IT HAPPENS BECAUSE SHE’S TIRED. She’s tired and the ground is slippery and her legs are sore and her new pack isn’t sitting right on her back and she’s trying to fake her way down this rocky ravine that kind of cuts the ridge in half.

Honestly, it would be terrifying even if you weren’t half-dead from exhaustion and fear and didn’t have crazy blisters on your feet. Dawn’s standing on top of this ledge, staring straight down at a little half-assed trail that kind of clings to the rock face, barely wide enough for both of her size 6 hiking boots, much less that big freaking pack. One side is solid rock. The other is a sheer drop, fifty feet if she’s lucky, punctuated by jagged shards of rock and stubby little trees that would probably impale you. Even Christian and Amber are taking it slow; Amber keeps looking back up the rocks at Dawn with a concerned look on her face, and shouting something about making sure to keep a good handhold and taking it slow and everything will be fine.

Easy for you to say, Dawn thinks. You do this shit for a living.

Anyway, Dawn’s clinging to the ledge and reaching for her next handhold and trying not to look down and trying not to think about falling—which only makes it worse, of course—and she’s doing okay until she gets to this little section where the trail literally ends and there’s just a gap in the rocks at her feet with a couple of handholds and then nothing but air and the long drop, and to get down to the next part of the trail she realizes she’s going to have to let go of the rocks and turn around to face backward and, like, step back off the ledge and reach down blindly with her feet until she finds somewhere to step.

And the trail’s only like six feet below her but then it’s just another ledge with another long drop below that, so if she loses her grip or slips or whatever she’ll probably bounce off the trail and keep falling until she lands, splat, at the bottom of the ravine.

Dawn’s kind of hyperventilating. She stops at the gap and holds on to the rocks and wishes she were anywhere but here.

(Jail, for example.)

(Or even high school.)

She wishes she could turn around and run back up to the top of the ridge and follow the cairns back across the ridge and down the other side to the Out of the Wild home base, where there’s a phone and vans and a road that leads somewhere where decisions like these won’t ever be a part of her life.