An urgent voice crackled over the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt: “. . . the fire has crossed the Cloud Lakes trail. Repeat, the fire has crossed the trail. It is approximately 300 acres now and growing. Do you copy?”

The woman ranger, whose name tag said, Laurie McKay, detached her walkie-talkie from her belt and spoke into it. “This is Redwood Station. Yes, we copy.”

“The fire is currently being held by the Ainley River, but it’ll probably jump the river in these winds.”

“We’re holding all backpackers here,” said Ranger McKay.

“All hikers in the backcountry will have to evacuate,” came the voice over the radio. “Melissa Lakes Station and Dylan Station, do you copy?”

A few seconds, and then a different voice: “This is Dylan Station. We copy.”

Then: “Melissa Lakes. We copy. We’ll evacuate out of the Merritt Dome area and send hikers back toward the trailhead.”

“This is Redwood Station. We copy,” said the ranger. She and Baxter looked at each other. “Bummer,” he remarked.

By now, the other people in line had all crowded around the counter. There was a family—a father and mother with their tall, fresh-faced teenage son. There were two rugged-looking guys in their twenties and a single man in his thirties. The family seemed especially upset—they’d flown out from Massachusetts for the hike—and now Ranger McKay turned her full attention to them, trying to calm them down.

Todd couldn’t believe it. A fire, on the very trail they were supposed to hike? What rotten luck. “Well, what are we supposed to do?”

“We’ve been planning this trip for months,” Tracy added.

Ranger Baxter shrugged, and sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. The Cloud Lakes are spectacular. But there are some other great trips you could take—a couple of other loops and a few in-and-outs.”

Neither Todd nor Tracy answered for a minute. Todd was still envisioning the pictures he’d seen, the beautiful valley, the flower-filled meadow, the photo of the Cloud Lakes at dawn. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t be going there. Behind him, the two young guys turned and left; the family was still talking heatedly with Ranger McKay.

“Well, what would you suggest?” Tracy asked. “We’ve come all the way out here, you know? It would be a shame to just turn around and go home.”

Baxter spread a topographical map out on the counter and pointed to an area that was colored with green and wavy brown lines. “Well, there’s the Boulder Creek route.Most people can do it in six days and five nights.”

“Too long.”

“Then there’s the Brenda Lakes trail.” He pointed to an area where the lines were much closer together. “But that one’s pretty strenuous. Four thousand feet elevation gain the first day, probably twelve thousand feet elevation gain and loss total.”

By now, Oscar and Gwen had joined them. They both looked crestfallen. Tracy glanced at them, then back at Baxter, and said, “That might be a bit too much.”

“Well, where have you been sending other people?” Gwen asked. She sounded disappointed but maybe a little relieved.

“Honestly, most people have just gone home. They’ve had their hearts set on Cloud Lakes. But that’s a shame, if you ask me. There are plenty of other beautiful places to go.” He paused, fiddled with a knob on the walkie-talkie. “Those who have decided to stay have done one of the trails I suggested. They’ll probably be pretty crowded this weekend.”

“All the more reason not to do them,” Tracy said. “Isn’t there anyplace else?”

The ranger stood up and pulled on his scraggly beard, looking thoughtful. “There might be one more place you could try . . .” he said, half to himself. Then, shaking his head, “No, it’s probably not a good idea.”

“What?” Tracy asked, leaning over the counter.

“Well . . .” He looked at them, lifting one eyebrow and then the other. “There’s a real off-the-beaten-path kind of trail just outside of the park. It’s the right length trip for you—about thirty miles. It’s gorgeous, and you’ll get the same variety of landscape as the Cloud Lakes trail—river and meadow, some alpine lakes, then a couple of high passes. And what I believe is the prettiest canyon in the whole Sierra . . . The thing is, no one’s hiked the trail in years. It’s not even marked on this map.”

“How do you know about it?” Todd asked.

The ranger spread the map out with his hands again. They were big, gnarled hands, twisted and aged by years of living in the mountains. “I’ve been up here a long time—over forty years. I’ve been to places that aren’t marked on the Forest Service map or any other. This trail, I hiked it with a buddy once almost thirty years ago. It was one of my favorite trips ever.”

“Well, if it’s so awesome,” Todd asked, “why doesn’t anyone do it?”

The ranger smiled, and his expression was complicated. “It’s real remote, and the road to get to it is a killer. The Forest Service doesn’t maintain it anymore.”

It sounded like there was more to the story, but Tracy was clearly intrigued. “Well, what do you think, guys?” she asked, turning to the others.

“I don’t know . . .” Gwen said. Then to the ranger: “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Oh, absolutely! I mean, there is a trail; it’s just not been maintained. The most you’re likely to find, though, is some overgrown brush and fallen trees. But it’s beautiful, I promise. Well worth the trouble to get there.”

They all looked at each other. Oscar sighed. “Well, it would be a shame to go home after we’ve come all the way up here.”

“We could at least go check it out,” Todd said.

Tracy turned to Gwen. “How about you?”

“I don’t know. But if the rest of you think it’s okay . . .”

Tracy beamed. “Great! Let’s do it.” Now she turned back to the ranger. “So—where would we be going?”

Ranger Baxter took out another map, which showed the park and the surrounding wilderness area. All four of them crowded the counter to look. “Here,” he said, taking a green highlighter and marking an X in one corner, “is where we are, at Redwood Station. This,” he hovered over a line with his pen but didn’t touch down, “takes you to the end of the road where the Cloud Lakes trail begins. Here,” and now he set the point of the pen down and traced a solid line and then a broken one somewhere north and west of the main trailhead, toward the edge of the map, “is where you’d be going. There’s a primitive campsite about eight miles down at the end of this dirt road, probably a forty-minute drive from the main road. About halfway down there’s a turnoff to the left—but don’t take that, just keep heading straight down. Once you get to the end, there might even be an old fire ring. Trailhead should be right there too.”

Now he stepped away from the counter and ambled over to a small desk, where he opened a drawer and looked through some files before pulling out a single sheet of paper. He came back over and placed the paper on the counter. It was a color copy of a hand-drawn map. There were shaded little triangles for mountains, blue arteries for rivers, stick trees, and pebble-like boulders. There were small notations in blocklike print—Good campsite, Many switchbacks, Lots of fish!—and simple drawings of a deer, a hawk, a bear. At the top of the map were the words Lost Canyon.

“Now this is the best I’ve got as far as a map,” the ranger said. “It’s what I used when I did the loop myself. It was drawn by an old-time ranger.”

The map looked whimsical, cartoonish, which actually gave Todd some comfort. If this earlier traveler created such a charming representation of this route, how hard could it actually be?

“This is all you’ve got?” Oscar asked.

“It’s all you need,” said the ranger. “That, along with a topo map of that area. If one of you guys knows how to read one, you’ll be fine.”