Then she was across and she pulled herself up onto the bank, letting out a whoop of triumph. “Piece of cake!” she yelled out. “Who’s next?”

Todd looked soberly at Oscar and Gwen. “Let’s go across together. I’ll go first, and Oscar, you go last. Gwen, you stay in the middle.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Gwen said.

“Sure you can,” Todd replied reassuringly “And we’ll be on either side of you.”

“Are you sure the log can support all of us?” asked Oscar.

“I’m not sure,” Todd said. “But I’d rather take my chances than have Gwen try to cross on her own. But let’s hold on to each other, all right? And keep your center of gravity low.”

Todd and Gwen collapsed their poles and stuck them into their packs. Todd maneuvered through the branches and plunged in first. He grabbed the log with his left hand and held on to Gwen with his right as she gingerly stepped in after him. Then it was Oscar’s turn, and he gasped as he lowered his foot in the river. The water was fucking cold—like just-melted ice. “Jesus,” he said.

“Just ignore it if you can,” Todd instructed. Slowly, slowly, they crab-walked sideways into the river, each man with one hand on Gwen’s shoulder strap and one hand on the log. The rocks underfoot were slick and unstable. Oscar stepped onto one and it gave way beneath him; he grabbed the log with both hands in a panic. But he regained his balance and took hold of Gwen’s strap again. As the water crept up past their knees and then their thighs, Gwen made a noise between a groan and a yelp.

“It’s okay,” Todd shouted, “you’re doing great!”

But it wasn’t just the cold that bothered them now; it was the force of the water, the current pushing against them, as if the river had intention and purpose. Each time Oscar lifted a foot the current pulled it away; it took all of his strength and focus just to set it down again. The sound of the water was all around them, louder now, more insistent, as if the river was displeased with their presence. The bark was rough and sharp against his hand, but the tree held firm. Slowly, slowly, they made their way across. When they reached the other side, Tracy helped Todd out, then Gwen and Oscar. When he was clear of the water, Oscar scrambled up the bank and sat down. He had never been so glad to feel the ground beneath him.

Gwen collapsed beside him. “Thank you, God.”

“See, I told you we could make it,” Tracy said. “Piece of cake.”

No one answered—they all just sat and tried to catch their breath. Oscar’s pack was wet about halfway down; he didn’t want to think about how soaked his stuff must be.

“Hey, we need to dry off,” he said, beginning to shiver. “Think we can find some sun?”

They looked around. The canyon was already in shade, and the sun had moved past the upper wall.

“No luck till we get out of the woods and up on a ridge,” Tracy said. “But it would be good to change clothes, if you have anything dry.”

They dug through their packs with varying success. Gwen changed back into her clothes from yesterday. Todd put on his shorts from the day before but his shirts were all soaked; he wore his fleece on bare skin and draped a half-wet shirt over his pack to dry. Tracy undid the bottom half of her convertible pants and removed the wet legs, not seeming to mind the wet tail of her shirt. She was cheerful, visibly charged up that they’d made it across the river, and Oscar realized that it wasn’t that Tracy didn’t feel the privations of being in the wilderness; it was that she actually embraced them.

Oscar didn’t share this enthusiasm—especially once he’d examined his clothes and couldn’t find a single dry item. He had one pair of cargo shorts that was only half wet, but all of his tops were soaked. He changed into the cargo shorts and kept the same shirt on—at least the shoulders were dry.

“We should dry off pretty quick once we’re moving,” Tracy said.

“Does anyone need to rest for a bit?” Todd asked.

“Not here,” Gwen said. “I don’t ever want to see this river again.”

They collected their wet clothes and stuffed them into their packs. They reengaged their poles. Then they lifted their packs onto their shoulders, heavier now with all the wet clothes, and trudged back downstream, where the trail, or what they hoped was the trail, continued. They wound their way through a flat area of wood and started to climb again. Although they couldn’t see very far through the trees, Oscar thought from the way the sky opened up that the top of the ridge wasn’t far away. He was right. After half an hour of switchbacks, they’d reached the gap—and a clearing where the sun finally hit them. Far off in the distance, to the east, they saw a larger set of mountains—endless, imposing, majestic, their flanks draped with snow.

“Wow,” Oscar said. “You want to take a break?”

“Yes!” Todd said. “Let’s stop and dry off.” He stripped off his fleece and put his shirt back on.

“And eat,” Gwen added. “What a view!”

“All right,” agreed Tracy, but she sounded distracted. Oscar was about to get annoyed again—couldn’t she see they all needed to rest? But then he saw where she was looking and he understood why. Straight ahead of them, descending gently and parallel to the ridge, the trail continued on. But to the right there was another trail, which angled sharply down into a different canyon.

“We seem to be at a junction,” Todd remarked.

“There’s more than one trail out here?” Gwen asked. “Isn’t that kind of weird?”

“Not really,” Tracy said. “There’s probably some offshoots. Maybe one of these is actually a game trail. Or maybe it leads to a campsite.”

Oscar didn’t like to think about the second possibility—after two days of worrying that they were the only people out here, now he hoped that this was true. “Well, you have the map, right? Maybe that will tell us.”

“Maybe,” Tracy said. “Let’s take a look. And eat.”

They all sat heavily and removed their wet shoes and set them out to dry. Oscar was relieved for the break. He squeezed dollops of peanut butter onto a bagel and bit off huge chunks, and then wolfed down an apple. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

The others were silent, eating their own lunches. Tracy finished off her sandwich and pulled the maps and compass out of her pack. She lay the topo map out on the ground and ran her fingers over it, as if trying to feel the right way to go.

Todd leaned over her to look at it and made a disgusted sound. “That thing is useless. Lost Canyon isn’t even on there.”

“I know, but there’s some landscape features we can work with,” said Tracy. “This must be the river we just crossed. And maybe this is the ridge we’re on now.”

“I don’t know. And an inch on that is, what? Five miles?”

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s no real detail. Let me look at the other map.” She unfolded the photocopy of the hand-drawn map, the top left corner of which was now wet. She held it carefully with one hand, looked at it, and frowned.

“What?” Todd asked.

“What?” Oscar echoed, and now he got up and made his way behind her.

“It just gets a little blurry here,” she said. The line marking the trail had bled from the river water; the writing was now unreadable. Still, there clearly was the lake where they’d spent the night, a set of bumps that must have been the pass from this morning, and wavy lines that might have been the river. The trail continued up to the ridge where they’d stopped, and then veered right toward Lost Canyon. There was no sign—at least not as far as they could tell—of a trail straight ahead.

“It must be the trail going that way,” said Tracy, pointing right.

“I don’t know,” Todd said. “It looks like we should be heading here.” He tapped the paper to a point on the ridge.

“But the loop has us always bearing right,” Tracy countered. “What do you think, Oscar?”