She took a moment to loosen her shoes and readjust her bunched socks, and then laced up again. They walked parallel to the top of the ridge, following a narrow ledge. As she got farther from the place where she’d come around the corner, she could see how much easier the terrain was on this side, how quickly A.J. could have caught up with them. In another few minutes, she found herself at the bottom of the cirque.

The bowl of snow looked more daunting from here. A football field–sized expanse of white, framed by the towering spires. But there was the top, within sight, and she knew, she felt, that this really was the eastern crest this time. All she had to do was get to the top. From there, she could walk to the Owens Valley.

She stepped onto the snow and it held her, the uneven surface bending her foot sideways. She took another step and the same thing happened. The snow was solid, frozen, like waves on a petrified ocean. And slippery, half-formed into ice. She used her hiking pole to stabilize herself and took one slow step at a time; Timber picked her way carefully, stepping into depressions, and moved more easily up the slope. Then Gwen put her foot down and broke through the crust, sinking in up to her knee. “Shit!” she said aloud, pulling her leg out and brushing snow from the top of her shoe. She got back on the surface again and walked tentatively, breaking through every ten or fifteen feet, getting progressively more tired, and colder.

The going was very slow, and she didn’t know what was worse, the crusty ankle-twisting surface or the plunging through. The tops of her feet were burning, and she realized she’d gotten spray on them when she’d loosened her shoes, so now, despite the snow, every time she took a step it felt like she was lifting her feet through fire. The bright glare of the snow was hurting her eyes, and here, at what must have been over twelve thousand feet, she was struggling to breathe. But she kept going. At one point she stopped and ate several handfuls of snow, then rubbed some on Timber’s face to wash off the blood. The dog tolerated this and bent down and bit off a frozen chunk, crunching on it loudly. Then she took off and charged up the slope, legs working wildly, tail waving like a flag to lead the way.

As they neared the top the slope steepened, and Gwen paused, looking around to consider her options. There were really only two. Head straight up, or traverse, and she chose to traverse, moving diagonally to the left, then the right. But when she looked down and saw how steep the slope was now; when she slipped and barely caught herself with the pole; when she saw that if she did fall, there was nothing to hold onto, nothing to keep her from skidding all the way past the end of the cirque and farther down the mountain, she decided it was better not to look. She remembered stories Tracy had told her of climbers on Shasta and Rainier, sliding all the way down sheer gullies like this to injury or death. That won’t happen to me, she decided.

She hiked straight up, kicking steps into the snow. Moving like this, with her pole to support her, she made slow but steady progress. Twice, three times a foot slid out beneath her, but she dug the pole in and caught herself. When they were within striking distance the dog ran ahead, all the way to the top. She stood there, looking east, striking a proud and happy pose, and Gwen knew that they had made it.

And then she was there herself. And a new world opened before her. A small plateau just below that held another teal lake. Beyond that, her eye traveled over gradually lessening ridges and peaks, back down into gullies and forests. She saw the great Owens Valley off in the distance, high brown desert, flat and unarable. She saw a range of red mountains behind it, stark and plain, as if mere shadows of the range on which she stood. She saw a tiny ribbon of highway bisecting the plain, light gray against the red-brown earth. And in the center of the valley, a cluster of buildings, metal roofs reflecting the sun. She stopped and dropped her pack and sat down heavily. A town, she thought, tears rising up. And people.

She stared at the reflecting lights, which flickered and wavered like a mirage. In the midday sun, a distant river gleamed. Once she was sure that this vision was real, she turned and looked back where she’d come from. Layer upon layer of mountains rose off to the west, with dozens of sharp peaks cut through by deep canyons, and marked with stubborn pockets of snow. Up here, at this pass, she stood above them all—there was nothing between her and the sky. She had crossed those mountains, she told herself. It didn’t seem possible, and yet it was true. Turning to look at the valley and town again, she felt herself at a border, a tipping point between wilderness and civilization. Were these worlds separate or related? she wondered. Could she carry one back to the other?

She rested just long enough to eat a bit of snow she’d put into her water bottle and to give another handful to the dog. She needed to keep moving. Tracy had told her that there were trails on this side, not more than a few miles apart. The descent looked easy here—not so steep, and she could zigzag through the scree. She started down, trying to be cautious, but looking up too, hoping to see a hiker or even a copter, anyone who could help her get out of here.

It took her twenty minutes to traverse down to the edge of the lake. Feathers of ice floated gently on the surface. Both she and the dog drank thirstily from the frigid water, and she refilled her bottles. They kept on. After another twenty minutes a few scraggly bushes appeared, then occasional windswept trees. She was tired, very tired, and it was hard to keep moving; all her energy and will had been focused on reaching the pass, and she’d somehow forgotten or put out of her mind that she still had miles to go. The sun seemed to penetrate the material of her clothes and she felt seared, dried out, and depleted. Tears filled her eyes. As she descended, the Owens Valley became less visible, disappeared from sight; it was obscured by sub-peaks and canyon walls. But she knew it was there, and that kept her going, even as she stumbled several times, too tired to watch where she was placing her feet. Each time she managed to catch herself—with the pole, or by grabbing a rock. Timber came over and touched her occasionally, providing encouragement.

They made it back down to the tree line and Gwen was glad for the cover; she stopped and drank half a bottle of water. She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t let herself fall asleep—she had to keep moving. And she couldn’t be distracted by the growling in her stomach, the hunger that was starting to eat her away from inside.

She hiked methodically through the forest, between tall shading pines and scattered rocks. She leaned more heavily on the pole now and reached out for trees to help keep her balance. A few more miles, she kept telling herself. A few more miles and I’ll be safe. She had never known she could do something like this, but now she was sure she would make it. And as she moved down the mountain, it occurred to her that she came from a long line of women who walked. She thought of her great-aunt Emmaline, who had trudged for hours each day through all kinds of weather in order to provide for her family. For the first time Gwen understood how exhausting this had been, how heavy the mail bag must have felt on her shoulder. She thought even further back, to Phillis, her grandmother’s grandmother, who’d braved the hilly forests of Tennessee and Kentucky on her long trek north to freedom. Now Gwen could feel the sharpness of the rocks under Phillis’s bare feet, the terror as she fled men pursuing with ropes and guns. Those women had pushed forward, despite exhaustion and discouragement and menace and fear, to reach the promise of safety. If they could press on, then she could too.