A half hour later, she was following the Italians down a winding rock stairway embedded into the narrow Sagarmatha valley. As she poled her way along, taking two steps ahead and one down, squirrels chattered in the lofty boughs while birds sang high overhead. If she didn’t know better, she’d say she was hiking one of the trails in Yosemite. It had been years since she’d been there, and the thought of it brought back a fond memory of the camping she had done with her parents on the banks of the Merced River. She had just graduated from high school that summer, and her gift from them was a vacation up in the mountains, tramping about on the trails.
She smiled as she plodded along behind the men. Frank set an easy pace and she was glad for it. The afternoon sun was heating things up and she
