It's 1965. No cell phones. No computers. Eleven-year-old Ken Reede, uprooted from a big house in San Francisco, moves with his family into a cabin on the crest of the Central Sierra. Mountains seem to close in on him and say We're in charge now. Before the move, his father and older brother had often backpacked, while Ken had been more interested in playing baseball and listening to pop music. Facing a new kind of life, Ken is determined to adjust. He finds a hiking buddy, Greg, a loner in Ken's school, located at the foot of the eastern pass. He meets Carolyn, a girl who suffers from leukemia, and promises to bring wildflower specimens for her to press in a book. He learns about nature through other new friends: Joe, the Italian cook at the Lodge; Old Domino, owner of a string of pack-horses; and a Basque, who with his dog herds sheep through Summit Valley. After two years of of overnight campouts, Ken and Greg plan their first, big backpack trip to remote Warren Lake. What they discover there leads them later into a life-threatening situation in which they must depend upon each other to survive. This book is dedicated to Winther's youngest son, David, who died in 2003. He loved to hike on Sierra trails, lived for a while in a cabin in Soda Springs, on the crest of the mountains, and had backpacked to Warren Lake. His brother, Mikael, drew the illustrations. The resulting book is a labor of love. Barbara Winther writes novels, historical non-fiction, plays, musicals and articles on travel and Native American art. She wrote her most recent book, The Time of the Kachinas, for children and adults. It looks at a ceremonial Kachina year through the eyes of two Hopi children. See the following website for a list of her publications: www.barbarawinther.com.