On his eighteen birthday, Wolf takes the tramway to the mountain over Palm Strings, wanting to kill himself. He dos not have anything worth living for, no friends, an awful family, the angst of being 18 and so lonely. He meets three women at the top, 12,000 feet above the California desert, who ask for guidance to the secret lake. Sure, Wolf knows where it is but he wants to be alone. As they won't let him, he reluctantly agrees to show them the way. A slip too low to go back to the proper track, and the four of them get lost. They will spend four days on the mountain, without proper clothing, food or water. As they try to find their way back to the normal world, tortured by thirst, their lives unravel and they tell each other their deepest secrets. Wolf discovers he wants to live, the women, actually three generations of the same family speak about what they've never told and they feel an amazing bond between all of them. Three of them will return to the world of abundance we know. One will die on the mountain.
Lori Lansens, with beautiful concise prose tells us the mountain story. For Wolf, it's a coming of age, for the women, it's a new link between them, the re-creation of a family love forgotten long ago. Through flashbacks and stories they tell each other, you get to know the characters intimately and share their feelings, their goals, their fears, their losses and their hopes.
A great book for any reader, not only for mountain fans.