It was almost two when I approached the site. A pair of cruisers now blocked the county road just below its junction with the Forest Service road. A National Guardsman directed traffic, sending some motorists up the mountain, ordering others back down. I produced ID, and the guardsman checked his clipboard.

'Yes, ma'am. You're on the list. Park on up at the holding area.'

He stepped aside, and I squeezed through a gap between the cruisers.

A holding area had been created from an overlook built to accommodate a fire tower and a smal field on the other side of the road. The cliff face had been stripped back to increase the size of the inside tract, and gravel had been spread as a precaution against rain. It was at this location that briefings would take place and relatives counseled until a family assistance center could be established.

Scores of people and vehicles filed both sides of the road. Red Cross trailers. Television vans with satelite dishes. SUVs. Pickups. A hazardous-materials truck. I Scores of people and vehicles filed both sides of the road. Red Cross trailers. Television vans with satelite dishes. SUVs. Pickups. A hazardous-materials truck. I squeezed my Mazda between a Dodge Durango and a Ford Bronco on the uphil side, grabbed my overnighter, and wove toward the blacktop.

Emerging opposite the overlook, I could see a colapsible school table at the base of the tower, outside one of the Red Cross trailers. A convention-sized coffeemaker gleamed in the sun. Family members huddled around it, hugging and leaning on one another, some crying, others stiffly silent. Many clutched Styrofoam cups, a few spoke into cel phones.

A priest circulated among the mourners, stroking shoulders and squeezing hands. I watched him bend to speak to an elderly woman. With his hunched posture, bald head, and hooked nose he resembled the carrion-eating birds I'd seen on the plains of East Africa, an unfair comparison.

I remembered another priest. Another death watch. That man's sympathetic hovering had extinguished any hope I'd sustained that my grandmother would recover. I recaled the agony of that vigil, and my heart went out to those gathering to claim their dead.

Reporters, cameramen, and soundmen jockeyed for position along the low stone wal bordering the overlook, each team seeking the choicest backdrop for its coverage. As with the 1999 Swissair crash in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, I was certain that scenic panoramas would feature prominently in every broadcast.

Shouldering my bag, I headed downhil. Another guardsman alowed me onto the logging trail, which had been converted overnight to a two-lane gravel road. An access route now led from the expanded trail into the crash site. Gravel crunched underfoot as I walked through the freshly cut tunnel of trees, the scent of pine tainted by the faint odor of early stage putrefaction.

Decontamination trailers and Porta-Johns lined barricades blocking access to the primary site, and an Incident Command Center had been set up inside the restricted area.