Chapter 5 Thorn
Hours later, the voices have fallen silent behind me.
It’s my favorite part of the day: robin’s-egg blue skies fading to an endless expanse of lavender, the sounds of jays and chickadees and Western Tanagers settling in for the night amid the hum of insects.
Off in the distance, a bubbling stream carves through the rugged terrain. It’s nature as it’s meant to be.
But then Matteo’s yelling something from far behind me, his voice piercing through the calm dusk.
So much for serenity.
“What?” I call out. “What happened?”
“Can we hold up for a sec?” he shouts. “Hunter’s getting a photo!”
A photo? A photo? The way Matteo shouted made it sound like someone had passed out.
Sure enough, one of the coffee bros has stepped off the path (into some tall grass, which Matteo should have warned him to stay clear of) and is aiming his telephoto lens at the trees.
I rub a hand over my face. I get wanting to have photos of nature—there’s a lot of beauty out here, obviously—but photography gear can be heavy. Sadie’s not the only one who could’ve packed lighter.
“Good to go!” Hunter calls out a minute later, raising his camera as if to toast the occasion. “Thanks, y’all! There was this bird I just had to get a shot of!”
Suddenly I understand why the back of the pack has been so far behind us all afternoon.
There will be five hundred more birds, and if we stop for him to photograph every one of them, we will never stay on track.
It’s the same reason I take issue with people who are constantly on their phones: it slows everything down, not to mention it’s hazardous when they’re not paying attention to where they’re stepping.
Too many people watch the world through their camera lenses instead of letting themselves just be in the moment.
But I keep my thoughts to myself, and we press on.
I could travel this trail a thousand times and it would never look the same.
I have traveled it a thousand times. My dad took me all over the national parks as a kid, but this one was always his favorite.
Taking a job as a hiking guide was a natural fit when I eventually needed work—I know every bend in the trail, every river, every lake.
I know how the air shifts when a storm is brewing and how the landscape changes with the seasons; I could navigate Valerie Forest National Park without a compass while half asleep at this point.
Not only do I know these trails, though, I love them.
And I love helping other people fall in love with this place.
All of my very best memories happened out here—
Fishing lessons with my dad at Mackenzie Lake: I’ve always been the unluckiest fisherman on the planet, but that never seemed to bother him.
Stargazing with my dad: how he taught me to spot Orion and Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, and how it was our tradition to wish on shooting stars whenever either one of us had a birthday.
My dad and I getting caught in a rainstorm—my mom was there for that one, too.
Even before my parents divorced during my sophomore year of college, my mom rarely came hiking with us…
and my dad’s trail days are long behind him.
Now it’s up to me to keep our traditions alive, noting in my journal all the things I know my dad will appreciate, like subtle differences in the landscape and birds I spot along the way.
I haven’t told him this yet—haven’t told anyone, especially not Danica—but my days out here might also be numbered.
It was two months ago when a man named Sky Ranger (his real name; I checked) came on one of my hikes.
He owns a number of backpacking tour operations across the States—Virginia, Hawaii, Texas, Arizona—and was on a mission to hike every national park in the country.
He didn’t come looking for a new employee, but at the end of our two weeks together, he pulled me aside and told me how impressed he was with my outdoorsmanship and leadership instincts.
Said I could name my location—my price, too—and that I had a standing job offer to come work for him anytime.
Just think it over, he told me, tucking a business card in the palm of my hand.
Well, I’m still thinking it over. Figured he’d go home and forget about me like everyone else does when they get back to the real world. They always say they’ll keep in touch, but never do.
I assumed I’d never hear from him again. But then the email hit my inbox, today, just before we set off on this hike. Told my business partner about you, Sky wrote. Offer’s still on the table if you want it—let me know.
This was right on the heels of Danica’s effusive praise, a text she sent after our phone call thanking me for being the most reliable guide she’s ever had.
I’ve never left her in a bind due to being stranded on vacation.
I’ve definitely never ditched my responsibilities to relocate to Peru on a whim.
It would be so much easier to say yes to Sky if I didn’t love it so much out here, if I didn’t have deep personal ties to the land itself—and if I didn’t care so much about Danica and the tour company.
Our ratings recently took a hit due to some not-so-reliable (since fired) tour guides, which means Danica’s income has also taken a hit.
If I were to leave, it might be the company’s kiss of death.
If this trek goes off perfectly, though—if everyone leaves a good review—we’ll be well on our way back up to four stars or more.
But I’m trying not to worry about that. All I can do at the moment is my job. Stay focused, keep everyone safe, open their eyes to all the reasons I love this place—really help them have the experience of a lifetime—and save my own big decisions for later.
Our campsite is dusky blue when we finally arrive. The sun hasn’t set yet, but it might as well have—it’s hidden behind all the trees and rocks and craggy cliffs. Won’t be long before we break out the flashlights.
Matteo and I slip easily into our old roles as soon as we get to the clearing. He loves making fire—and he’s good at it—so I don’t argue when he takes campfire duty. For once, we’re not on a wildfire ban, thanks to some healthy rains over the last few months.
Which means I’m on tent duty.
I don’t usually mind tent duty. If someone were to say, Hey Thorn, I’ll give you ten million dollars if you can set up a tent in under a minute, I’d be swimming in cash (but probably still camping out in the woods, just with nicer gear).
Today, though? Tent duty is a headache.
We stopped earlier than I’d planned due to the waning light, so this clearing isn’t the one I had in mind—and it’s not quite big enough for the eleven of us.
We can fit seven tents easily, but everywhere else is too muddy or too rocky or too close to the stream.
We’ll have to consolidate to make it work.
Not helping my headache: Joshua and Zoe are back to punctuating their every conversation with a kiss, despite their tense afternoon. Did he seriously tell her we’d be glamping?
“The three of us can share,” Brittany offers, and her tennis teammates—Parker and Emma—agree. “We’re used to rooming together on the road.”
I don’t want to point out that they’ll practically be sleeping on top of each other tonight, since it’s the only configuration that makes sense without shifting one of them to a stranger’s tent (or putting Matteo and me together).
It’s more complicated with the coffee bros.
There are three of them, but we only have space for two more tents. Hunter is six foot five, the human equivalent of a giant sequoia. He needs his own tent, for obvious reasons. Trey and Silas aren’t exactly compact, though—they’re both over six feet, so sharing would be tight at best.
“It’s just for one night?” Silas asks.
Trey peeks inside, probably wondering how on earth they’re both going to fit.
I let out a long exhale. “Our next stop has a lot more space, yeah,” I say. “But we’ll have to make up some ground tomorrow in order to get there.”
“I don’t know, man,” Trey says. “I think I’d rather set up in the mud.”
“You might have issues with stabilizing the pegs,” I say as his face falls in disappointment. “But, uh, you could try it?”
He brightens and sets off into the muddier part of the clearing.
“It doesn’t go like that, Zoe,” Joshua says—right before their entire tent collapses in a heap.
I very much regret the fact that I told them to set up right next to me. Sadie will be on my other side, which should be mostly okay…unless she spends the whole night complaining like the last Instagram influencer who came out here.
“Wow,” I say, heading over to check out her progress. “This looks pretty good.”
Sadie beams, clearly proud of herself. “Did I do it right? I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials.”
I laugh. “Your preparation paid off.”
“Want the full tour?” she says, peeling back the flap.
“The full…Sadie, what on earth?”
I peek inside and it’s like she’s set up a miniature version of her own home.
There’s a small green book in the corner beside an LED touch lamp, along with a translucent bear canister holding lip gloss and hand sanitizer and bug spray and a small package of wet wipes—lavender-scented and eco-friendly, according to the label.
Her pale pink silk pajamas are folded neatly on top of a small pillow (complete with what appears to be a satin pillowcase), with a matching eye mask on top and some cashmere socks tucked underneath.
And there, in the far corner, is her makeshift coffee bar.
“You know you’ll just have to tear all of this down in the morning, right?” I’ve never seen such an elaborate setup.
She shrugs. “Guess I’ll have to become an expert at packing it all up again.”
“Your back hurting yet from carrying all of that?”
It has to be. First-timers usually have an adjustment period even if they pack light—and Sadie did not pack light.
“It won’t be after I sleep on this,” she says, proudly peeling back her sleeping bag to reveal the inflatable plastic cushion just underneath, barely thicker than a yoga mat.
“Hate to break it to you, princess, but that’s no luxury mattress.”
“Princess?” she exclaims, eyebrows shooting up, drawing glances from Brittany and Emma, who have joined Matteo over by the fire.
“Well, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound the same as it did in my head.”
She crosses her arms. “Which is how, exactly?”
“Like I was referencing The Princess and the Pea?” Heat creeps up my neck. “You’ll still feel every rock, they’ll just be a bit less jagged. That thing’s no cloud.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing I also brought this.”
She unzips her sleeping bag to reveal a rechargeable heating pad insert—not the worst idea, actually. In fact, it’s kind of brilliant.
“Do you also have the rest of an entire REI store hiding in your tent?”
I can’t help but give her a hard time about how much she’s brought.
“As they say,” she says, zipping her sleeping bag up and making the whole setup pristine again, “you can’t spell overprepared without the word prepared.”
I have to laugh. “Who says that?”
“You know. They.” She keeps a straight face, stubborn as all get-out to win whatever this conversation has turned into. “And no, for the record—I only packed half of an REI.”
We’re interrupted by a cheer from across the clearing: Joshua and Zoe have finally stopped making out long enough that their tent is upright and, from the looks of it, functional. She’s beaming as he lifts her high above his head, then spins her around like they’re dancing—
But they’re just a little too close to the tent, and her foot catches on the corner, and it all comes crashing down.