worse."

"Sociopaths?"

"Well, antisocial at least. Not the kind of guy you'd want to set up housekeeping with."

"I see. Well, anyway, I was talking about the waterfall under the bridge. Don't you think this is too perfect to have happened all by itself?"

Julie had to think for a moment to remember what Carolyn had been saying. "Don't doubt Mother Nature's ability to achieve perfection," she said. "This could be her ten zillionth try. Let's go."

Within a mile of American Lake, Julie and Carolyn reached the Pacific Crest Trail and turned southward, determined to cover the nine miles to the campground at Fish Lake by evening. While the day before had been crisp and clear, this morning brought high clouds and signs of the approaching storm. Aided by the blanket of clouds that shielded the sun, the chill of the dawn stayed with them as they walked. The snowstorm was growing closer by the minute.

The first day's hike had carried them through forests and occasional clearings. Once they passed American Lake and reached the Pacific Crest Trail, however, they soon climbed above the timberline and began to walk in the open along the sides of ancient mountain ridges. With the cover of the trees, they also left the relative safety of the flatlands; a fall from one of the ridgeside trails would bring at least bruises and probably sprains and broken bones. The hike had become serious business.

"Hey, Carolyn, look at that." They were walking along a narrow trail carved from the side of a hill when Julie stopped and looked through an opening in the trees. "It's Rainier."

Mount Rainier loomed in the distance amid a swirl of clouds that hid her feet and gave her the appearance of floating above the lesser mountains around her. Known as Tahoma to the Indians, the Queen of the Cascades is the tallest glaciated peak in 49 states. Alaska abounds with higher peaks: Alverstone, Bona, Churchill, Fairweather, Foraker, Hubbard, McKinley, St. Elias, and Vancouver are all taller than Rainier and unglaciated Whitney, the highest in the lower 48.

"Sort of like a city in the clouds," Carolyn said. "I still wish I'd brought my camera."

"Looking is one thing," Julie said, "but we ought to be doing Rainier."

Julie was an overachiever and had been one all her life. Chronically uncertain of her own worth, she continually pressed herself to greater accomplishments to validate herself as a person. Sadly, she could never accept her own intrinsic worth without proof. Climbing Mount Rainier would be just another tick-mark on a list Julie could never completely accept.

They walked on. The trail finally reached the top of the long ridge and crossed over into the high valley beyond. Although most of the trees in the high alpine biosphere were evergreens and stayed green all year, the valley was covered with brilliant red and yellow foliage.

"What are those?" Carolyn asked, stopping to gaze at nature's painting.

"Huckleberries," Julie said. "Adds a touch of class to all this drab green, don't you think?"

"The trees don't turn, but the bushes do? What a trip!"

Light snow began to fall as they marveled at the striking colors.

"Well, this is it," Julie said as she lowered her pack to the ground. "We came to see snow, and we're not going to be disappointed."

"That's great," Carolyn said with a hint of sarcasm as she took her pack off as well. "Disappointment can be a real killer."

As protection against the falling moisture and the dangerous loss of vital body heat that wet clothing would cause, the women took rain pants and jackets from their packs and put them on. The invention of waterproof fabrics that allowed accumulated perspiration to escape through micropores allowed rainwear that actually kept the wearer dry. Julie put on a rain hat that she carried in one of her pockets; Carolyn raised the hood of her jacket to protect her head. Julie's jacket had a hood, but it restricted her movement and her field of vision more than she could accept.

"Let's go," Julie said impatiently, her enthusiasm growing by the moment. "If we go farther, maybe we'll climb high enough to see some snow-filled meadows."

Always in a hurry, Julie needed to be in charge of whatever was going on around her. While she wasn't consciously domineering, she often lost patience with indecisive people and made their decisions for them. The wildness of the Cascades provided contrast to the structure of her medical practice, but she had never been able to slow down and enjoy the wildflowers as she hurried past.

Julie led Carolyn down the valley of One Lake and Two Lake as the snow began to thicken around them. Visibility was decreasing as they passed the trail fork that would have taken them to the lakes; rather than have to climb the hill again to get back to the crest trail, they planned to bypass One Lake and Two Lake and walk the slightly longer route along the valley wall.

"Do you think we should walk down the valley anyway?" Julie suggested as they paused at the fork. "We might not be back here again for a long time."

"I like the original plan," Carolyn said. "Walking up hills makes my knees hurt."

Carolyn had been Julie's best friend for many years. They had shared the ebullient, teenage years, Carolyn always providing the unconditional support that Julie's uncertain self-image required. She had been sidekick to Julie's hero: dependable, competent, but never threatening. They had lost contact after college, when Julie went off to medical school and Carolyn went to work for a CPA, but they had resumed their friendship a few years later, when Julie's career led her to a staff position at a private clinic near their old high school.

"Okay," Julie said. "Just checking. Are you ready to move out?" Wasting valuable time in rest breaks strained Julie's patience.

"Whenever you are," Carolyn answered honestly. "I'm getting cold."

"Me, too," Julie agreed. "I should have known it was chilly when all this walking didn't make me break a sweat."

Although the Pacific Crest Trail maintains an elevation of around six thousand feet between American Lake and White Pass, it descends sharply into a narrow valley containing Fish Lake at about the midway point. During the early autumn, the snow line hovers around the four thousand foot mark, often leaving low valleys such as the one containing Fish Lake clear of snow until well after Thanksgiving. Julie planned their second bivouac at Fish Lake; spending the night there in a drizzle would be safer and more comfortable than staying at altitude and braving the overnight snowstorm.

Snow was beginning to accumulate on the trail when they began to descend into the Fish Lake valley. The ridges and the lower altitude shielded the valley from the storm and mitigated the icy blast of air that accompanied it. Snow clouds continued to loom lower over their heads, but the precipitation changed to splatters of melting snow and then to raindrops as the women walked lower into the valley. In addition to a relatively comfortable campsite, the valley also provided them an escape path: if the severity of the storm kept them from climbing over Cowlitz Pass, they could walk down the valley from Fish Lake to Bumping Lake without ever going back above four thousand feet. And without ever reaching their objective, White Pass.

Among its switchbacks, the trail crossed trickling streamlets fed by what was left of last winter's snowfall and temporarily swollen by the current melt. Carolyn paused briefly at one of them to refill her water bottle.

"Are you out of water?" Julie asked, impatient with Carolyn's unnecessary pause.

"No," Carolyn answered, "but there is some space in the top of my canteen." She measured out a few drops of chlorine bleach into the canteen to purify it. The open bottle sent out a plume of vapor that tickled Carolyn's nose and made her want to sneeze.

"You could fill it at the campsite," Julie suggested, anxious to move on and increasingly uneasy about the delay.

"Better safe than sorry," Carolyn said. "Fish lake might be something I don't want to drink from." She shook the water bottle to distribute the chlorine and stuffed it back into its pocket on her pack.

"Well, don't take too long about it," Julie complained. "I want to make camp in time to have dinner."

"We're almost there, and there's daylight left," Carolyn said as she turned back to the hike. "Don't worry so much."

They arrived at Fish Lake in deep shadow near the end of the day. The trail led past a large, well-used campground that smelled of horse manure. Both women noticed the site's atmosphere at once.

"Let's look a little farther," Carolyn suggested. "We can come back if we have to."

"Good idea," Julie said as she started down the trail. "We can smell the stockyards a lot closer to home."

They walked on. Only a few paces farther, the trail widened again and several smaller campsites straddled the footpath. Julie selected one at random near the trail intersection that would prompt her decision the next morning.

"How's this?" she asked as she lowered her pack to the ground.

"Looks good to me," Carolyn answered as she surveyed the clearing.

"Yeah, but how does it smell?"

"I wouldn't have even looked at it if it hadn't smelled like a campsite," Carolyn said. "Let's stay here." She dropped her pack to the ground and sat down on it.

At the lower altitude, the falling snow had melted into a steady drizzle that gave the lake a strong jungle flavor. The thickness of underbrush and the moisture-laden air made the little clearing smell like rain forest and feel cozy and warm, despite the air temperature that lingered in the upper thirties.

The emergent Bumping River rushed past only a few yards from the campsite. While it wasn't as wide at Fish Lake as it had been farther down the hill, the Bumping was still a cold and fast stream, one they would have had great difficulty in crossing had it not been for a sturdy foot bridge that had been provided for the continuity of the Pacific Crest Trail. The bridge looked new, for the paint was barely chipped and only a few hoof-shaped dents marred the walking surface. From its center, a thoughtful hiker could look down into the rushing water and listen to the quiet violence of the river.

"What did we bring for dinner?" Julie asked.

"Let's see," Carolyn said, rummaging through her pack. "It could be canned chicken with noodles, or we could have canned ham with noodles."

"Isn't there anything else?" Julie complained. "I get tired of the same old stuff all the time."

"Well, we could have noodles with our noodles," Carolyn explained patiently. "But then we'd have to have canned chicken with our canned ham another night."

"Oh, hell. Just pick one. Is it my turn to cook?"

"I bet Mark never heard you say that," Carolyn said. "Especially when it wasn't your turn."

"Well, if you're going to cook, get on with it. I'm hungry enough to eat the picture off that pack of noodles."

Carolyn dutifully boiled the water and poured in the noodles, thinking all the while that Julie could be worse than a boyfriend sometimes. Fortunately, cooking in camp wasn't nearly the chore that kitchen cooking often turned out to be, and dinner came about with little additional stress. After they had finished the meal and arranged their equipment for minimum difficulty the next morning, they retired to the tent.

The wind blew mercilessly, buffeting the tent and blowing unseen objects against the walls. Every new sound startled Carolyn awake, conjuring images of amorphous wild creatures, things that actually went bump in the night.

Julie slept calmly through it all.

Light rain was still falling when Carolyn unzipped the tent door and peered out into the dreary morning. The wind had thankfully abated after she finally got to sleep, but the normally crisp alpine air felt soggy as she shed the wrinkles from her lungs.

"What do you think?" Julie asked as she stretched her waking body. "Does it look bad enough to chicken out?"

"It's hard to tell," Carolyn said. "There isn't any snow here, but I can't see very far because the trees are in the way."

"It doesn't feel very cold."

"No, but it's sure wet."

After hurriedly scrambling into her clothes and shivering away the chill of the night that had accumulated in them, Carolyn carried a cooking pan to the river for water. They had dispelled her fears of unsuitable water the night before, and she brought back water for coffee. Julie had the stove lit when she returned.

"This doesn't look any worse than yesterday," Julie said. "I think we ought to press on."

"These clouds are pretty low," Carolyn said, not sharing Julie's optimism. "Things could be a lot worse and we wouldn't know about it until we got into them."

"That's true," Julie said. "But we can always turn back if things get too rough for us."

"I guess it's better to give it a chance," Carolyn said, hesitant to throw too much cold water on Julie's enthusiasm. "How far do we have to walk today?"

"The trail map says it's ten miles to Dog Lake," Julie replied. "Five and a half miles and eleven hundred feet to Cowlitz Pass, then four and a half miles downhill."

"Two hundred feet a mile is pretty mild uphill," Carolyn agreed. "That shouldn't be too bad. How much time do you think it will take?"

"We can probably do a mile and a half an hour uphill," Julie said, "and two miles an hour downhill." She thought for a moment. "Say four hours to Cowlitz Pass and a little over two hours from there. I predict Dog Lake at two this afternoon."

"What time will Mark be there?"

"He's probably there already, the schmuck," Julie said. "And if we're ten minutes late, he'll call out the Marines to find us."

"That's comforting," Carolyn said.

"You're comforted and I'm insulted," Julie snapped. "Let's get moving." She wasn't grateful for Mark's concern, which she saw as overprotectiveness.

The snow was considerably lower than it had been the previous afternoon. Soon after they entered the low cloud cover that had blanketed the campsite, the ground was covered with a sprinkling of slushy white. Oddly shaped fingers of ice protruded from the trail, winter wildflowers forced from unseen fissures in the mud as the water beneath them froze and expanded. A mild breeze began to help them along their way and snow began to fall around them as they climbed the gentle slope southward, out of the valley.

"Is this bad enough to turn back?" Carolyn asked.

"Nah--this is a piece of cake," Julie said, shielding her eyes from the falling snow. "Look at it this way: if we're going to catch hell from Mark over turning back--and you know he'll rub it in--shouldn't it be over something tougher than snow flurries?"

They reached the trail fork that led to Twin Sisters Lakes and the mild slope lessened even more. The map shows hundreds of small, unnamed lakes in the area, but the region had thousands. The snowfall intensified as they made their way southward, the north wind beating at their backs as they trudged up the long hill.

"I sure am glad we're walking this way and not north," Julie said. "Wind and snow in the face makes walking hard work." Making this trip in the opposite direction would have been an ordeal worthy of high alpine training.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be going north instead of south?" Carolyn asked, still not sure that the rest of the hike was a good idea.

"As long as the wind is behind us, we're better off heading south," Julie said. "After all, our ride home is at White Pass, not Bumping Lake."

They continued toward Dog Lake, Carolyn still unsure of the wisdom of the decision but not willing to take a stand against Julie's greater knowledge of the mountains.

A sudden, sustained gust buffeted the tent and brought a sharp crackling noise from nearby, outside the tent. The sound shocked Carolyn back to reality, but she couldn't move fast enough to avoid the falling tree. The nylon tent ripped like a paper tissue, once again forcing Julie and Carolyn out into the storm.

Both women were unharmed by the fall, but their good fortune failed to register on either of them until much later. The wind was building rapidly now, and more of the small trees in the thicket were threatening to fall. Carolyn dragged Julie out of the wreckage of the tent and fluffed the remnants about her. Julie was still unconscious, but she was breathing.

The situation had worsened dramatically. The falling tree had taken the tent away from them, and the threat of additional falling trees had forced them back out into the storm. The winds were even higher, so the immediacy of the storm threat was greater, too. Carolyn realized that their need for action was more urgent than it had been, even an hour earlier.

Carolyn desperately searched her memory for a hint of what to do. She realized how close to hysteria she really was when the idea of calling 911 appealed to her. Although her outdoor knowledge and experience were much more extensive, Julie was not a resource. Carolyn fought the urge to sit down and cry.

For lack of anything intelligent to do, Carolyn took out her emergency whistle and began to blow it as vigorously as she could. The chances of anyone being there to hear it were remote, but the effort kept her warm for a few more minutes. She continued to whistle like a lunatic, knowing all the while that she was wasting her breath.

When she stopped for a breather, Carolyn thought she heard another whistle answer her, barely audible above the howling of the wind. She waited a few seconds and whistled again, afraid to hope that someone was out there looking for her.

Almost immediately, a dark figure appeared from out of the storm. It slowly materialized into a man wearing a yellow suit and pulling a rope tied about his waist. He wore goggles and gripped a referee's whistle between his teeth. When he saw Carolyn, he stopped walking and jerked twice against the rope.

"I'm Rick," the figure said when he got close enough for Carolyn to hear him.

"Thank God," Carolyn rasped. "Did Mark send you?"

"Mark?" he answered. "I wouldn't know Mark if he was to c-come up and piss on my foot. I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."