I looked across the beautiful, hateful meadow one more time, then looked around at the peaks around me. I picked one that had a big bare patch of granite. That treeless region would give me somewhere to look out across, and it was a visible destination that would be hard to miss. With a deep, shaky breath, I steeled myself for the hike, and started moving again.

Up, up, up. My legs started burning, and the headache started turning into a migraine. I had to rest as the air warmed, leaning against trees while I panted. Hiking always made my hands swell, and the pressure of my own blood in my mangled hand left me in agony, the wounds weeping. With shaking hands, I ended up using my webbing sling to tie my hand up against my chest, level with my collarbone, to abate the swelling. I could do nothing for the bone-deep bruises, or the sore spots forming on my heels from the walking.

I made it to the stone outcropping sometime not that long after noon, and spent a few minutes sitting dully in the shade, pressing up against the cold granite. My head throbbed and my tongue felt swollen and dry, and I hadn't had to pee in hours. I knew those were bad things, but it was hard to pay attention to them when I hurt so badly from my injuries. Finally, I dragged myself upright and made my way to the vista, walking myself along a ridge with my left hand on the stone to my side.

Even as hurt and frightened as I was, the backcountry of Yosemite was spectacular. The deep evergreen of the conifer forests spread out across the rocky landscape, unbroken by roads or power lines or the roofs of houses. Stark, pale granite showed naked in every direction, the forests spreading across the knobbed, humped backs of the mountains like a loose-knit shawl. A pair of ravens wheeled in the open air in front of me, dancing together through the blue sky. It was beautiful, my favorite place in the world, the sort of treasure that once you see it, you can't hardly look away.

Calm descended on me, looking at that landscape. I felt like someone in a disaster movie, or maybe one of those grim books about people dying while mountaineering. The world was huge and wild, still full of things no one had ever seen, a vast, uncaring, rugged place on which humans were merely visitors recently arrived. It didn't matter to Yosemite if I lived or died. Those heavy, sleeping granite mountains would remain the same, the deep green ribbons of forest would stretch their roots ever deeper, and the ravens would wheel and turn above it all.