This is the story of Brandon, age 10, his sister Samantha, aged 3, and their parents who hike the 212-mile John Muir Trail in one summer. Told in Brandon's on-trail journal and narration that connects the journal entries, it takes the reader into storms and star-filled nights, through endless meadows and over towering High Sierra passes, from the lush Yosemite Valley tyo the peak of Mount Whitney. By the end of the book, not only have we followed the adventure itself, but we have gained an understanding about and affection for the different personalities and the relationships which bind them.